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Original poster

Defining a woman by her sex is not reducing her to her biology

86 replies

MagnificentDelurker · 04/02/2018 22:26

Hi mumsnet
Long term lurker here. First started reading mumsnet for education boards and then got addicted. I always avoided feminist boards. The reasons need another thread. Then I came across trans threads and I clicked on them as I did not have strong views on trans rights and it seemed a safe topic to explore feminist chats. I was off course supportive of said rights in an inactive let live way. IN fact I had to avoid these threads as well because I found the anti trans opinions too strong. But a seed of discomfort stayed with me and I braved the boards every once in a while and then I got hooked. I joked to my DP that I am being radicalised.

I finally registered today to comment because of the thread telling women here that defining a woman by biology is reductionist. This phrase really gets to me. Biology is the only way to define women that can accommodate all women regardless of personality or particular experience. This is the starting point of telling women that they can be anything. The other option is defining by degree of femininity or just expanding the term. So unless we make the term woman meaningless we are reducing women to feminist. I can understand many people meaning this when they say transwomen are women. But experting feminists to do so is beyond pale.

I have nothing new to add as everything I have said has been said thousands of times but needed to rant.

OP posts:
Original poster
MagnificentDelurker · 04/02/2018 23:08

Outy

Thanks for your post, I would not deny your experience. I cannot comment on what happens if you wake up in a male body. I know I have changed as my body has changed. I cannot separate myself from my body and while I have always loved my womanhood, feminity was forced on me.

OP posts:
HerFemaleness · 04/02/2018 23:05

Op, I like the way you phrased that. “Biology is the only way to define women that can accommodate all women regardless of personality or particular experience”.

Like another poster, I could have done with this quote for an earlier discussion.

busyboysmum · 04/02/2018 23:03

But surely that's the point Outy. Because of your biology there is no possibility that you could wake up tomorrow with a massive penis. Because you are a woman.

OutyMcOutface · 04/02/2018 22:59

Honestly, I do find the suggestion that I am a woman just because I have XX chromosomes a bit insulting and reductionist. My body has informed my femininity to an extent and it has by far been the greatest factor in determining my experience of life (I'm a SAHM from a young age). But I don't think that my body is what makes me a woman. I could walker up tomorrow morning with a massive penis but I am and forever will be a woman and it's not because of my body. Having a male body wouldn't threaten my femininity. I simply cannot remove my womanhood from myself. I understand that that is largely because my female body facilitated the development of my womanhood but it is no longer really an element of it or of me (it has changed so much in recent years that it almost doesn't feel mine anymore). My body feels cumbersome when it once felt soft. It feels awkward when it once felt like beauty divine. It feels spent and ugly. It doesn't feel particularly feminine but I do. I'm a woman because I am femininity incarnate not because I've got tits.

Original poster
MagnificentDelurker · 04/02/2018 22:58

Birds, will do better next timeGrin

OP posts:
Original poster
MagnificentDelurker · 04/02/2018 22:55

And thanks for listening. Topics are getting repeated ad nuaseum and this is one of them. Just needed a rant Smile

OP posts:
birdsdestiny · 04/02/2018 22:55

Op you needed to delurk about an hour earlier, I really needed your explanation in an arguement on another thread. Useless you are Grin but thanks.

Original poster
MagnificentDelurker · 04/02/2018 22:53

Barrack

Completely agree. The patronising tone of why are you reducing women to vagina really gets me.

OP posts:
Melamin · 04/02/2018 22:50

There is nothing wrong with one's biology. It does not reduce anyone.

Original poster
MagnificentDelurker · 04/02/2018 22:50

Just read my post I meant reducing women to feminity and not feminist, damn autocorrect

OP posts:
BarrackerBarmer · 04/02/2018 22:45

It's really simple. People with XX chromosomes and vaginas and ovaries etc are distinguishable from the other people, with testicles and penises and XY chromosomes. And because our anatomy and reproductive physiology are different, our bodies do different things. Most notably, every human that has ever existed has been grown in the body of the former, and never, not even once, in the billions of humans who have ever existed, in the body of the latter.
Further, it's bloody easy to tell us apart. And the latter group has pretty much always, in every society, and every culture, oppressed the former, and treated them as property.

So, to recap, we are physically different, we are instantly recognisable, and universally oppressed.

There needs to be a name for these two groups so that people can communicate about them. There's no point any daft beggar getting het up about the idea that a fundamentally different and oppressed group should have a word that refers to all the blurb above about them. The group patently exists, and we patently need to talk about it. Every argument to the contrary is plain daft headed at best. And woman-hating at worst.

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