Young women don't know what a woman is

Some people do have a quite touchingly innocent belied that if we give up woman they will let us keep female.

In reality the only thing they will give us is "cis", and most of us don't want it.

Give up on the definition of woman and female, she, her, girl, mother, daughter, niece, are all given up to men.

I do think there are some young women who believe there is no real difference. Weird, hard to imagine, but it seems to be what I see.

There is a bit in a C.S. Lewis book or essay (I think - I may be misremembering) where he talks about younger people being used to holding together bits of contradictory "truth" and not really expecting them to fit together - he puts this down to education, and I think he's right.

You're in Canada, right? Never went to school there but I was briefly in an American school age 8 and remember them having a book club for us, it was through one of those order a few to start with and they'll send you more monthly old school book clubs that you used to see ads for in magazines, so reading for pleasure was actively encouraged and the school was helping to facilitate it for the kids.

I think there is a lot that comes down to the teachers you happen to get. Some are great. American schools seem very variable - some are quite good and some terrible. I think here in Canada it is a little more even but still not great. Many people in education now seem to think of literature as not important or not real - it's all about STEM.

It's also that the teachers once you get to middle school are hampered by poor reading skills from primary school, so it's difficult to have the kids all reading the same book, or even similar levels of books. Or reading a lot - some are very slow. This comes down to the way they teach reading, there are many kids around 9 or 10, especially boys, who suddenly fall behind because they haven't really the skills and have been faking it. A lot of the kids I see have been memorising words and depend on pictures and such, but can't cope once they are expected to read in greater amounts or words they don't know or without visual clues. They also don't teach the mechanics of writing much now which impacts reading a lot, but no one seems to want to admit it.

A teacher who is really good can make a huge difference but some kids don't ever meet one.

Humans are mammals. Female mammals are not the ones that produce sperm.

Women are adult human females. Adult human females are women.
Men are adult human males. Adult human males are men.

This is all.

Humans are mammals. Female mammals are not the ones that produce sperm.

The definition of transgender female is of or denoting the sex who can bear offspring and whose gender identity correlates to society's idea of masculinity.

How can female be of or denoting the sex who produce sperm???

It's insane.

So the assertion is that "trans women are women" and also female?

This was also the desired outcome by Scottish Trans Alliance from a Scottish Bill in 2017/18.

Fairplay for Women
'Like a thief in the night: The Scottish bill that stole the word woman'
(extract)
Last year while we were all looking the other way and distracted by the UK government’s proposals to reform the Gender Recognition Act the word woman was stolen from us. It was sneakily done by the Scottish parliament and hidden behind a smoke screen. That smoke screen was The Gender Representation on Public Boards Bill.

The Bill introduced the ‘gender representation objective’ – a target that women should make up 50% of non-executive board membership.
The purpose of this bill was admirable. It was to help women overcome the institutional sexism we suffer due to our sex. Positive action to redress the imbalances that have arisen from centuries of historical disadvantage. It was to acknowledge the reality that institutionalised inequality and sexist attitudes stop most women from reaching their full potential in public life. Financial barriers, income inequality, the gender pay gap, sexist attitudes, gender stereotyping, women’s disproportionate share of caring responsibilities, the undervaluing of women’s paid work, and media portrayals of women, to name but a few influences, all play a role in the sexism that prevents a fair number of women being involved in public life.

But in a cruel twist of irony it was also to be the perfect trojan horse to steal the very meaning of the words woman and female from us.
It all started early last year. The Scottish Government consulted on the draft bill between 5 January 2017 and 13 March 2017. Quietly and without fanfare. Non existent media coverage. No one was that bothered. Only 101 responses to the consultation, 66 from groups or organisation and 35 from individuals. Compare this to the >15000 responses received for the Scottish consultation for reform of the Gender Recognition Act this year. This one slipped by unnoticed." (continues)
fairplayforwomen.com/scottish_stole_woman/

Better ‘female’ than ‘woman’ though...

Referring to these individuals as “transgender females” is consistent with science

This isn't true. Scientifically speaking the term "transgender females" would describe the group of people generally referred to as transmen.

In the US court case concerning the right of some male athletes to compete in women's sport, the judge has prohibited the young women Selina Soule, Alana Smith and Chelsea Mitchell's legal team from describing the athletes as male.

District Judge Robert Chatigny "What I’m saying is you must refer to them as “transgender females” rather than as “males.” Again, that’s the more accurate terminology, and I think that it fully protects your client’s legitimate interests. Referring to these individuals as “transgender females” is consistent with science, common practice and perhaps human decency. To refer to them as “males,” period, is not accurate, certainly not as accurate, and I think it’s needlessly provocative. I don’t think that you surrender any legitimate interest or position if you refer to them as transgender females. That is what the case is about. This isn’t a case involving males who have decided that they want to run in girls’ events. This is a case about girls who say that transgender girls should not be allowed to run in girls’ events. So going forward, we will not refer to the proposed intervenors as “males”; understood?"

The judge frames accurate description of sex as bullying which risks civility & 'public decency':

"So if you feel strongly that you and your clients have a right to refer to these individuals as “males” and that you therefore do not want to comply with my order, then that’s unfortunate. But I’ll give you some time to think about it and you can let me know if it’s a problem. If it is, gosh, maybe we’ll need to do something. I don’t want to bully you, but at the same time, I don’t want you to be bullying anybody else. Maybe you might need to take an application to the Court of Appeals. I don’t know. But I certainly don’t want to put civility at risk in this case."

www.nationalreview.com/news/attorneys-for-connecticut-high-school-runners-ask-judge-to-recuse-after-he-forbids-them-from-describing-trans-athletes-as-male/

current thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3906232-Attorneys-for-girls-in-US-sports-case-must-refer-to-males-as-transgender-females

I think the question might well be the issue. Being GC, I would choose the first option but would feel a bit uncomfortable because I do count women with CAIS as women albeit that they are genetically male. I couldn't describe them as men.

Exactly - why ‘be kind’ to those who are being exactly the opposite? It actually meant ‘be a doormat’.

Great PR through - make people do what you want by making it seem like they are being hideously horrible and absolutely unreasonable if they don’t.

Which is why "be kind" is so dangerous in this context - being kind to transwomen means being deeply unkind to women and girls.

They're trying to square the circle of "but if I say they can't be called women that will upset them" and "but I don't want anyone with a penis in spaces where I'm naked and vulnerable" while not realizing that conceding on the first makes it close to impossible to achieve the second. They're playing along because they think it doesn't matter and won't have any real consequences.

but I struggle to look at them in the same way knowing that some I've spoken to probably didn't even know how I'm different from them.

Do you believe for a second that those young women who you recognise as intelligent really think that you could be one of them? If so, you are more foolish than they are.

Women will tick that box either because they don't understand the consequences yet or because they dare not speak the truth because they know it involves either deletions online, abusive language, social outcasting, a disciplinary at work or a visit from the police.

Still wrong, but a much more reasonable response when you factor that lot in.

I think it could be partly down to the question. It presented two extremes - XX chromosomes only, vs female identity only.

Your wellmeaning young woman who has heard about DSDs with different chromosomes, and also knows at least one female friend who defines themself as a trans man or non binary, thinks the first answer can’t be right.

So they pick the other one, without considering that it’s even more of an extreme.

Everyone knows what an adult human female is, it's just that some young women have been won over by the pomo arguments about words not really mattering and therefore if it makes some people feel better to pretend that woman means something other than adult human female we should just do that. They haven't yet made the connection that allowing words to be manipulated in that way has a goal, and that goal is the removal of the boundaries that allow us to create single sex spaces, say that lesbians don't want to engage sexually with cocks, etc. They don't realize that agreeing to use woman to mean "and some males also" has as a consequence not then being able to say "but some people in the group we're now calling women can't be in the changing room at the swimming pool".

Half the age not twice the age!

They do know though. They are just having to pretend.

As a man attempting to educate myself on feminism I've found mumsnet both scary and enlightening in equal parts. With young women leading in education and pay you would have expected them to be less naive than several decades ago or at least no more so. It is absolutely crazy to think that women in their 20s in our modern society don't know the difference between a man and a woman and that some even think virgins can have babies and people can just magicly change sex by the power of thought. The female students I speak with seem so much more switched on and adult than either gender were growing up in my generation, but I struggle to look at them in the same way knowing that some I've spoken to probably didn't even know how I'm different from them.

My 12yo nephew no longer believes in the stork and knows how babies are made and that men have willies etc. I think twelve is quite late to understand this but he's twice the age of some of these women who think men and women are the same!

It’s not new that women will believe things that completely contradict their lived experience and knowledge about their bodies. I was brought up to believe that a virgin could become pregnant and give birth. Millions of women all over the world still believe this.

It took a religious education to teach me that people will believe almost anything if they want to.

This is something I think about a lot. I work in a primary school in a literacy program, and I'm continually noticing how little the children who come to us read. Not only at home which might be expected with many kids with reading problems, but in the elementary school. Most of the reading they do is paragraphs and little stories meant to test comprehension, it's not good literature. Even when the teachers read a story, the choices seem to be low quality and have very little content. My supervisor who has been in the job for years says it's always a real problem when they are asking the children to contribute their thoughts and experiences - they seem to have so few frames of reference.

It doesn't seem much better with the older children, my daughter in grade 7 had one novel in English for the year, which the teacher read out loud to them. In grade 8 they read two books.

You're in Canada, right? Never went to school there but I was briefly in an American school age 8 and remember them having a book club for us, it was through one of those order a few to start with and they'll send you more monthly old school book clubs that you used to see ads for in magazines, so reading for pleasure was actively encouraged and the school was helping to facilitate it for the kids. There was also a small library that we could go hang out in whenever we weren't in lessons with age appropriate books, and of course when we got to secondary school we were required to read at least one book per term in English lessons and then talk through it during lessons. It's really sad if schools aren't doing that any more, and is obviously going to have a cumulative impact on kids as they grow up.

GCSE English destroyed her love of books

Off-topic, but me too! Studying books instead of reading them for pleasure turned it into a chore. I also hated Shakespeare until I saw it at the RSC for the first time, Shakespeare should be performed and watched, not read.

Fiction is one area that is not at all "contaminated" by gender ideology. Readers still want to know whether characters are male or female, and there is no push to change that. A quick search on Amazom shows that there is no market whatsoever for transgender literature.
Thank goodness.

It's noteworthy that in every other area of life, we try to find words that are more precise in describing things, not less. Think of how many words there are for the colour white when repainting your home!

My own stock in trade are words, and precision is what makes communication clear. The more precise, the better. The thesaurus is my best friend. Yet now we are expected to not see any difference? Not name them?

Why would anyone think that removing the names for the biological distinction between males and females is a good thing, a progressive development? A distinction so essential to the very continuation of the human species?

I do think the recent education system is a big part of the problem. For the last 10-15 years at least the focus has been on league tables and results leading to an almost learning by rote system. This has discouraged critical thinking and research and instead has just made a generation of young people reliant on being told what's true or not.

My dc were exceptionally good readers, but really weren't encouraged at primary school. It was more a case of dumbing down to make sure nobody got ahead of anyone else.
My late son continued reading all his life and was a great writer and thinker. He would have been in his 30s now.
My youngest is 22 and in spite of being an enthusiastic reader up till GCSE, she now lacks the time and enthusiasm. She said GCSE English destroyed her love of books.
I can't discuss the current identity ideology with her because she wants to be kind. I skirt around it by mentioning domstic violence, child protection etc and hoping the penny will drop.