A Point of View on Radio 4 at 20.50 - What is a Woman?

My father was disappointed by my birth, too, as I was not of the sex he desired for his progeny. So my feminism sprouted from that seed (heh) and the things he said to me later, although I read all the feminist books I could get hold on from pre-teen years on and they certainly had some impact on my understanding. Later I tried to learn as much as I could about women's roles in other cultures.

So much work left to do, and we have to fight this current stupidity instead. But when even the UN is redefining women it is sadly necessary.

To go on - "What is a woman?" can mean "how can you define the class?", which is descriptive and value free, or it can mean "What does it mean to be a woman?" which is prescriptive, value laden and a matter of private belief.

I wonder how much of the argument currently going on results from the conflation of these two different meanings of the question?

I don't know if there's a name for the error, but in linguistics there's a distinction between a prescriptive approach, which tells you what you should say, and a descriptive approach, which accounts for what people actually do say. This distinction arises because people study language for different reasons. But it has resulted in a pointless argument amongst language teachers about which is "right", with some saying, effectively, that prescription "disempowers marginalised identities" while others, more pragmatically, point out that language teaching is largely a matter of telling learners what they should say to get things done in a foreign language. Particularly in the early stages.

The argument is pointless because there is no reason to conflate the two approaches. A descriptive approach does not entail prescription, except in the silly, silly navel gazing world of Critical Theory.

I think there are parallels here. A descriptive account of "woman" and "man" does not entail a "should". Isn't this the "is/ought" fallacy Hume talked about?

Btw, I am an Indian woman from Singapore. I am grateful for the suffragettes who won us our rights and I am very proud of Terf Island and Mumsnet for fighting back against this ghastly gender identity bollocks but I am often critical of western feminist theory, so bear with me.

The sleight of hand is conflating biological identity with biological "essentialism". The old feminist slogan 'biology is not destiny' was not a rallying cry for blokes to shoot themselves up with hormones and craft themselves faux vaginas. My feminism does not come from western theorists and it never did. It comes from my father's deep disappointment when I was born female, the way I was treated when my female body started to menstruate at age 12 and became a communal property on which the shame and honour of the tribe rested.

Mirax

Like because we chop off some dogs’ bollocks, we can no longer say this argument ain’t the dogs’ bollocks.

So very tired of the fallacious reasoning that we cannot define women by biological metrics because SOME women do not menstruate or reproduce, have had breasts or wombs removed, may have mutant x chromosomes and/or endocrinal abnormalities. The answer is that ONLY women are capable of having these set of markers (XX chromosomes, female gonads and reproductive processes. That's it. Biological sex isnt complicated for 99.98% of the population and even our stone age ancestors understood it well enough. Feminist and queer theory has disappeared up its own fundament and has brought us to this impasse. Harvard and Oxbridge degrees are absolutely not necessary to recognise such a basic sexual dimorphism. It is a gaslighting exercise and we should resolutely refuse to engage in it.

I just feel the worlds gone crackers.

It's always amazing to me to see pathetic little adults pretending they can't do what babies can do, what cats, dogs and even birds can do. Where is their fucking self respect and respect for women?

Waffle, waffle waffle. It’s an adult human female. Simple

There are as many ways to be a woman as there are women but it all starts with being born female

She set out to answer the question "what is a woman".

I thought she ended up trying to answer the question "what does it mean to be a woman" (as in, what is the consequence of being a woman), which is hard and nuanced and subject to varying opinion and we all acknowledge that.

Rather than what answering "how do we define woman", which is the currently controversial bit.

But yes, great to have it at least attempted to be discussed. And the whole thing with a point of view is it's one person's opinion and there's no counter argument and you end up shouting at the radio.

They can't conceive of the idea that gender boxes/essence/stereotypes aren't involved in our definition at all.

To be more accurate, they can't conceive of any definition of womanhood that doesn't involve gender boxes/essence/stereotypes.

Without it, I fear a relapse into arguing that women are defined by their biology
This is at the absolute core of where the conflict comes in.
This sentence only makes sense if you consider 'woman' to be a gender, compete with stereotypes, because then, yes, obviously you wouldn't want those of us with female bodies to be reduced to the sexist stereotype of womanhood.
And that's where the logical fallacy comes in.
If you're defining 'woman' as only a sex class, with no relation to gender stereotypes, then all that sentence is saying is "I fear arguing that female people are female people" which makes no sense.
Basically it boils down to this:
Us: 'Woman is the female sex'
They hear: 'Gender stereotypes are the female sex'
They can't conceive of the idea that gender boxes/essence/stereotypes aren't involved in our definition at all.

It's a shame that in the endeavour to work out what a woman is, Zoe never paused to consider and define what a transwoman is, perhaps if she put some more thought into that, it may help her decide that it's really not that complicated.

Thank god for Mumsnet. I can’t listen to any programmes or read any articles where logic is abandoned and analogies are no longer analogous. To challenge anyone saying a women is someone born with ovaries and a uterus with what if someone has them removed?!!! Seriously?! That’s like saying if birds have feathers what is a plucked chicken? Seriously?! Is this the argument against biological essentialism?!
Does anyone not remember ‘the exception that proves the rule’ in logic? Kathleen Stock writes about this. Why does programme after programme on gender/sex omit concepts that go to the point?

Thanks for the link OP

It is only ever those who are trying to convince you that women can have penises that find the definitions so challenging.

The convoluted logic in claiming that we will 'return to defining women by their biology' is similar to the reinterpretation of Simone de Beauvoir's single sentence about not being born a woman but becoming one. A subtly different interpretation of 'defined' and 'becomes' is being used. It is obvious if you read the rest of the de Beauvoir paragraph but I do not know where 'women are not defined by their biology comes from.

They can do one with their how many angels can dance on the head of a pin pondering.

‘No one ever seems to puzzle over what is a man.’

Very complicated, very nuanced question. We mustn’t reduce ‘being a man’ to any biologically essentialist group of traits. Like being a fucking man.