What makes a Woman a Woman? (Or a Man a Man)

[Hullygully]

Spin off from TAATAAT.

Beyond the focus of mtf trans and "born-women" only spaces.

Well this is it. If your sex is how you feel, then it is impossible to ascertain the sex of children until they are old enough to know how they feel.

If a woman is someone who feels like a woman, where does that leave women who don't feel like women, but just feel like people. What are they?

Is it only people who feel that they are one sex or another who can claim to be of that sex, with a group of people who don't feel that way as a third group?

And with society's idea of what a woman is, I don't feel like a woman a lot of the time either. But I am one and am treated as one all the time.

SardineQueen wrote - "If a woman is someone who feels like a woman, where does that leave women who don't feel like women, but just feel like people. What are they?"

Unfortunately, the Patriarchy cares only enough to define women as part of the huge group of people who are not "men who are happy being men". I suggest that it probably matters more to you and many other feminists and other oppressed groups, because we are in that "othered" group.

The Patriarchy has no interest in how a vague or unsatisfactory definition of woman impacts anyone who isn't in their dominant controlling group. Various groups can define themselves and other "non-man" groups any way they like, but that is of no concern to the people who call the shots. The Patriarchy doesn't care if being a woman is about chromosomes, genitals, breasts or if you like pink dresses or love shopping. It just doesn't care which individuals do that gender role as long as there is an oppressed class that they can oppress. Why would a Patriarchal society feel the need to bother about a watertight definition of something that it doesn't care about? Oppressed groups not having a vocabulary to express themselves is a victory for the Patriarchy.

But surely, Vesuvia, that argument doesn't take into account how men feel about FtM transgendered individuals?

hathorkicksass wrote - "Vesuvia, that argument doesn't take into account how men feel about FtM transgendered individuals?"

I'll refine

"the Patriarchy cares only enough to define women as part of the huge group of people who are not 'men who are happy being men'.

to

"the Patriarchy cares only enough to define women as part of the huge group of people who are not 'men who have never been long-term* unhappy about their birth sex'.

*I believe at least some transgender diagnoses use 6 months for that type of assessment.

I don't think the Patriarchy care much about FtM transgendered people.

What are the chances of a FtM transgendered person becoming President of the USA?

Not read the thread, but its your chromosomes i believe. Even if you are trans gender, your desires, feelings, needs come ultimately from your genetic make up, so whilst i say its genetic i dont just mean that its simply a case of gettin two XXs if that makes sense

But men who don't want FtM transgendered individuals in changing rooms and such like, they have every bit as much right to object as a woman who objects to a MtF in a changing room?

If we are talking about "The Patriarchy" there have always been groups who do not reap the full benefit.

eg men with disabilities, men who are black, men who are poor (but who still do better than women with disabilities, women who are black, women who are poor etc) and obviously looking at UK here.

I suspect "The Patriarchy" would put FTM trans in with the other less privileged groups of men.

It is all very hierarchical with rich able bodied white men and the top. It is not the case that all men do better than all women in all things.

However there are some things which cut across all barriers which are mainly to do with the fact that men are generally bigger and stronger than women and children.

What are the chances of a black man becoming President of the USA? - not so long ago, that would have had the same chances.

Dont have time to read this now, will later - my argument to DP whenever he describes a transgender in their origina sex (annoying) is that to me, someone is whatever sex they WANT to be, so if its a pre-op transexual i woud refer to him/her as whatever they portray themselves as

hathor the potential consequences for a MTF trans being somewhere that women don't really want them are quite different to the potential consequences for a FTM trans being in a male space that men don't really want them in.

Most violent crime is committed by men. When men don't like something they quite often comment with their fists while women are more likely to express displeasure with words.

I have not heard of any lobbies of FTM to get into male spaces - have there been any - what was the outcome. Do FTM people feel safe in "male" spaces. Given that trans are at higher risk of violence than other people to start with.

I don't know. It would be interesting to find out how that all works.

How is it different?

A male who had been subjected to a sexual assault by a woman would feel the same as a woman who had been attacked by a man surely?

I have always loved those feminist sci-fi novels where sex is questionable and mutable - Women of the Edge of Time and one of the Le Guin short stories where people are more or less 'sexless' until a specific phase of their lives where they mate and can do so as either sex. If our sex is going to land us with a load of rules and assumptions I'd rather just be 'person' than 'female' or 'males'.

Orm have you read any Iain M Banks "culture" series? The humanoid people can change sex naturally - they sort of think it and then gradually it happens. Soem choose to remain in an in-between state. It's very interesting.

I don't see how we can start being relaxed about and getting rid of the concepts of gender ( and sex?) when we live in a world which is so terribly heavily gendered and most people are very definite about there being 2 sexes etc.

Yes, of course! I had forgotten those.

What I mean is, how you you ignore the fact there are men and women, while things are still unequal between men and women?

How does that even begin to work?

If sex is taken out of the equation and everyone is just people, it won't suddenly mean that women aren't the ones getting pregnant and everything to do with that, and that women aren't allowed to drive in Saudi and all the rest of it. SWIM?

I would love to live in a world where we were all just people

But we're a trillion miles from that.

I would also love to live in a world where we are all just people. But I agree we are a million miles away from that.

We are, but we can have it as an aim.

I think as feminists we all argue and fight against women and men being forced into specific roles. Although sardine is right, we will always have physical differences in terms of ability to have children and that does mean that even without patriarchy, there would be some differences between the sexes.

Although without patriarchy any differences could be significantly less than at present.

They used to be. All that hunter gatherer stuff wasn't true. There was a bit of hunting (not just be men), and an awful lot of gathering (by all).

Do not ask me for sources as I only stored the interesting fact not the provenance.

I blame the plough share for our present evils.

I find this kind of discussion a bit strange. Some of you are saying you're not women; you are people. Well define a person or a human being in the same way that people are attempting to define woman. What makes a human a human and a bird a bird. Well a human has two arms and a bird doesn't. So am I now prejudiced? Am I saying that a child born with two arms is a bird? It just gets ridiculous.

We know, when a child is born, almost always, if it is male or female by looking at their genitalia. In the few cases where it is unclear, experts try work it out by gathering further information that would not be obvious at first sight. Is anybody really suggesting that mothers don't know, most of the time, what sex their baby is, and are waiting for the child to be able to speak so they can express an opinion on the matter?

Now, it may be imperfect. There are many differences between males and females, particularly in the face. But sometimes there are women who have a male type tilted forehead, but then they might have other female features. It is an overall combination of outward features, so no, somebody who has a hysterectomy is still a woman because they have lots of other female features. You can't base it on one physical feature alone. There is no perfect way of doing it, but there are a wide range of different features, that when combined together make men and women different.

Pointing out the imperfections in defining women by biological sex isn't in itself a justification for saying we should define it based on people's gender. You need to show that the characteristics of gender identity are more reliable than the biological characteristics.

But nobody is prepared to do that. I can't come along and critique the idea that gender identity makes women rather than biological sex because nobody will say what the characteristics are. I can't say that your concept is wrong because I am a woman and I don't feel X,Y and Z. You may as well be saying what makes a woman is if they feel warmly towards snorles or not. And then refuse to tell anybody what a snorle is. It is an absurd argument.

If you cannot define what gender identity is, then I cannot say if I am a woman or a man, or if my children are male or female, because you are arguing for imposing on everyone group identities that have no defining characteristics whatsoever. What is even the point of it? If gender has nothing to do with biological sex, you may as well say that you are going to set up segregated prisons, segregated changing rooms and segregated wards based on everyone individually deciding if they are in Hufflepuff or Gryffindor.

eh?

I read that as well Hullygully. What I meant was that giving birth, breast feeding, periods are intrinsically female experiences and this difference can never be the same between the sexes. But for most of our life the socialisation of how men and women are expected to behave and feel is I think a much bigger difference.