Beachcomber, I'm not getting the insistence that the oppression of women is solely based on their reproductive function and reproductive capacity. I accept that on Mumsnet, where the vast majority of members are mothers, that motherhood will form an intrinsic part of the identities of women here.
I fully accept that controlling reproductive function can be a means of controlling women (or at least fertile women, pregnant women and mothers,) is a tactic of patriarchal oppression.
However, there are women who have not and will never become pregnant or give birth. They may be infertile, perhaps not even have the organs so often cited as indicators of female sexual identity. They may have chosen not to reproduce for personal, economic, social or political reasons. They may have adopted, have step children or are involved in the lives of children without giving birth to their own. They may be celibate or in a same sex relationship. They may be ethically opposed to assisted conception.
In short, there are many, many women who could feel marginalised and excluded from a definition of woman or female that is predicated on reproductive function, whether or not that is the intention of using such a narrow definition.
If women's capacity to become pregnant and give birth is the sole reason for the oppression of women, then why would men rape children, or post-menopausal women, or women they know to be infertile, or trans people, or other men? Imho, in the case of sexual violence, this is perpetrated against trans people and men by ostensibly "straight" men because they see their victims as "not really men," or even as proxy women (e.g. in prison, in the military, in other male-dominated or men-only settings.) This violence is rooted in patriarchal oppression but nothing to do with the potential to impregnate those they rape.
Finally, in your Sat 26-May-12 22:15:20 post, you said,
I'm not a feminist because I'm afraid of losing something. I'm a feminist because I want to dismantle the social, economic and political structures that perpetuate misogyny, white supremacy, heterosexism and other forms of oppression in order to gain recognition of women (and other oppressed groups) as valued human beings within a new and equitable social order.