What Makes A Woman?

[MxJackMonroe]

Hi MNers,

A couple of days ago I did an informal webchat ...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/2693127-Im-Jack-Monroe-Ask-me-anything

...and it seemed to go quite well. One of the questions that came up was 'What Is A Woman'?

I'm throwing this one open to the floor - as I am interested to hear your opinions on it.

Please try to not railroad the thread with trans-bashing; it is a wider question than that, so keep responses respectful please.

Jx

And therefore of political significance, though not necessarily philosophical significance in terms of the question of what is 'woman'.

Deciding that there is a philosophical significance regarding what is a woman is a political decision. Why is this a philosophical issue?

Would it be possible to actually have this discussion in a way that the average person with the average degree of intelligence and knowledge can understand?

Is it really necessary at all to delve into terms like epistemology, social construct, philosophical etc at all? 'Biological facts' are a kind of 'social construct' anyway. There's not actually a need to even use the term, and it just ends up excluding people. I don't see why it was ever necessary in the first place to start labelling parts of the conversation as philosophical. We're not philosophers. We're ordinary women attempting to communicate with each other.

I hope what people are trying to do is communicate to other people what we think the word woman means to us and why we value that meaning. That should have something to do with actual, physical stuff in the world because we don't live in a novel.

It matters what the word means because particular physical things happen to members of the group called women - forced birthing, fgm etc and because so many women hate their own physical bodies.

I do not understand what this sentence means:

“If they want me to call them a women then I would because it has no basis in what a female is because this can be changed and it has happened probably since the human race began as way of telling who is man and woman for mating."

Do you mean the category woman is unrelated to the category female?

This is just for clarity. If that's what you mean, then obviously you're wrong. Woman has always meant adult human female. It still does, in spite of men's rights activists attempts to change it. Language evolves and words change their meanings, so there is a possibility that woman will no longer mean adult human female in a century or so; it may well include the category of people with XY chromosomes and penises who are randomly assigned 20% ish more salary than other humans; but if and when that happens, we will still need a word to describe the category of humans who are systematically disadvantaged and oppressed because of their XX chromosomes and matching genitalia.

quenched I have been struggling to understand your position

You appear to be saying that a women is anyone who looks like a woman, unless that person is biologically proven to be a man.

So we can do away with the first part. It doesn't matter what a person looks like, if you are saying that biology over rides whether a person appears to be a woman?

Unless you are saying that butch/gender non-conforming women are not women because they don't conform with societal expectations and stereotypes? Do you think gender non conforming women are not women?

I found this on my FB this morning:

Transwomen are better women than TERFS

And my first thought was that the transwomen they are talking about there, are those who behave like a two-dimensional parody of womanhood compliant with patriarchal ideas of what a woman should look like at this particular historical moment in time. If your definition of woman is "someone who wears make up and totters about in high heels and over-sexualises their behaviour and language and generally behaves like an inexperienced- teenage-boy-who-has-been-exposed-to-too-much-porn-and-doesn't-have sisters' ideas of what a woman should be,", then of course transwomen are doing it much better than actual women.

But I'm hoping that most transwomen do not hold that ridiculous idea of what a woman is and therefore don't troll around the place in that way. It's very telling that transactivists, however, are very loud in their "womanface" version of womanhood, when they're not claiming that big old hairy-handed truckers are just as much women as Kylie and should get to use the same loo. I wonder if the person who wrote this, thinks Danielle Muscato is a better woman than a TERF.

"And I'm also really interested in how these questions skirt around heteronormativity, because as soon as 'woman' is centred around reproductive categories, I worry that we can too easily lose sight of non-heterosexual ways of being women."

Being a lesbian wouldn't save a woman/girl from FGM, rape, possible need for an abortion, child marriage etc. Nor would a female who identified as a man be saved from them,

"as soon as 'woman' is centred around reproductive categories, I worry that we can too easily lose sight of non-heterosexual ways of being women."

Uh, the reproductive categories is the basis of our oppression and has nothing to do with whether you are heterosexual or not. Non heterosexual women are also oppressed on the basis of their reproductive capacity.

Adjusted what your arguing for is the concept of cis. You're victim blaming women for being obviously women in public.

If we all didn't draw so much damn attention to ourselves with our girlish names and garish makeup the men would give up and find someone new to pick on, right?

And your point about heteronormativity, leads me to think that you don't believe lesbians are oppressed as women ... or even that they're not women?

We haven't mentioned sexuality because it's irrelevant to whether someone is a woman, just like race, class, marital status, whether she has a driving license or not, whether she puts the bins out ... the only thing relevant is sex.

basil which of your friends shared that?!

I'm infertile and gay

I'm still a woman

Lesbians are now being told they're transphobic for not wanting to have sex with Transwomen with penises. It's cal,ed the "cotton ceiling" - the last equality barrier for TW to break through is sexual access to lesbians' bodies. Gross.

YES!

Sexuality and being a woman are two completely different things.

Who you fancy, or want to marry, has fuck all to do with your sex.

Yep - your sex and the sex of your partner dictates what your sexuality is called, not the other way round.

But I still think that 'woman' is a social construct rather than a biological fact.

Think whatever you like. Woman still means "adult human female".

An adult human female can look, behave, dress, in any whichever way and she would still be an adult human female aka woman.

It really isn't that hard.

Lesbians are oppressed because of their reproductive capability. Doubly so because they are "wasting" them by not fucking men

"g old hairy-handed truckers are just as much women as Kylie and should get to use the same loo. I wonder if the person who wrote this, thinks Danielle Muscato is a better woman than a TERF."

Proper women shouldn't have opinions that disagree with men. Hence terfs being so disgusting. Abject failures of women

Ok I'll play along with quench and wrench

So if we agree that 'woman' is now a social construct, and 'woman' is what society perceives to be woman.. Then which society do we live in that has defined woman. Would it be the patriarchal society?

Could you define 'patriarchal society' please?

I have more questions but they can wait.

I can't speak for everyone here but initially I was on the pro trans side, it was never about trans bashing or phobia. I simply believed (like most people) that trans meant transsexual and this was a small group of people who had a very difficult time and so despised their own body that they would never wave their penis about. I just had no idea about the transgender 'female' penis. And for the first time ever in my life I find my self on the "wrong" side. The bigoted side because I worry about myself and my daughter. And women should never be selfish. So unattractive

ITcould Danielle fascinates me. Not sure who they manage to be so vocally atheist yet somehow believe in a female essence. It's really odd.

Where has Jack gone?

I haven't read the entire thread (it's very long!) so forgive me if this has already been brought up.

I always thought that 'female' was to do with sex and chromosomes whereas 'woman'/'lady'/'girl' were to do with gender and identity. So a transwoman would identify as a woman but not as a female. But then that raises the question of what sex a transwoman would identify as.

IMO they wouldn't have to identify as any sex as how often are we asked to tick a box about our sex? It's almost always about gender. The only reason I can think we would need to identify our sex would be for medical purposes, in which case a doctor should be able to understand that you are a male-born transwoman.

So that brings it back to a PP's point of a woman being someone who identifies as such. I appreciate that there are complications with this (I.e. the actual definition of 'woman' if it is not just an adult female human), but what is the alternative? To simply deny transwomen the right to identify as women? That feels wrong to me.

Quencher.

You arguments do not make sense.

What am I, a female adult human, if not a woman.

Or are you saying that even though we have a word for female adult of every species on earth, you reckon there is no such defintion for human adult females.

Please tell me the word for human adult males? I assume one does not exist?

And if the word woman does not mean human adult female then how can using the term cis () in front of that make the term woman mean anything at all. So please define cis woman in a way that makes sense based on this new definition of woman.

Thanks

Swiss, that's how many, many of us started out. In fact, I for shame!! have posts arguing the other side if I look at old threads here.

I was talking to my dad about the IOC regulations the other day and he started on about how it's not fair etc, and I said umm, that's my point. He said, "oh, I would have thought you (great big leftie who has had many rows about immigration etc with daily mail reading father) would be on the other side"

I do not think you can claim to be a feminist while supporting the concept of gender.

Muffy, that would be fine, but can you define woman-gender without it being circular?