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

No, quencher, no.

Trans women who don't pass don't receive the same abuse that women do. They receive abuse for being perceived as non gender conforming men.

And butch women are still women.

And I am lost in your posts. I can't quite fathom what you're driving at at all, because words seem to mean only what you mean them to mean, and it makes it impossible to follow your line of argument.

I think that this thread has become massively derailed.

I suspect what Jack was looking for were posts like Toptoes where she explained the way people have treated her as a girl and woman and how that made her feel about herself and her body.

Jack, I say that a woman is an adult human female, I'm trying to tell you that as a feminist. Because of the kind of body women have, they are treated as other, as something outside of the norm. I'm saying that I recognise women are treated that way because they have a female body, and I do not see women that way.

Having breasts says nothing about me. They're not an invitation to see me as feminine, or a sexual object, or a mummy. They are just a completely normal body part that half of all human beings have. I just see other women as human beings who happen to have particular physical characteristics. My breasts and uterus are not sending out a secret message to the world about who I am, what I want or how anyone should treat me. They are just a completely normal, ordinary part of being a human being for half of the world. And sexism says that the male body is the normal human body and the female body is an inconvenient, sexually distracting, dysfunctional mess that needs to be changed and tamed and controlled. And I say no to that.

I'm not engaging with you quencher as I really don't get what you are saying.
Great post almond. I hope Jack is still here.

Hear Hear! to Almond

"My breasts and uterus are not sending out a secret message to the world about who I am, what I want or how anyone should treat me. They are just a completely normal, ordinary part of being a human being for half of the world. And sexism says that the male body is the normal human body and the female body is an inconvenient, sexually distracting, dysfunctional mess that needs to be changed and tamed and controlled. And I say no to that."

Yyy!!!

Excellent post Almond

Quencher I'm afraid I don't understand your argument either. I don't know what point(s) you are trying to make

quencher wtf mate

Quencher have you read the thread? Because from what I can decipher from your posts you seem to be saying the same thing and not really reacting to new information.

A woman is an adult human female. It is a biological term.

Gender is the social construct. Gender refers to masculinity and femininity. Certain behaviours and charcteristics have been appointed feminine and others as masculine. It is assumed that men will have more of the masculine characteristics naturally and at the same time men are socialised to have more masculine characteristics and less feminine. It is assumed that women will have more of the feminine characteristics naturally and at the same time women are socialised to have more feminine characteristics and less masculine. In general, masculine characteristics are deemed to be superior to feminine. This is all gender.

If a man (adult human male, biological) has more of the characteristics society calls feminine or a woman has more of the characteristics society calls masculine, and whether this is due to nature or nurture, does not alter their biological sex category. In fact it has no relevance whatsoever.

I have lost interest in this conversation. If I show you what appears to be a crayon but turns out to be a novelty pen for adults.. It is still not a fucking crayon. And 99% of people would think this is ridiculous to even discuss. I

Everyone you meet knows woman means adult female, so that means it's the definition. That's how words work

Also this is now terf territory, which I hope you're comfortable with as you're saying how you are perceived as opposed to how you identify is gender

butch women are not women who want to be men. Do you understand how offensive that is? I was in a hurry for nursery school run and typed the wrong name. What I was referring to was the question of women who decide to change gender to become men.

If anyone was to argue for trans, my previous post actually supports that. How we defined man or woman but not male or female because there is a difference. That does not take away vaginas from the female sex nor does it take penises from men.
And the who website supports that. Maybe it's how are am reading it that makes the different because they state what they are.
I have separated biology from social construct which almond also pointed out above.
The whole point of changing what people believe is either a man or woman's thing is to fight sexism.
Wearing makeup should just be wearing make up without intent. With sexism, it's looked at differently. You fight to change people's way of thinking for the betterment of female sex.

Anyway, am out of this thread.

Good summary Almond. That's how I see it too.

Quencher, you yourself cut and pasted the definition from WHO that woman is defined by sex.

You have spent half this thread arguing the exact opposite.

Nobody on this thread is arguing that sex and gender are the same thing. Who do you think you are pointing this out to?

If woman is purely a social construct, why is it that 99.5% of women are also female? Why haven't women who are unhappy with gender stereotyping "women" simply opted into "man"?

I'd give a different answer than Quencher.

Because social constructs are neither imaginary nor optional.
They are real, they are powerful, and they can be very damaging.

quencher, you have separated biology from social construct, fine.

You agree that there is such a thing as an adult human of the class with such characteristics as XX, ovaries etc (though not all may be present in each individual etc).

You agree that there is something else which is a social construct which is often associated with the adult human of said class.

If that's all true, then are we just arguing over labels and not actual meanings? You aren't giving a specific label to the first thing (adult human female), whereas everyone else is calling that 'woman'. You are using the label 'woman' for the second thing, which everyone else is calling 'feminine'.

Or have I missed something? Is there something in your definition of what it means to be 'woman' that is missing from everyone else's definition of what it means to be 'feminine'?

I have to say, I have tried to define what makes me a woman and struggled.
Yes there is the physical side, XX chromosomes etc.
Then there is how I've been brought up (being told I'm a girl or a boy)
And then what society expects me to do /be as a woman.

The only way I can understand 'feeling like a woman' is saying that you feel most at ease filling the role of a woman as defined by society.
Which as such doesn't require changing your body at all. Or shouldn't.

The following issue of course is to then want to be seen/recognised as wanting to fulfil that role. Because we have a system that is binary (either or) and we use physical appearance to make a judgement call whether once is a man or a woman, then it makes sense to want to change your appearance and to want to have access to women or men spaces (because they are the epitome of being recognised as part of the 'men or women group).

Where there is an issue is when let's say a woman wants to be part of the men group and be treated as such but at the same time wants to keep some privileges associated with her 'natural' sex (or biological whatever works best) such as getting pregnant. Same with men who want to be recognised as women but want to keep erections and the ability to gather a child

Going further there is an issue with the fact I e has been brought up a girl/boy necause this will have a huge effect on the behaviour of the person (albeit in an unconscious way) and this behaviour will have been defined by whether parents have raised a boy or a girl. Psychologist/psychotherapists would all agree on the importance of your upbringing. And how hard it is to change any of those subconscious ideas/ways of being.
So the question is, is it even possible for a man to 'learn' to behave as a woman so that they can act according the society definition of how a woman should act?

I'm sure Jack is very busy and I wouldn't like her to think that we needed her to start this thread or indeed post on it.... But I'd be very interested to know whether she has an opinion yet that she is willing to share about what she thinks a woman is.

agree totally with almond. Not quite sure what Jacks intention was with this thread in the first place, and am using loads of restraint not to be rude as sadly Jacks identity is openly known.....unlike the rest of us posters. So thank you almond for verbalising my view also.

I have a feeling that quencher is kinda agreeing but with different words.

Possibly, though not definitely, my last thoughts on this:

I'm not annoyed that JM hasn't replied today or offered an opinion on this thread - happens all the time on MN. I thought it was reasonably laudable that she started the first thread, as she has had some criticism on here, and I was willing to see her in a different light.

However, what does annoy me is that she has said she doesn't feel like a woman, engaged in the whole gender/trans/cis dialogue and used those terms, told an eminent academic that she has no right to say who is and is not a woman, and then wilfully misrepresented that academic on Twitter on that basis.... And all of this without, it would seem, having one single opinion that she is able to explain or willing to share on what this thing 'woman' actually is. She has started this thread asking us to answer a question posed to her, and told us how we may debate it using an inflammatory term 'transphobic' - can you imagine a thread beginning: 'so, MNers, what is a black person in your opinion? And please don't derail my thread with any racism toward white people, thank you!'

At best it seems that Jack hasn't thought much of this through before making some very prominent and problematic statements about identity, and misrepresenting views of people who have thought it through. I hope she is thinking, reading, and researching to reach her own opinion about what a woman is. she has had plenty of help on here to be going on with.

The cynical part of me wonders if there was an ulterior motive for starting both threads but I hope that isn't the case.

Her twitter feed shows she's having problems with her credit rating and mortgage application, so I imagine that is keeping her busy (and pissed)

Hope you get it sorted Jack.

I have also thought that, WH, because she mis represented MN threads before, and although she has said that was due to the interviewer, in her earlier article it was an opinion piece written by her.

But I'm still taking her decision to come on here and start threads in good faith.

I don't believe she is going to come on here and agree. Even if she did agree would be targeted by trans activists and it would destroy her credibility.

And while hatred of women's bodies and abuse through their reproductive systems is a major issue that is being effectively shut down by trans activists redefining women, there are other ignored feminist issues.

And a really big one is the economic situation of women in general and austerity in particular. Jack is talking about and campaigning about that in a time when many 'liberals' have decoupled social and economic justice. The same is true for Owen Jones. So I'd rather she was able to keep on doing that, rather than end up among the reviled and no platformed.

As for her personal situation, she should do what she personally has to do to get through all the bullshit of a sexist world. We all have survival strategies and there's no shame in it. But feminism is about making things better for women; it isn't about validating our own survival strategies.