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

I don't think there is any need to have a wider debate about what woman means.

It's just a massive derailment of women's rights.

If you're not directing a point at me, please do not put my not username at the top of the particular post, particularly when the straw man argument you are using is one most commonly used by apologists for child abuse, Fascicle.

I don't think there is any Ned for a wider debate about what "woman" means.

I think there is plenty of room for debate about the impact of stereotyping on men and women, on gender dysphoria, on trans issues and how transformed can be made to feel at ease and comfortable without "Trojan horsing" women's rights, on what messages we are sending to our young people that is making them dissatisfied with who they are, on why there does not seem to be the same issues with trans men..................

Yes, Bertrand.

What will women gain from a wider debate about what "woman" means apart from the biological definition? I can't see any gains for us

I can't see any gains for us there either. I'd rather have Bertrand's debate.

Wonderful posts on this thread.
Woman - adult human female.

Performing femininity does not equal a woman.
What moulds a woman are the societal demands and forces which shape her behaviours, and facilitate or deny choices.

From birth onwards female children are treated differently to male children. I think it was Robert Winston who dressed babies in the "wrong" colour and the observed interactions were different. Handling was more gentle for female children, less rough and tumble, different toys offered. Female clothing designed for babies and toddlers restricts movement. Girls shoes are less robust. Sit nicely, don't show your knickers for TINY girls making them aware of the male gaze from infants. And the countless other "small" differences which stack up over childhood and adolescence to produce an adult woman.

Screw gender. Enough of half the population being made lesser. I can't wake up a man tomorrow and receive all the benefits that come with that because even if I could change my biology, I have not been raised as male and the way I behave in the world is due to the years of being female.

MTT are using all the societal conditioning and privilege of having been male and turning it on women who do not roll over and say yes, rewrite womanhood to include you.

You want to be biologically male and perform feminity? Bash on. Woman are not a threat to you. What I cannot accept are the hard fought freedoms, support services, statistics used to report on sex equality, sporting achievers, safe spaces being eroded and diminished by a small number of entitled males.

I agree with Bertrand that it's vital to have debate about the impact of stereotyping on men and women, on gender dysphoria, on trans issues and how transformed can be made to feel at ease and comfortable without "Trojan horsing" women's rights etc. These are extremely important issues.

Meanwhile, since this is a feminist theory board, I also think it's useful to start a pseudo intellectual, waffly bollocks chat about feminist theories in which 'woman' means something beyond a straightforward biological descriptor.

For example, I think it's appropriate when discussing the understanding of 'woman' in feminist theory to consider Simone de Beauvoir's assertion that 'one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.' It seems to me that Beauvoir imagines 'woman' not just as an adult female body but as a culturally inscribed condition in which being a woman is not the same thing as being female.

And I think there's a fundamentally important relationship between the two debates, so it would be a shame to have one without the other.

NotAnother

Adjustable Wrench I think the Beauvoir quote summarises what I was waffling/grasping towards. Biological sex followed by life experience shapes a female baby into an adult woman. Being female and not male results in a different experience regardless of race, place, wealth.

NotAnotherHarlot
I agree.

And I think the social expectations and oppressions you outlined in your post are the result of differentiating between two sexes. This differentiation is a political project designed to keep women in a subservient position in society.

And yet, since it's been going on for at least 6000 years, I'm not sure that feminists can overthrow it tomorrow. And maybe we don't want to. But biological determinism has been used against women - for example, in arguments against women getting the vote (we're too weak and fragile to withstand politics). So I think it's useful to think about what we can do with biological definitions - or whether we can do without them.

If you haven't already read it, "There's a good girl" by Marianne Grabowski is an interesting read.

Areas which will always need biological sex to be recognised, umm healthcare. Sex education, some sporting events. There will be more I'm sure.

Currently though there are many more areas which need biological sex to be recognised due to the many ways women and girls are treated as lesser, property or as objects. We have safe spaces, refuges, rape centres. Legislation which recognises that it is not a given that women will be given equal opportunities. Laws which affect only women such as FGM, or sexual offences which have far more women than men as victims. Voyeurism for example.

I don't see how we can do without biological definitions any more than we can ignore race, it is recognised to protect the opressed from the would be oppressors.

As I'm sure you know adjustable that quote of de beauvoir is often repeated by trans activists to suggest a male can "become" a woman.
Whereas I think de beauvoir meant a girl child grows and is socialised into a woman, which is a totally different thing. It's a complex interplay of female biology and gender expectations. The expectations of "woman" might change over time. For example in Victorian times it wasn't ladylike to mention pregnancy and all children wore smocks and had long hair. But the biological aspect of being a woman is immutable.
By all means we can discuss gender expectations. I just don't want to disappear down a philosophical rabbit hole of how language changes over time so there's no problem redefining women. As soon as you divorce "woman" from female biology it becomes meaningless I think.

Feel free to try answering the question I posed Fascicle though - what definition of woman includes all natal and tran's women and excludes all natal and trans men?

NotAnother I like your phrase 'what moulds a woman'. It keeps the definition of woman as female adult but acknowledges that there are external forces that exert pressure on women to feel, think and act in certain ways. Also it doesn't suppose that there are any innate ways of feeling, thinking or behaving that all women internally have.

Oh and I would also be interested to hear an answer to felascloak's question.

"MTT are using all the societal conditioning and privilege of having been male and turning it on women who do not roll over and say yes, rewrite womanhood to include you. "

YYYYY

And they have all the subconscious expectations and assumptions about what being a woman means, as well. Hence the oft-repeated assertion that they are better women than those of us who are actually women, because they look better than us in their slap and high heels. <a class="break-all" href="http://images.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=cdn.inquisitr.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Krystal-Summers-LGBT.png&imgrefurl=www.inquisitr.com/2551748/you-really-want-me-in-the-same-bathroom-as-your-husband-transgender-woman-says-lgbt-community-needs-protection/&h=455&w=875&tbnid=sMPuyDP6Fd55LM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=173&docid=Dpul4YHnfEdX2M&usg=__ojCSShUJMpLXfyiWMD7sMa0DNJI=&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-39fu-aDOAhVJbBoKHfGsCssQ9QEIKDAC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Because being a real woman means being someone men want to fuck -the ones who aren't doing it this well, don't count as women, they're the gamma ones, the ones you use for childcare and skivvying, not fucking

I came across this great article today all about how so many men (including MTT's have that deep down assumption that women are <a class="break-all" href="http://images.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=cdn.inquisitr.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Krystal-Summers-LGBT.png&imgrefurl=www.inquisitr.com/2551748/you-really-want-me-in-the-same-bathroom-as-your-husband-transgender-woman-says-lgbt-community-needs-protection/&h=455&w=875&tbnid=sMPuyDP6Fd55LM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=173&docid=Dpul4YHnfEdX2M&usg=__ojCSShUJMpLXfyiWMD7sMa0DNJI=&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-39fu-aDOAhVJbBoKHfGsCssQ9QEIKDAC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">fuckable objects

basil that's a great article isn't it? It really nails the issue in so much MTT narrative about it still being a male interpretation of female sexuality and a male gaze on attractiveness.

Currently though there are many more areas which need biological sex to be recognised due to the many ways women and girls are treated as lesser, property or as objects.

Absolutely. And one way to deal with these horrific oppressions and violations of women might be to attempt to dismantle the system of differentiation in which women are constructed as Other, and as objects of oppression. Not an overnight task, though.

I don't see how we can do without biological definitions any more than we can ignore race, it is recognised to protect the opressed from the would be oppressors.

Racial difference was also constructed via assertions of biological difference, at least in the modern world. There's some very objectionable material that passed for science in earlier centuries which purported to have found biological explanations for the supposed inferiority of Africans, for example. Shocking stuff, and rightly rejected these days by right-thinking people.

As I'm sure you know adjustable that quote of de beauvoir is often repeated by trans activists to suggest a male can "become" a woman.

I know, and I think it's often taken out of context and misinterpreted. I would like to see a good analysis of how Beauvoir's use of Hegelian existentialism might apply to trans experiences, since I think this is missing from that argument. (Sorry for pseudo-intellectual waffly bollocks .)

For the record, I'm in favour of trans rights, but I agree that there are some serious difficulties that need to be addressed in how those rights are conferred in society, and I'm particularly aware of the need to preserve everyone's safety. However, I'm not sure that insisting on biological definitions of 'woman' is necessarily helpful because of the possible unintended consequences of that course of action (i.e. underscoring the biological basis for oppression of women).

What definition of woman includes all natal and tran's women and excludes all natal and trans men?

I don't think there is one, but that's because I don't think the definition of 'woman' is immutable.

I dont know. There is still so much we don't understand about sex and gender. By the time my DC and maybe GC are grown, they will probably think we were all in the Dark Ages about this stuff.

I see a lot of people say that because biology has been used against us through out history we can just reject it.

Ok fine. Let's reject it. So surely in that case we reject dividing the human race in to a binary system entirely? We don't pretend that half the race have a lady brain and that half have a manly brain as not only is it obviously bollocks but it is incredibly offensive to most women who only ever called themselves women in the first place because the word meant adult female.

If woman no longer means adult female I not a woman. What about my right to self identify? I don't want to identify as having a lady brain. I want to identify as a human with a brain and a vagina. Why is it only males who get to decide what 'woman' means?

Also you can reject facts as much as you like but you are still going to get made redundant for getting pregnant because you have a uterus... Not because you have a lady brain.

There really isn't, because we are talking about a word which has always been short hand for person with a vagina. That's not going to get left in the dark ages that won't change. We learned that people with vaginas are also xx but that doesn't change the meaning

It won't. Because woman just means person with a vagina. We later learned that these people were also xx but it still means the same thing.

It's not showing my posts so I reposted. Apologies

Ok fine. Let's reject it. So surely in that case we reject dividing the human race in to a binary system entirely? We don't pretend that half the race have a lady brain and that half have a manly brain

That would be the purpose of it. No more binary in which half of humanity is considered inferior by the other half simply because of differences in physical form, chromosomes, or hormones. No basis for oppressing half the human race on the basis of their supposed reproductive capabilities. All humans imagined as people rather than 'men' or 'women'. No one told they're no good at maths because they appear to have breasts. No one getting away with sexual assault because the other person was drunk or wearing a short skirt or walking in a park at 3am. Because the only purpose of the binary is to enforce a system in which men exploit women in every possible way.

As I say, it's not an overnight task.

I hope we all agree on that adjustable!
Doesn't change the basic fact that 50% of the human species have the potential to give birth and this is the same 50% which are oppressed.
How can we get rid of the binary and associated oppression when the language used to describe the oppression is being taken away from us because it's "transphobic"? (Serious question).
Just redefining "woman" and "man" doesn't magically erase the discrimination the child bearing part of the population faces....

It's not possible to reject sex anymore than it is possible to reject old age.

Nobody on here is defending Science or Biology, or taking a particularly scientific approach.

We're just using the language available to us to describe the material world, to the best of our ability and convey that meaning to others.

I have been pregnant, can get pregnant, can die in childbirth, can become disabled by childbirth. That's because I am an adult human female.

Nobody on here is defending biological determinism just because we're pointing out there are two groups with very different reproductive organs, anymore than we're defending elder abuse by pointing out that people become elderly and eventually die.

Science is always conflated with people mentioning the material world on these threads, as if by mentioning people are exploiting female bodies, land and food supplies we're being too scientific. Power is about controlling the material world; stopping people from describing that world and their own bodies is just a clever way of denying what's happening.