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

Firstly - to any screenshotting journalists - fuck off to the far side of fuck and then when you get there fuck off some more.

I have no idea about what makes a woman as it is all too confusing and I don't care enough, in that people are just PEOPLE and couldn't we just scrap all the labels. Also I can't think about it too long before the Shania Twain looping inside my heard drives me mad. Live and let live. (excluding Daily Mail losers) Jack you seem like a really nice person and its so nice that you came on to mumsnet and did this. I hope the bastards don't get you down.

In the last week or so on MN I've read about this, I've read the Turkey stuff, and the mitochondrial DNA thread and I have to say MN rocks and we are so lucky to have this place.

Agree with pp- a human adult of the sex class that produces eggs. So purely biological.

What do you think of Alex Drummond 'expanding the bandwidth of being a woman' or Danielle Muscato or StefOnKnee Wolsht? These are all activists and I think they are destroying the word woman personally and putting us in harms way.

All of the other usual examples are less blatant, but is Danielle Muscato a woman? And why?

I don't think we can scrap the labels while women and girls are being harmed as a result of being female. If we don't have the language to describe who is being harmed and who is doing the harming, we will not be able to solve the problems. It's not the labels that are the problem.

I'd much rather 'woman' be a short cut word female with a vagina, uterus and xx genes and find it far less offensive than it meaning I have some sort of 'lady brain'.

Adult human female

Yes, I 've seen people say fgm is cissexist. I mean fuck that shit fuck it sideways

WOMAN is not an 'identity'. It is a biological reality. Anyone with female anatomy (whether normal & functioning or not) and an XX chromosome is a woman. Simple.

What is the argument for FMG being cissexist? WTF?

FGM

SwissWank, I agree with you. The be-penised and bearded Alex Drummond and 'Danielle' Muscato are making a mockery of the word woman. Does 'woman' mean anything men decide it to mean?? They can dress, behave, express themselves etc however they want. But they are men and nothing will ever change that. Their demanding to be allowed access to women's spaces etc is offensive and dangerous. As for the creepy clusterfuck that is Stephonknee... I have no words.

Today, FGM contains the word female and that assumes that all females have the kit necessary to be persecuted under FGM.
I won't even comment on what I think of this, I think it speaks for itself.

Didn't know who Stephonknee was.
Googled it.
Now I need a shower as that was beyond grim.

FruitCider

A woman is anyone that identifies as a woman, surely?

... and what is this 'woman' that anyone can identify as?

Is a goth anyone who identifies as a goth?

Is a mare anypony that identifies as a mare?

Is a brunette anyone who identifies as a brunette?

Kitty, Stephonknee has advised the Canadian government on trans issues...

But we can change fgm so it's less 'cissexist' and call it genital mutilation. But to do so means we ignore why these girls are being cut.

Anyway, not supposed to be going off track, are we. Sorry :)

Kitty. Never Google.

It is not 'tricky' to define what a woman is. A woman is an adult human female; a female has the capability to produce eggs and bear young.

And it's disingenuous to say you were told you weren't welcome in women's spaces - you were asked if you think you should still have access to women's spaces and collect women's awards if you don't categorise yourself as a woman.

Flora that's a great meme. It raises a good point. A lot of people confuse sex and gender. Male and female are purely biological descriptors while masculine and feminine are gender descriptors which assign damaging and reductive qualities to the aforementioned sex classes. Let's get rid of the words Male and Female and rename them Tables and Chairs. Tables have penises and produce sperm to fertilise eggs and produce young. Chairs have a uterus, vagina and other genitalia specific to growing and birthing young. Even if they have abnormalities or variations, they are still fundamentally Tables (Male) or Chairs (Female).

Males and Females may 'feel' masculine or feminine or feel nothing at all - just 'feeling like themselves' (I think this is probably true of most people). Society dictates that we should fall into the categories of masculine or feminine in order to maintain the patriarchal status quo. Many reject this. It makes not a jot of difference to whether they are fundamentally Male or Female though.

Jack however you identify or feel internally, your biology is female and always will be, the same for trans women - they will always be biologically male. They are living as women. They are not actually women. So, no, Danielle Muscato is not a woman. He is not actually even living as a woman (whatever that means. I suppose it means that he is not 'performing' femininity). He appears to be a man with a feminine name.

Actually I couldn't give a hoot who lives as what if they are happy and safe, as long as women's rights and the meaning * of womanhood aren't erased in the process.

The definition of 'woman' matters.

WOMAN is not an 'identity'. It is a biological reality. Anyone with female anatomy (whether normal & functioning or not) and an XX chromosome is a woman. Simple.

For me that is the female sex of women. The female gender of women is a made up pile of repressive bullshit that has been used throughout most of history to subjugate women and often even women have been at the forefront of holding on to the gender stereotypes because it suits whatever life path they have travelled or marches their values.

But you can't actually dictate how a conversation goes and you really can't say we can't discuss trans issues when that's the whole reason for the op. Calling the discussion of something that affects me as 'bashing' is bollocks btw. No one is bashing trans people. We are concerned for our rights.

Gender is not something you are or have, it's a hierarchy of sex role stereotypes.

It's a system of arbitrarily assigning tastes/jobs/personalities/assumptions to men or women, and labelling those whose tastes/job/personality falls outside those assigned to their sex as 'normal', abnormal.

There are no tastes/jobs/personalities that are exclusive to one sex or the other. The idea that there are is called sexism

In the process of increasing rights for the trans community (ostensibly a good thing), the definition of 'woman' and as a result, rights and protections for born women are being changed in quite a damaging way. It isn't transphobic to acknowledge that. It's very relevant to the question about what a woman is, because there are those who would wish to change the definition. What we need is to be able to have this conversation without being invited to 'die in fires' by trans activists. Honestly, the trans community and women should be working together to find that middle ground/third way. Much more productive. But a very loud minority of TAs just don't want to.