I just searched Wikipedia for definitions of 'Man' and 'Woman'

[TinyRick]

Anyone else notice the difference?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man#/search
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman

Yes, trans activists/MRA's have been working on all the entries that involve women. And Wikipedia let them do it.

It seems bizarre that someone has edited one and not the other.

Depressing.

can't you change it back then? Or submit a change to the man one to say the same. I thought any user could change stuff on wikipedia.

Oh my goodness. Can't anyone edit Wikipedia?

They just change them back as soon as you edit them - Wikipedia has a massive problem with women, even to the point of deleting entries on female scientists and feminist theorists for not being "high profile" enough to warrant a page.

I'd say it's entirely consistent with what we see of the antics of TRAs. They are after all mostly* concerned with getting men into women's spaces rather than vice versa.

• I'm being generous

Gah!I can't edit either of these pages. Had anyone ever done it/does anyone know how to do it?

There's a Wiki editathon every year on Ada Lovelace day to add pages on women scientists. From memory I just had to register to add one but some changes had to be approved. As far as I know my "not very high profile" great grandmother has been kept in.

Oh my god.

Oh my god

Yup. There is actually a worse one. It is the definitions on a medical website. Have to try and find the post on Reddit..

Ah the page has been "protected to prevent vandalism".

By the way the "female" definition includes the two X chromosomes.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female

Oh and the "female" page is editable if you log in.

Interesting...

So the definition of 'Woman' has been brigaded by TRAs and now 'protected' from change but Female hasn't?

There is still a stark difference between that page and -

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male

OK, so on this note:

What do people feel would be a good way to define:

Man (would this refer to the biological status?)
Woman (ditto?)
Male (would this also refer to biological status, or would it refer to the gender that society perceives the individual to be, or what?)
Female (ditto)?

If all of those refer to biological status, do we need another set of words for the gender that society/the individual perceives them(self) to be?

So while I am in general agreement that you start out as a certain biological sex, that usually society perceives you to be the matching gender, but that whatever preferences you have it does not change your underlying biological sex (even if you have surgery as you cannot change your chromosomes)...
And I'm also moderately leaning towards not being able to decide you are another gender because it is mainly determined by society's perceptions.

But I'm a bit confused as to how best to refer to the gender that an individual "passes" or is perceived as.

And while of course different members of society think that different attributes are necessary for gender (my 5yo thinks that one of my Guides is a boy because she has very short hair, while adults and other older children don't think this), there also seems to be a common core - be that stereotyped or not.

So if both male/female and man/woman are sex-based... what do we use for society's perception of gender? Masculine/feminine? As in, "Flossie* is one of my Guides and is female and does not dress or act in a typically masculine way, and older children and adults perceive her as feminine, but my DS is confused because he is only 5 and thinks she looks masculine."

*Flossie is Guider-speak for Little Mary i.e. any girl at all. It is not her name.

I apologise in advance.

I was reading the Daily Fail online.

(I know. I stand ashamed. 😳)

When a story came up about Britain's most PC PC.

Now, two things.

1. He's a Police Sergeant.

1. This is just over a year old.

I tracked down the actual Twitter link as the Fail were reporting as today's news.

mobile.twitter.com/SgtPeterAllan/status/761650891183235072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fadland.tv%2Fadnews%2Fsussex-police-ask-tesco-tone-it-down-their-feminine-hygiene-shelving-signs%2F1506889329.

Apparently men have periods too, so it's transphobic to advertise tampons and sanitary pads as 'feminine care'.

It doesn't matter what society's perception of people are. It doesn't alter the facts. Man, woman, male, female, all refer to biological sex.

The word woman is not a social constructed idea. It refers to an adult human female.

Gender identity is a misnomer. Genders are socially constructed roles, on a spectrum from masculine to feminine.

You can identify as a different gender, all you like, but that specifically means identifying with different roles.

You can identify with or as the opposite sex, all you like, it doesn't make you the opposite sex.

Forcing people to call men, women, quickly leads to the word woman being a socially constructed role.

It isn't.

Gingernaut

What utter, fucking nonsense. I see commenters falling into the trap of thinking it's just to be gender neutral. No, it isn't. It's so men who think they're women don't feel excluded. Women who think they are men should not to be catered to, if they are the ones objecting.

I'd love to see this spectacularly backfire. One commenter mentioned gendered shampoo. If any supermarket caves into this ridiculous pressure, they should be told, in no uncertain terms, that every single product that is gendered, needs to be neutral.

So you can fuck off with all the pink lady razors, more expensive shampoo, conditioner, moisturiser, soap, etc. White bottles for everybody, same price, with just the name of the product on the front.

I'd like to see them watch their profits go down the drain, with that one.

Of course, it won't happen, because the only product that trans are interested in are the ones that specifically apply to biology.

Wouldn't it have been great if this new youf wave had simply chosen a new 'identity' subculture like everyone else, instead of trying to pretend it has a basis in biology? They could have called themselves 'Pespys' or something - short for performing society's perception of feminity - and no one else would have been at all bothered, in fact lots of feminists might have cheered them on. But no, they had to go telling women that they were the real women now and budge over, stop talking about female and biological reality.

MiddleEnglandLives

I imagine most the youngsters hate to think they are being manipulated by anything that society at large has the gall to perceive. So a label which states they are doing something society expects, even whilst attempting to subvert it, like they do, would be anathema.

You rarely hear them talk about femininity or masculinity (unless it's on a spectrum, indescribable and never about stereotypes). Because those are normal societal expectations. Often than not, they attempt to identify themselves as something as unidentifiable as possible. So fluidity, non-binary, neutral, demi, pan.

Thransgender people go the other way entirely. They attempt to identify themselves as something impossible, but definite. But also indescribable, and never referring to stereotypes.

That's fucking ridiculous!

I also noted that trans women are covered on the woman page and get a page of their own. Typical

You know, I think that we start doing wrong by calling people men or women, if you start thinking what could possibly change if the world didn't create the word gender, a lot of things would be totally different. Starting by "women" who get offended because some "men" said that women are less, which personally I do not share the same thoughts, and this is just one of many examples that exist now a day, but I do believe that both "sides are completely wrong by thinking that one is less than the other. I think it would a really huge step by not saying to your children what is a boy or a girl, at the end we're all people. People that will work, will travel, and so on. So try to see a little bit far than usual, I swear nothing wrong will happen. All you got to do first is to understand it yourself, the rest will be easy.

You know, I think that we start doing wrong by calling people men or women,
I think it would a really huge step by not saying to your children what is a boy or a girl, at the end we're all people. People that will work, will travel, and so on. So try to see a little bit far than usual, I swear nothing wrong will happen. All you got to do first is to understand it yourself, the rest will be easy

That's all very well and good but these 'people' are still split into two separate and noticeably different groups. One half of people are susceptible to testicular and prostate cancer, they need to be checked and treated for this. This group also has the capacity to impregnate 'people'.
The other group are completely immune to any of this but can be impregnated and are susceptible to ovarian and cervical cancers, for which they need checking and treating. The first group don't need to worry about this at all. But it really helps if you know which group you belong to - hence separate nouns. 'People' suffer from testicular cancer isn't a message that is particularly helpful as it doesn't specifically target any particular group of people, leading to the ones who don't need to worry worrying and the ones who do need to worry ignoring it. A huge waste of time and resources ensues.

Our biology is different and it is important and it needs to be catered to - it is important to know which biological half of the species you fall in, so we give each half a name - 'penis people' and 'vagina people' seem a bit on the nose though, so we use 'men' and 'women'

Our difference in biology does not mean that we have different capabilities when it comes to none biological elements of humanity, such as enjoying drawing or being good with computers 'people' is good enough in these cases, but we need to be more specific for sex based differences.

Men, however, have believed that women are inferior for millennia. They have justified this belief by using our biology and attributing non biological aspects of our lives to it (women being not good enough for political life because of our wombs, the very idea of 'lady brain' etc). Our oppression was and is biologically based - 'some "people" think other "people" are inferior' doesn't really explain the truth of what is happening though does it? It obscures what is happening and makes it impossible to fight against.

Removing the words 'men' and 'women' or expanding them so that they are meaningless actively harms women and is to the benefit of the very men who seek to harm us, because we can no longer name what is happening.

'man' and 'woman' are very important words. Especially for women. And yes something wrong will happen if we do away with these words and we do understand that, thank you.