Defining a woman by her sex is not reducing her to her biology

[MagnificentDelurker]

Hi mumsnet
Long term lurker here. First started reading mumsnet for education boards and then got addicted. I always avoided feminist boards. The reasons need another thread. Then I came across trans threads and I clicked on them as I did not have strong views on trans rights and it seemed a safe topic to explore feminist chats. I was off course supportive of said rights in an inactive let live way. IN fact I had to avoid these threads as well because I found the anti trans opinions too strong. But a seed of discomfort stayed with me and I braved the boards every once in a while and then I got hooked. I joked to my DP that I am being radicalised.

I finally registered today to comment because of the thread telling women here that defining a woman by biology is reductionist. This phrase really gets to me. Biology is the only way to define women that can accommodate all women regardless of personality or particular experience. This is the starting point of telling women that they can be anything. The other option is defining by degree of femininity or just expanding the term. So unless we make the term woman meaningless we are reducing women to feminist. I can understand many people meaning this when they say transwomen are women. But experting feminists to do so is beyond pale.

I have nothing new to add as everything I have said has been said thousands of times but needed to rant.

It's really simple. People with XX chromosomes and vaginas and ovaries etc are distinguishable from the other people, with testicles and penises and XY chromosomes. And because our anatomy and reproductive physiology are different, our bodies do different things. Most notably, every human that has ever existed has been grown in the body of the former, and never, not even once, in the billions of humans who have ever existed, in the body of the latter.
Further, it's bloody easy to tell us apart. And the latter group has pretty much always, in every society, and every culture, oppressed the former, and treated them as property.

So, to recap, we are physically different, we are instantly recognisable, and universally oppressed.

There needs to be a name for these two groups so that people can communicate about them. There's no point any daft beggar getting het up about the idea that a fundamentally different and oppressed group should have a word that refers to all the blurb above about them. The group patently exists, and we patently need to talk about it. Every argument to the contrary is plain daft headed at best. And woman-hating at worst.

Just read my post I meant reducing women to feminity and not feminist, damn autocorrect

There is nothing wrong with one's biology. It does not reduce anyone.

Barrack

Completely agree. The patronising tone of why are you reducing women to vagina really gets me.

Op you needed to delurk about an hour earlier, I really needed your explanation in an arguement on another thread. Useless you are but thanks.

And thanks for listening. Topics are getting repeated ad nuaseum and this is one of them. Just needed a rant

Birds, will do better next time

Honestly, I do find the suggestion that I am a woman just because I have XX chromosomes a bit insulting and reductionist. My body has informed my femininity to an extent and it has by far been the greatest factor in determining my experience of life (I'm a SAHM from a young age). But I don't think that my body is what makes me a woman. I could walker up tomorrow morning with a massive penis but I am and forever will be a woman and it's not because of my body. Having a male body wouldn't threaten my femininity. I simply cannot remove my womanhood from myself. I understand that that is largely because my female body facilitated the development of my womanhood but it is no longer really an element of it or of me (it has changed so much in recent years that it almost doesn't feel mine anymore). My body feels cumbersome when it once felt soft. It feels awkward when it once felt like beauty divine. It feels spent and ugly. It doesn't feel particularly feminine but I do. I'm a woman because I am femininity incarnate not because I've got tits.

But surely that's the point Outy. Because of your biology there is no possibility that you could wake up tomorrow with a massive penis. Because you are a woman.

Op, I like the way you phrased that. “Biology is the only way to define women that can accommodate all women regardless of personality or particular experience”.

Like another poster, I could have done with this quote for an earlier discussion.

Outy

Thanks for your post, I would not deny your experience. I cannot comment on what happens if you wake up in a male body. I know I have changed as my body has changed. I cannot separate myself from my body and while I have always loved my womanhood, feminity was forced on me.

Can you separate 'woman' from 'femininity' OutyMcOutface?
They are two completely different concepts.
female and feminine are not the same thing.

A butch woman, men's clothes, short hair, 'masculine' interests is not feminine. But is a woman.

Shane Thingummy from Celebrity Big Brother is certainly feminine. But is entirely male.

Female refers to your reproductive system (whether it is currently functioning or not) and chromosomes. Woman is a mature human female, girl is a juvenile female.

There is nothing inherently insulting or reductive about knowing that the word for people with ovaries is female.

There are numerous words that you can use to describe your personality traits without ascribing them to everyone else in your reproductive class.

It's ascribing 'femininity' to an entire reproductive class that is reductive, not acknowledging that the class exists in the first place.

Yes I was about to say that I think it's quite important to stay in the realms of reality as so much of the counter arguement is beliefs and feelings. There is no chance that you will wake up with a penis. Not a sentence I was expecting to use on MN this evening.

Great post Op.

“Biology is the only way to define women that can accommodate all women regardless of personality or particular experience”

It is the only thing that women have in common. Apart from being confined by attitudes in society because of it.

Agree, OP. I posted this a couple of days ago:

It doesn't reduce a woman to her vagina or chromosomes anymore than calling Donald Trump a president means he is restricted to being merely 'head of state'. He's also old, fat, an arsehole, a misogynist, racist, orange, rich, a father, a husband and stupid.
A woman can be many other things as well, and the joy of language is that we have the words to describe those other things.
Woman is a biological term. It doesn't need to incorporate a load of other meanings for the sake of a few dishonest little men who want to lay claim to it.

-
It really winds me up. This disingenuous attempt to make out that anything biological is either taboo or an irrelevance. All of us are here because we grew in a woman's womb for 9 months. It's not a bloody irrelevance.

This analogy has been used many times but needs repeating. I believe many people experience God in a very real manner. I am very interested in these experiences as they expand my view of the world we live in and I get angry when people ridicule these experiences. But I draw the line at using them to legislate our daily life.

I could walker up tomorrow morning with a massive penis but I am and forever will be a woman

That's not too likely though, is it?

You're a woman because of your biology - you may subscribe to femininity - and be feminine - so do I - but your biological sex was determined at conception. It's not something that's going to change.

Thanks collidascope

They bloody confuse the language for a reason.

Great post OP and thanks for speaking up and debating

Really enjoying this thread. I have nothing of value to add, but I am learning a lot. I find this whole discussion can be so adversarial, so it is really useful to be able to draw on calm, clear arguments like yours OP (and others). So thank you!

Biology is the only way to define women that can accommodate all women regardless of personality or particular experience

Very well put.

Its just such a stupid argument. As is the argument that defining women by biology is reducing them to walking vaginas. Just so so silly

It's difficult to explain but I guess you could say it's metaphysical. My body just isn't a reflection of myself. I just sort of inhabit it. I kniw it spubds mad but I'm not particularly attatched (in terms of how I understand myself/emotional attatchment) to my body. I have a female body, obviously. And that does have an effect on the the way other people perceive and treat me but it's just not really a part of who I am. It's more where I am. If you read pp a lot of them describe only really feeling womanly or feminine when their bodies through puberty became so. It was never like that for me. As long as I can remember I was definitely 100% feminine. I've always felt a disconnect with the masculine. If I read a book with a male protagonist for example and, while I enjoy it, I don't really get it completely, I just fail to understand men the way that I can understand women. To an extent it's because I've lived life as a woman but my life has only been a very narrow segment of the spectrum of what life like a woman can be like. I still find it easier to understand women despite different experiences. And then take things that are masculine. I often wear men's clothing for example but it doesn't make me feel at all masculine and I don't really get a sense of masculinity from 'masculine' things in the st way that I get an overwhelming impression of femininity from lacy floral underwear (Chloe and Lola type stuff) and the smell of lavender. Like pp have said I just know that I am a woman regardless of my body. Indeed I don't really know anything else. I can identify societal norms of masculinity but I don't really identify with or understand any of it. I haven't explained this very well but I find it difficult to really conceptualise something that has always been with me and is such a fundamental part of my life experience. I'm a woman even without my body I guess. I was womanly before by body grew into that of a woman and, if the after life exists, being separated from my female body won't make me feel any less womanly. My body really doesn't define my femininity. It's just me. Hopefully someone else will come along who can explain it better.

*This doesn't mean that I'm pro GRA. I actually think there are a whole lot of issues with the treatment of trans people, in particular children/young adults. I'm just trying (and failing) to explain what it's like for me. I guess you can only understand it if it's the same for you.

Ah, I've though of it. So I am both physically and metaphysically feminine. My physical state is female and (fairly) feminine. My intellectual state is womanly and feminine. Fortunately for ne the two coincide but one doesn't necessarily stem from the other. Obviously there is, to a degree, a positive feedback cycle between the two but you can't really say that they are the same because they aren't. I tend to think of the metaphysical as being the more real than the physical so I when I think of a 'real' woman I think of it in a metaphysical sense, not a physical sense. So to say that my body is what made me a woman makes me feel somewhat objectified and reduced to my physical which is not me. I'm just an I think therefore I am kind of gal.