Alternative Definitions of 'Woman'?

[Dragoncake]

Do you disagree with the definition of 'woman' as 'adult human female'?

If you disagree, what is your own definition of the word?

A woman is....what exactly?

Is there even a definition? Or is 'woman' simply indefinable in your view?

On the 'A Woman is an Adult Human Female' thread I asked those who disagree to provide their alternative definition of the word.

Several people engaged, but nobody seemed able to do this.

If you have one, please post your alternative definition here. Thanks.

Offered I think you are right that trans needs to be defined but again there is a social and legal definition to consider the two do not need to be the complete same thing. but the question is does the legal definition come from the social definition and how much is it fixed to that definition and how much can it vary.

also I have fixed my auto correct on my phone no more full. stops lol

What people sometimes don't realise with the law is that is does not rely on 'people just know what that means'. The law has to be very clear with little wriggle room for interpretation. It might seem overkill sometimes but it is necessary as it provides clarity for those interpreting the law.

Mr Howls and I were discussing the plastic bag charge and what legally counts as a plastic bag (yes, it is a laugh riot in our house in the evening). For something to be legally recognized as a disposable plastic bag it has to meet three separate, measurable criteria. That's a flipping bag!!

I can't believe women may end up with less legal protection than plastic bags!

Bespin I think that the biological definition (which for almost everybody throughout the world also happens to be the social definition) is the only workable one in law.

The law should not follow an alternative social definition that is impossible to accurately describe.

Legal definitions and social definitions can influence each other. I think the right way to think about law is to choose the definition and the words which convey the meaning most accurately.

I think the majority of anti-discrimination law is designed to motivate social change so that discrimination is considered to be culturally unacceptable (as well as making it illegal).

This is the part where I understand the motivation to use legal definitions to change social and cultural ones and also to change behaviour.

The problem really though is that sexism is at the root of discrimination against women, transpeople and homosexuals so changing the meanings of these particular words to mean gender identity (no objectively measurable shared characteristics) rather than sex class (objectively measurable and the basis of oppression for these groups due to their interaction with gender expectations) renders discrimination laws toothless and leaves, particularly trans people, totally vulnerable to not having the trans related elements of their oppression addressed.

Women will always be identifiable by their shared sex characteristics, we will still have pregnancy and maternity protection... if transwomen are women then ultimately that leaves the characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’ open to being abolished - transwomen are women after all...

Oooo howls I would like to be in your house I think!

Dragoncake the law should actively follow the society it is held in

I don’t accept that Bespin because if that was the approach we would not have abolished capital punishment and discrimination laws would not exist.

I disagree, Bespin. Sometimes, not always. There are numerous examples of bad laws that reflect a particular social norm. And it's hardly ever the case that everyone in society is in total agreement about something.

Where an objective, materially measurable definition is available I would choose it over the social one for legal purposes every time.

If laws were to follow society re trans rights then we end up with tyranny of the majority.

As I said earlier, I want trans people to be protected from discrimination and this requires that law take the lead and create a change in attitudes IMO because I do believe that society is transphobic.

I simply do not agree with the conflation of gender identity with sex. I do not think this will result in protection for trans people (in fact it is quite transphobic as it effectively erases the trans element of oppression) and it will weaken protections for women and homosexuals whose rights and protections are also rooted in sex class.

the law should actively follow the society it is held in

I'm not sure that's entirely true, and not always good. Laws can shape society too. Sometimes for ill, but in the decades of liberal democracies, it's generally been for good.

Consider a case nothing to do with gender (though very much sex) - abortion laws. Roe versus wade was law which shaped American society to the good (I think feminists here would agree). But now society in some states of America has retrenched in misogynistic conservatism and it looks as though their laws are liable to follow that shift backwards.

society as to be in position that the law is exceptable to impliment look at proabition laws

I know that the perception is that GC women are horribly transphobic but the reality is that much more often GC women are actually allied with trans people re oppression based on gendered expectations. Where we become opposed is re the ‘what should be done?’ when trans activists start trying to codify what oppresses women, homosexuals and trans people - the system of gender, and replace sex (which offers the route out of oppression) with gender in law and practice... it represents replacing a route to freedom with a route to oppression, that’s the problem and it’s why GC people will never get behind protection for gender identity whilst it conflates sex and gender or erases sex completely.

It’s simply not true Bespin and it’s a bad analogy because society is not behind what transactivists are lobbying for anyway.

I don’t think that means trans people don’t need protection from discrimination, I think that means that society discriminates against trans people and I would like laws that protect trans people from these discriminatory attitudes. Just not conflation of sex and gender and not replacement of sex with gender.

Offered I would like to believe that it is just that we don't agree on what is to be done but with a lot of the posts on twitter and here it is very hard to see that. I have been at this for more years than I care to remember and was arguing and campaigning against Julie bundle et al long before this current debate. If it is about working through this like this thread as shown can be done then why is there all the nastyness in this which does come from both sides though the violance as come from our sides and I have my views on that and some younger activists that beleive silancing your opponent is beating them. this is also present on here and I get routinely silanced or attempted too by using my trans status or. persived maleness so that anything I say is compared to rigide gender stereotypes. I would like to. beleive that we could live in the world that you discribe but that is not the world we are in and we exsist in it and function as what society sees as a form of woman requiring some but not all of the same rights. people askin for us not to have them are not interested in what happens to us or our families if that happened they say its our problem to sort.

The main thrust of a lot of the posted threadsnon here is to other us and not see us as people but this big scary group I feel that some don't want us on here as we show we are just like everyone else and then we can not be othered in that way. it's the reason I'm here doing this lots of my friends think. I'm wasting my time as your position and mine are mostly fixed and that I will only get abuse I think this thread and some others show that is not true and I would hope more people can come together and try and find an answer that does not remove either from safely fuclncrioning in society

I don’t think you’re scary Bespin. I think you would very much like to be a woman. I believe you are sincere. I imagine you are in many respects not dissimilar from a woman.

You do have a privilege though in that your body adheres to the constraints of the default citizen in our patriarchal and still very misogynistic society. I don’t expect you seek to leverage that: it happened to you.

But this conversation is about an alternative definition of woman. Some look to biology. Others look at the social construct. Others look at identity.

Defining a term necessarily draws a line around it and says ‘this is what I mean and not that”.

My definition might include you if I choose to base it on inclusion, empathy and compassion. But it won’t if I want to talk about soci-economics, power structures and politics. I prioritise the later. We can be allies and combat gender ideology together.

And biology puts us in different camps.

Identity is personal and internal and must be placed within the context of wider society which does not experience your inner feelings and which has a different set of criteria for making category decisions. Society is well aware of con men and bad faith corrupting self id and might prioritise protecting WAG.

And yet it is women who no longer exist in Scotland, through the efforts of transgender advocates.
What could the people formerly known as women possible have to be upset about or complain of.

Has anyone got that meme of how woman is less legally defined than Cornish pastry? Google is failing me...

I love how 500 posts in we're still no more enlightened. I'm waiting for that Venn diagram!

I think really bespin, the thing is that the simple truth is that trans people are other than man and woman and female and male...

I don’t believe that means trans people are less than human.

I don’t believe any poster on this board or any speaker at recent events, or any radical feminist believes trans people are less than human or has been saying that. I believe some trans people are perceiving things like I just said re ‘other than woman’ as a kind of erasure because they desperately desire to erase their biological sex.

I have some sympathy with those feelings, but I think it is an extremely dangerous position to take because laws that erase reality perpetuate oppression.

Being ‘other than’ woman doesnt mean less than human.

It might be difficult for trans people to confront but if anti-discrimination laws are to work, IMO, then they need to reflect the source of the oppression. For trans people that means acknowledging biological sex and that gender identity is different from biological sex - these are the shared characteristics of transpeople and IMO it is the reason for discrimination and the route out of oppression.

I think it’s important to recognise that campaigning against JB, coming into a GC feminist space to campaign in combination with censorship in public on SM platforms, physical violence, intimidation, bomb threats etc basically guarantees defensiveness and hostility. I think you probably should be able to understand why many women would view all that as misogynistic.

Asking for/demanding to have woman and female redefined and to be given women’s rights is the problem. It is a problem for women and IMO it is a problem for transwomen because it is not founded in material reality, it does not address the reality of oppression either group faces.

I should clarify when I say ‘other than man/woman/male/female’ what I mean is these words don’t adequately describe reality for trans people, not because they don’t fit into a biological sex category but because they do but it is not the full story.

Here is the practical, objective definition of woman:

Adult human female.

Here is the feminist definition of woman-as-social-construct:

Woman is the subordinate class in a sex caste social system.

See? Feminism has two clear, objective definitions referring to both material reality and social role. No circularity. No obfuscation. No pomo-riddled navel-gazing. Perfectly adequate to create clear legislation and effective social policy.

On the day transactivism provides two definitions with this kind of clarity and reliability, I might take some notice of its demands. Since that day will be the twelfth of never, I'm not in any rush.

Bespin, I welcome the good faith engagement of transwomen like you in discussions like this thread.

I feel dehumanised by male appropriation of 'woman'. Non-men and all the rest.

We shouldn't accept a purely social definition of 'woman' for any purposes ATM because any definition that includes transwomen seems to be objectively indefinable. That's simply not a good enough basis for sweeping legal and social change to the detriment of women.

I'm not othering transwomen. Biology has irrevocably othered us from each other WRT sex, in a context of us all being human.

hi Elletorro

id like to address some points that you made

Male privilege yes I had that and probably yes I have the left over residual of the experience of that. lots of trans woman I have meet are not mindful of this because it is hard to see it, as its just you and reflection is a difficult skill to master. This is something that I often struggle with though is something as you said that happened too me and that I can tell you was not a nice thing to experience I hated every minute of it and was always mindful that I was trying to fit in to survive, I can remember when it properly kicked in around 13-14 and how upto that point people were happy for me to play with the other girls and the girls were happy for me to play with them. Its a bit of a shock when the world suddenly tells you that is wrong.

I would hope that most peoples definition might try to include everyone but I know it does not, look at immigration and how people don't base there definition on inclusion, empathy and compassion.

but very much on soci-economics, power structures and politics it is when we base our definitions that we loose sight of the people we are talking about.

biology does indeed put us in different camps but ones that are next to each other and when people tell me that I am not a feminist that is there definition of feminist and not mine and I will continue to fight for the rights of all woman and girls. Feminism as often had this issue of not including other woman and I am aware how little in the past I have done for woman in cultures that are not mine.

Identity is indeed personal and internal and must be placed within the context of wider society which does not experience peoples inner feelings and it is how a society chooses to address that which is a mark of what sort of society it Is and what it is based on is it one based on inclusion, empathy and compassion. or is it based on soci-economics, power structures and politics

Society is well aware of con men and bad faith corrupting self id and might prioritise protecting woman and trans people, and that is all we can ask for isn't it. laws are designed to protect us from bad people some trans people are bad people, but that is true of all groups.

Bespin a feminist should listen to women, I appreciate you are at least trying to engage but you are not accepting women saying they are afraid of male violence and are trying to argue that we are wrong.

You are not trying to play with the girls anymore you are trying to bully them into accepting your opinions and ignoring their fears and opinions

Like just about every woman on this forum I do not want to see trans people discriminated against but neither do I want to see my ability to describe myself as a woman and talk about issues that are unique to female biology outlawed

Bespin, re your last paragraph, how will society know that a person is trans in order to keep the predatory non trans pretenders away? Especially if our definitions are muddled?