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.

Woman = an adult human female, or one who identifies as such

Does that include someone who identifies as someone who identifies as a woman?

But I don't think your personal identification as a woman is necessarily based on your having or not having a vagina. I dont physically have the intellect to describe what I would like woman to be defined as, other than "a gender identity that people can identify with if they want to", but I know that I don't like the definition based on having a vagina, because it's exclusive and it makes some people feel hurt and uncomfortable

Do you really not see the problem with allowing woman to include abyone and eveeyone who feels like it.

You can't fix problems if you can't name them. And if you can't name men as being culprits in the majority of violent crime. If you can't look at regional exam results and how (random example here ) boys aged between 13 and 16 are not reaching targets. If you can't name the hundreds of women in violent relationships how the hell can you solve any of the problems.

Woman = an adult human female, or one who identifies as such

Does that include adult human females who don't identify as such?

I dont have all the answers here. I've read Judith Butler two fucking times and I didn't understand 90% of it.

Let me correct that for you:

I admit it don't have a fucking clue what I'm talking about.

Not everyone has your best interests at heart. In an ideal world, just being nice to people would be brilliant. Sadly, there are occasions where you can't afford to roll over and just accept things without question.

I like Sitting’s post re the idea of broadening ‘man’

I wonder what the objections are to this

Woman = an adult human female, or one who identifies as such

If the definition of a thing is both that thing and other things that identify as that thing, what does 'identify as' mean and are there any other examples of words being defined in this way?

Argumentative

I would argue that you have to make that decision because you're female, i.e. you have a vagina and ovaries and all that sort of stuff

By that description you seem to agree that transwomen can't call themselves "female".

So let's for a moment forget the word "woman", and stick with "female" because your understanding of woman is clearly different from alot of the women here (I think when you say "woman" you are talking about gender, rather than sex).

Do you agree that it is not possible to identify as female, that one is female or they are not?

Do you think that "female" grounded in physical reality?

Do you agree that people who are female will sometimes need spaces and services which are exclusively for females?

but I know that I don't like the definition based on having a vagina, because it's exclusive and it makes some people feel hurt and uncomfortable

Sorry, but that's just not the way the world works. What if I feel excluded from BME issues because I feel 'hurt and uncomfortable' that I'm not black? Do I expect the definition of 'black' to be changed so that includes me, even though I'm white?

Rat: I'm sure it's been said, but your definition is empty of meaning. You should know this by now.

Woman = an adult human female, or one who identifies as such

If the definition is both a thing and something that identifies as that thing, does it mean that to 'identify as' a thing means in some way to not actually be a thing (which is a paradox because it is both the thing and not the thing at the same time)?

So you don't actually know, haven't thought it through, don't really understand...

How then can you say that we're wrong and you're right? Is it just because we're big meanies hurting people's feelings?

I'm willing to listen if you're willing to be coherent.

I know it won't happen. The whole ideology rests on dazzling and guilt tripping the masses. Sorry to burst your bubble, but we deal with facts and logic here.

If 'female' is not based on reproductive role then there is no 'female' to identify with. Do you see, @ratrolypoly? What you have done is to destroy the meaning of the word female as based on reproductive role, and at the same time tried to reclaim it as something you can 'identify' with.

What you are doing is destroying a premise and then trying to use the premise that you have destroyed to prove your case.

Do you see that this means your definition is not only wrong, it can never be right. Empiricism doesn't come into it. It's wrong 'a priori' if you like.

I'm not sure Rat is able to understand that.

Indeed Pratchet its a paradox

I mean, if it was just an "I personally feel that this is what gender is" thing then who cares, right? The problem is that the "it's anyone who says they are" definition is being used to decide who accesses spaces where people are naked, services that women use when they're vulnerable like refuges, who you get when you request a female HCP, who competes against who in sporting events, which prisons criminals are sent to, etc. At that point vague definitions that the person giving them can't even explain or justify just aren't good enough.

If "woman" now includes males, then what word do we use for adult human females, who are clearly completely different?

Put it this way: the trans belief system completely divorces reproductive role from 'gender/sex'.

They say they don't, but they do, because having a male reproductive system is no longer either a necessary or sufficient condition for being a man. It's completely irrelevant. Same with woman.

So you have destroyed the concept of 'man-ness' or 'woman-ness'. There is no 'man-ness' or 'woman-ness' to identify with.

I’ve only read through half of the thread, so please forgive me if this has been said already.
If woman means natal females and anyone who identifies as a woman then what about transmen? Are they also women?

If woman just means anyone who identifies as woman, bearing in mind that it won’t encompass all natal females because some of them will identify as men or other genders, then what does woman actually mean?
I’m a bit confused, because at the same time as expanding the bandwidth of woman to the point where it can’t be defined, it needs to be defined in order to identify into it, otherwise what is the point of identifying into a meaningless category?
Woman exists, both as a definition and physical reality. They know that, and we know that, otherwise why would they be making such a big deal about wanting in? Who would kick up such a bloody great fuss in order to be part of something meaningless?

Wondering how many different and increasingly simple ways to explain this so that transadvocates can understand. @beachcomber @cotedazur

The sort of comment one gets now is 'just because you think it's wrong doesn't mean its wrong' 🙄🙄

The counterpoint to the accusations of logical incoherence seems as ever to be

“Why can’t you just be nice?”

it makes some people feel hurt and uncomfortable

This seems to be what it boils down to for many of the younger generation.

AF I believe has indicated that they are relatively young (assuming we are in agreement that age is still a commonly undisputed fact) so perhaps that is where they are coming from on this.

One of the lessons of having been around the block a few times is that lying to protect feelings rarely has a positive or intended outcome.

That's not to say people should go around being impolite but anything built on a foundation of lies is going to unravel at some point.

If 'female' is not based on reproductive role then there is no 'female' to identify with. Do you see, @ratrolypoly? What you have done is to destroy the meaning of the word female as based on reproductive role, and at the same time tried to reclaim it as something you can 'identify' with.

Yes exactly. If 'female' is nothing to do with biological sex or reproductive systems, then what is it that someone who 'identifies as female' actually 'identifying' with?

If the definition of a thing is both that thing and other things that identify as that thing, what does 'identify as' mean and are there any other examples of words being defined in this way?

Actually yes, there are loads, but you probably won't be aware that that is how they are defined in relation to reality; i.e. dependent on identification. And you probably won't realise because most people don't go into too much about the relationship between words/data and reality, via human thought. Although you're going to get me started on being all academic about the philosophy now because that's my niche...

I'll give you an example to ponder though. Patterns. A pattern is a a regular and intelligible form or sequence discernible in the way in which something happens or is done. So imagine you're observing a sequence of numbers generated by an algorithm and you identify a pattern. You call it a pattern. It is a pattern.

Then you realise that the next numbers in the sequence are not as you expected. It is no longer a pattern; at least you can't say that it is because right now you can't see a pattern that includes those new numbers. But not only that, it ceases to have been a pattern when you previously thought it was.

And then some clever dick comes along and recognises the pattern in the algorithm's new numbers and voila, the whole thing is a pattern again, and has always been, even when it wasn't, and will continue to be until someone recognises that in fact Mrs. Clever Dick made an error in her calculations and the whole thing doesn't exist any more.

Anyway, like I said, loads of words - all, I would suggest - actually depend on a symbiotic relationship between reality and human observation, and of course that observation can come from the person experiencing the reality as well.

So yeah, a room full of women, to all intents and purposes when you simply want to address them all as "women", is usually based on some perception; if you then drill down into it and realise one of them had a penis all along, were they not all women? You took them to be. But then you discover this penis-owner is in fact XX chromosomed and it's a surgically created appendage, were they all women again? So that's the gist of it. Reality and the words we use to describe it depend largely on perception in that moment. Hence why when it doesn't really matter what's in someone's pants or there DNA it's probably A-okay to call them a woman when that is what they perceive themselves to be. Although of course not mandatory if that is not what you perceive them to be. It's a complicated negotiation, philosophically. But such is life.

Had a spare five minutes there, sorry about the text wall.