Are you a real woman?

[Gingerkittykat]

article

Notice how the author was instructed to delete woman's hour because she didn't like something Jenny Murray said. Let's silence any dissenting voices that don't accept womanhood is a mere feeling inside.

(as an aside is woman's hour any good? I always associate Radio 4 with twee middle class Englishness and the odd time I listen when I am in the Highlands and can't get any other radio signal in the car I end up getting annoyed with it and switch off)

Are you a real woman? You might be surprised to learn than according to feminists Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Jenni Murray, you are not.

no I don't think it would come as a "surprise" that many people know it's not possible to change sex.

What does real mean?

Woman, we as humans understand and know what it means.

I don't tend to think about it. I think of myself as, well as me. I once said something like, "well you know what it's like." to a male doctor and he said, "No, funnily enough I don't." It was about something pregnancy related. We both laughed about it.

Woman's hour can be great or sometimes not so great. Interesting programme about FGM in fundamentalist Christian communities in America. I'd not heard about it before, well I had in a historical context but didn't realise it still went on. Sometimes I switch it off and sometimes it is really interesting or useful, the programme they did about incontinence with very frank and descriptive explanations about exercises was very good and as a woman of 65 I can say my pelvic floor is in good shape now.

I don't really understand that article. I am a real woman. I was born with a vagina and I'm an adult.

I'm pretty sure I have XX chromosomes, die to the fact I have been pregnant and given birth.

I am real. And a woman. I don't 'feel' like a woman. I just feel like me. But the meat suit that carries my brain around is definitely biologically female. So I'm a woman.

I am a woman. And I love woman’s hour (a surprising amount of their listeners are male - my husband used to listen to it when he could). Sure there are people on it sometimes that I want to throw the radio out the window but that’s the point! I wish they didn’t have the drama at the end as I’d rather they did more discussion.

I'll give woman's hour a listen, I'm assuming there will be past programmes available.

I don't know if they are still available but there were some interesting women's hours episodes about gender from the end of last year. Kathleen Stock made Sally Hines look silly in one (though tbf even I could prob do that) there was another with Julie Bindel and Linda Riley, and I think maybe Rosa Freedman was involved in another?
There was an episode in lesbian erasure just this last week - maybe Tuesday?

Of course this is not the way either Adichie or Murray defined it. For them a ‘real’ woman appears to be someone who understands feminist principles inherently through their experience of being an underprivileged female

The writer does have a bit of a point here. There is a tendency on here to make sweeping assumptions about negative aspects of being female which all women are assumed to have experienced. E.g how awful puberty is for a girl; not walking in the dark; being embarrassed by periods.

I'll probably get told I'm making this up- I'm not. Possibly because the things I'm thinking of are actualities which led posters to radical feminism these generalisations do not jar but they often do for me and I don't like or want to be co-opted into some sort of sisterhood on a false premise.

I am a real woman. I am not a FEMININE woman but that means nothing when you have all the kit.

I am a real person, and I happen to have XX chromosomes and breasts and a vagina as well as feet and arms and an arse. I wouldn't know where to begin to try and define "real woman". I couldn't give a flying fuck if someone else wants to turn their penis into a vagina or vice versa. Their body, their life, their choice, and they can define themselves however they like. I don't think transwomen are a threat to ciswomen, and yes I have been a victim of physical and sexual assault at the hands of a man. I do recognise part of Murray's argument that transwomen will not have had the same lived experience as many ciswomen, and cannot claim to be the same, but I would say that's true of all women - we've grown up differently, and will have some experiences in common and some not at all. Also - I don't think most transwomen would claim to be the same as ciswomen - there may be a vocal few, but I suspect they're in the minority. The transwomen I know are quiet and caring and just want to live in the way they feel happiest, and have gone through a lot of trauma to get there. Getting hung up over definitions feels like a waste of time - we're all sentient beings, let's just be kind to each other and get on with our lives.

I think it's too difficult for me! I get as far as sex (biology) and gender (social construction) but which is 'woman'? I view woman as biological, but not sure what others do, so remain in a state of confusion, as I'm sure it's being used in both contexts at different times.

Wasn't that article badly written tho'..?

(Did Willoughby really work at the Dorchester hotel?)

So full of straw men it was a fucking fire hazard.

I’ve deffo got the bog standard woman chromosomes/genitalia/gametes.

I know about the chromosomes due to BRCA2 testing - based on which of my mother’s 2x chromosomes I inherited (the non-faulty one, fortunately).

Nan says It’s a bloody nonsense to not know what a women is, we all came out of one.

Of course this is not the way either Adichie or Murray defined it. For them a ‘real’ woman appears to be someone who understands feminist principles inherently through their experience of being an underprivileged female

I wonder what Adichie and Murray would actually say a real woman is? I suspect it would be based on biology. Biology does lead to many shared experiences which won't be experienced by any transwomen, but surely they wouldn't use the shared experiences as the definition. The biology has to be the deciding factor.

I don't think transwomen are a threat to ciswomen

There are no ciswomen, theyre just women.

And as for being no threat, tell that to the women raped/sexually assaulted in prison, or the ones having to share a dv refuge with a 'former' batterer etc.

Fairly sure I am, given I am female. I have not had my chromosomes tested but I have birthed 2 children so fairly sure that I am indeed female.

Being female is the only requirement for being a woman. No need for silly articles like this, claiming feminists say otherwise when its really a bunch of blokes saying that stuff like what you chose to wear is more important than biology

Stockholm syndrome alert!

What absolute cultified guff.

Man alive - that was poorly written!

'recently wrote'

I found that really jarring.

Who wrote the article and (also) who was the editor, because they both need a talking to.

Is this related to that (rather good) article Murray wrote a while ago?
Worth a read, and I wouldn't say Murray's definition of a woman is quite what the author is claiming!

Btw woman's hour can be very good, sometimes. Sometimes it is crap, and the issues they cover range from the trivial to the very serious. So you'll have a segment about FGM, followed straight after by something about knitting.
It's a real mixed bag.

I love Jenny Murray though, I think she is a particularly good interviewer because she can switch between very different styles depending on who she is interviewing.

According to popular trans ideas, most cunty people in the world are not women, are not female, are not girls. In fact are not anything.

So there's that.

The whole point is that the group on people on the earth of the type that does all the birthing, and everyone knows who they are, and they have been treated in a variety of ways through history often bad because of this, must not be allowed to name themselves as a group.

This is a huge political step coming from a place of extreme misogyny.

Not everyone who is insisting that female is anyone who says they are female realises the end game, maybe, but plenty do.

Nevertheless, if you examine their ideas closely, you will find that what they really mean by ‘real’ women, would exclude many born with vaginas who have just been blithely assuming they were women by default all this time.

For them a ‘real’ woman appears to be someone who understands feminist principles inherently through their experience of being an underprivileged female.

That's a gross distortion of what Murray said. She said real (biological) women tend to know about all the social shit that comes with being a real biological woman in a way transwomen never will.

Also, ciswoman means female woman and transwoman means male woman. That makes transwoman an oxymoron.

I think there is a cohort of men who don't understand reality. They simply don't get it.

I don’t get why this is even a question.
If you were born with
Ovaries + vagina = woman
Testicles + penis = man
None, all, or a combination = intersex

I don’t understand how this is such a debated question.

I think I heard that interview. She doesn’t have a biology GCSE obviously. She believes that you are a woman of you think you are.