What makes a woman a woman?

[FierceMamaBear]

Please discuss.
What makes a woman a woman?
What makes a man a man?

Is a girl who plays football any less of a girl?
Is a boy who plays princesses any less of a boy?
Is a woman who likes a pint at the pub less of a woman?
Is a man who drinks wine in a bubbly bath less of a man?

Is not the suggestion of feeling like a man/woman/boy/girl horrifically outdated and sexist? I felt like society was moving towards accepting of boys playing with fairies and girls playing with trucks, but now it seems very much against that.

Why is that literal human biology is being challenged and not gender stereotypes?

Am I the only one who finds cis offensive? I'm not a cis woman, I'm a woman. I find the term offensive. Women have been suppressed throughout history and to the present day. Women have worked hard to make woman a strong empowering word. I loved the always throw it like a girl campaign. Although, of course, no longer buy always.

Would love a discussion, my OH refuses to talk about it and all he'll say is their brain waves dont match up to their body

What Velveteenfruitbowl said, to the power of a trillion.

Biology. Anything else is self expression/personality/outward appearance but biology makes up the sex we are. Nothing else.

This

A vagina. (Not including those who are Hermaphrodite)

Womanhood has both sociological and physiological elements.

The question was what makes a woman. There are sociological aspects to our lives, but they only apply to the biological group women. Men can't ever have "womanhood".

Very soon, tho, we'll have increasing numbers of young trans people who have been socialised as the opposite sex for most of their childhood and who have not been able to mature properly thanks to medical treatment.

The biological sex class is what defines someone as woman or man.

Unlike some here I think gender is an inevitable result of having two sex classes in a social species with culture and politics, and so also some sense of what is masculine or feminine may go along with that almost inevitably. But that isn't what makes you a man or woman, that's an ass-backward analysis.

This is exactly my perspective as well.

Woman is the word used to describe females of the human species who have reached adulthood.

Just like mare is the word used to describe females of the horse species who have reached adulthood.

Like horses humans are mammals. Mammals cannot change sex.

No horse born male will ever be a mare. No human born male will ever be a women.

The word for horses born male who reach adulthood is stallion. Unless they are castrated when we call them geldings.

The word for humans born male who reach adulthood is man. Unless they are castrated in when we call them eunuchs or castrati depending on the cultural reasons behind the castration.

Biology

Everything else is how your raised

Eg, girl in a shop yesterday kept choosing a boy comic book the mum kept saying no that's for boys no that's for boys she was dressed in pink and a pink tutu

Lots of interesting comments here! I'm glad so many stand by biology. I really want to know why, as a society, we have abandoned human biology? It's such a straightforward concept. Tastes and personality have nothing to do with biology. Will we soon be abandoning it for all mammals?

Gender is surely what you are born with, and gender stereotypes is what's subjective and toxic? Personality is of course a spectrum, but biology isn't. We mustn't think, we mustn't discuss, we mustn't question. That itself is frightening enough.

Love the horse analogy. That's so sad about the little girl not being able to read "boys" comics. This is the exact sort of thing that needs to stop.

I absolutely hate the fact my OH wont talk about it, but he isn't alone in this and that scares me.
IF there is such a thing is a mans or woman's brain then why aren't brain scans compulsory before taking drugs and irreversible surgery? To ensure that the correct support is offered and to avoid trauma?

My brain waves don't match my body. That makes me an epileptic. Its got sod all to do with my sex.

I hate gender stereotypes and believe they restrict men and women and society.
Biology is factual not cultural and biology makes a female adult not culture.
I believe every cell of the human body has dna in it along with chromosomes which tell whether someone is female or male. I feel scared by the new attitude that everyone must treat a transgender person as factually being of the opposite sex. I think it's a symptom of our over-genderrred society where every teenage girl must join a cult obsessed with so called girly things, appearance etc to be a girl. No! And teen boys must be tough , macho and not have any traits considered as female.
I have total sympathy for anyone who feels trans and feel they need support kindness and to be freed from stereotypes.
To be told they can dress, act and do absolutely ANYTHING
they want in a free society. We are all individuals. Complex. Not in crazy old restrictive gender categories.
Wearing make up, preferring long hair and fashion does not make you a woman.

A healthy human body is a beautiful thing, so precious .
Anyone can live in any way they choose, but every cell of a human is either female or male.
Except blood cells with no nucleus or DNA, I believe. And also eggs and sperm I think have half the DNA chromosomes.
Sorry for long post . But I believe if we were all more science-literate then being born in the wrong body would be seen as a feeling caused by society and not real.

www.quora.com/Are-sex-chromosomes-present-in-every-cell-in-human-body

the mum kept saying no that's for boys no that's for boys

Then, when the child thinks "I must be a boy, then, because I like x,y,z" and says that to her parent - everyone declares "he told us from such a young age - it's obviously the truth".

Mammals cannot change sex.

That's an excellent point, for when people talk about clownfish.

Gender is surely what you are born with, and gender stereotypes is what's subjective and toxic?

Sex is what you’re born with. Gender is all the nonsense society piles on top of it.

do you think we are still entertaining this question because a whole generation of 'educated' young people don't read books ( except for their university reading list), and therefore haven't read the classic texts from the various liberation movements of the past? And instead have been exposed only to post modernism and queer studies at university - particularly in certain arts/humanities degrees?

It always strikes me as an incredibly regressive movement, whilst positioning itself as somehow innovative and revolutionary.

do you think we are still entertaining this question because a whole generation of 'educated' young people don't read books ( except for their university reading list), and therefore haven't read the classic texts from the various liberation movements of the past?

I'm not sure if it is a lack of reading as such but there does seem to be a disconnect between the current 'trans movement' and past liberation movements where fighting for your rights, or even supporting those fighting for their rights, came at real, material cost.

By contrast what is going on today all looks a bit of a lark. Well to do, well educated people 'enjoying' a spot of 'campaigning' in the manner they might enjoy a music festival. No threat of arrest, of losing their jobs, of being ostracised by their families.

Sex is what you’re born with. Gender is all the nonsense society piles on top of it.

I'm struggling to see how sex and gender are different. Gender and gender stereotypes are different. But how is gender and sex different? They have always meant the same thing to me growing up, sex being medical speak for gender. Society has decided they are different, which brings the question do gender stereotypes really exist now? Surely they don't? You're a man, a woman or non-binary.(or maybe there's other options now)

Gender stereotypes are different all over the world but I feel like gender and stereotypes are now the same thing. If you get what I mean.

It always strikes me as an incredibly regressive movement

I agree. Surely in the 21st century girls/boys/women/men can do whatever they want without it metaphorically taking away something from their woman or man hood? Because literally, womanhood and manhood is 'acquired' through biology.

I'm not sure how old you are FierceMamaBear but to mid 40s me the word gender is a prudish, Americanised modern imposition. When I was growing up everyone spoke only about sex, sexism, sexist stereotypes. Gender was only really used to refer to masculine and feminine nouns in gendered languages.

I think gender is used in popular discussion as a synonym for 'sex' - however, in biology it is always sex. We don't talk about 'gender chromosomes', do we?

I think it's useful to distinguish between biological sex (XX or XY) which is written at the cellular level and not changeable by any medical treatment; and gender, which captures society's expectations of masculine and feminine eg clothing, voice, pronouns etc. I would argue most gender stereotypes are culturally imposed and self-reinforcing - and have nothing to do with biological sex. If I never wore a dress, or make-up, or shaved my body hair, if I sat with my legs spread wide open on the Tube, wore aftershave rather than perfume, it wouldn't make me one iota less female. Every cell of my body confirms it. But I would stand out in society and probably be labelled as 'masculine' or more PC 'gender non-conforming'. Frankly, the sooner we ditch all gender stereotypes and just let people wear, look and behave how they want to regardless of sex, the better for everyone.

If you have XX chromosomes, you're a woman.

What else makes us women? Constantly having to be aware of our surroundings and evaluating whether anybody nearby could be about to rape or assault you. Being ignored when you contribute an idea in a group, only for a man to say the same thing a bit louder right after and receive hearty approval. Learning how to manage regularly bleeding out of your vagina, probably when you're still just a child. Being called a "slag" if you dress to accentuate your body, being seen as frigid or frumpy if you don't. Having your boobs grabbed or bra undone at school because "boys will be boys". Feeling like a buxom fertility goddess around ovulation, raging through PMS and crippled by pain during your period. Having to "just get on with it" through debilitating menopause symptoms while the world carries on. Being discriminated against by employers because you're a woman of childbearing age, even if you can't or won't have children. Growing life inside your body and feeling your baby move. The message that we should just accept birth injuries as natural and how selfish of you to complain, you got your baby out of it, didn't you? Being patronised by men who don't have half of your experience or understanding. "She's in a bad mood, must be the time of the month". All the unseen home and family work that goes unseen and unappreciated. And so much more.

Not all women experience all of the above, but we share most of it and can understand the other bits we haven't been through. How can these "trans women" even begin to understand the female experience?

Interesting, I'm in my mid 20s and gender was the normal word to use when I was a child. Sex referred to the physical act of sex in normal conversation. Sex, female & male were scientific terms for gender, woman & man. Nobody used them in normal conversation, I hadn't realised that wasn't the case not that long before!
I don't remember any discussions about sexism, not say they didn't happen often but I didn't hear of it. Sexism was rather prominent looking back though and seemed normal, tomboys, Nancy's, that's for girls/boys etc.