Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

A woman is...

40 replies

DryHeave · 04/07/2020 18:01

“A woman is someone with a female body and any personality. Not a ‘female personality’ and any body.”

From @FoggyTrails on twitter and one of the most succinct, best-articulated statements I’ve read to date.

OP posts:
BahHumbygge · 05/07/2020 12:20

A woman is more than her biology, but never less.
Take biology away from womanhood, and you are left with a word devoid of all meaning and significance. Yet each woman adds her own style, personality, interests and cultural background to her perception of her own womanhood, while recognising that the only baseline thread connecting every woman on earth is having undergone the developmental pathway of the human body towards having a womb and eggs.

Depicting women by biological sex = simple description of an empirical phenomenon, that liberates women to be whoever they want to be, subject to her own physical ability/constraints.
Depicting women by gender identity = complex prescription of codes, norms and stereotypes by society that yokes women into restrictive gender roles and attitudes.

Gender is never liberatory, it is always subjugatory.

BovaryX · 05/07/2020 12:37

If we imagine words as things that hurtle through time and space like cultural meteors

Hmm. It's interesting, isn't it? Many of the graduates of Judith Butler College are obsessed with dismantling meaning and redefining definitions of basic words according to whim. Trapping people into linguistic paralysis by forcing them to use compelled speech which contradicts external reality? This is the Newspeak dictionary where words are not a means of communication, but a tripwire designed to blow people up.

IWantT0BreakFree · 05/07/2020 12:41

Perhaps someone's mind is more important than their physical appearance in defining their identity? Just a thought.

Are you going to come back and answer people's responses to this? Have a discussion perhaps? Or are you one of those tedious posters who drops what they consider to be an enlightened, snappy one-liner and then scuttles off without actually adding anything to the topic?

As per PPs, I'd like to know what you think a 'female mind' is. After all these years, this is often what the discussion boils down to and I've never heard any TRA give a definition that isn't simply a list of harmful, misogynist stereotypes. Some of them know that this is the case, so when asked the question they will disappear and refuse to engage further. I guess you are one of the latter types.

Also, 'identity' refers to a series of facts about an individual. Things like sex, ethnicity, age etc. These are immutable characteristics that are completely unrelated to feelings, thoughts, wishes or desires. Someone may think that they "feel" like a woman, but that feeling has no power to alter their physical reality. Plus, as per my last paragraph, "feeling like a woman" can only be based on misogynistic stereotypes. Womanhood is defined purely by biology, not feelings. If it were based on liking dresses, drinking cocktails and playing with dolls as a child then there are plenty of biological women who wouldn't qualify.

What's the "physical appearance" thing about, too? You don't think that women have to look a certain way, surely? Think you might have shown yourself there.

MiladyRenata · 05/07/2020 14:15

Yes I will respond. I just want to give myself time to digest everything and provide the considered reply the points above deserve.

ErrolTheDragon · 05/07/2020 14:37

I'd say my mind is more important to me than physical appearance in defining my 'identity' - because I really don't care that much about appearance, and if asked who I was one of the first things I'd mention might be being a scientist.

But that's orthogonal to my being a woman, which is entirely and immutably dependent on my biology. Some aspects of my 'identity' stem from this - being a mother is the most obvious one.

TheGoogleMum · 05/07/2020 15:16

I'd say a woman is born with female sex organs/female reproductive system regardless of how well it functions. The opression women face is becuase of this and nothing to do with personality or appearance or identifying any particular way.

Fairenuff · 05/07/2020 15:24

A woman birthed every human on the planet ever.

merrymouse · 05/07/2020 15:26

drawing a line around the edges of “woman” is an impossible task.

www.theguardian.com/football/2019/oct/09/iranian-women-allowed-to-watch-football-at-stadium-for-first-time-in-decades

How did they know who to ban?

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/aug/26/ready-married-kidnapped-brides-vietnam-china

How do they know who to kidnap?

first100years.org.uk/a-woman-is-not-a-person-a-review-of-bebb-v-the-law-society-1914/

How did they know which humans aren't people?

Its a mystery.

NiceLegsShameAboutTheFace · 05/07/2020 16:02

Perhaps someone's mind is more important than their physical appearance in defining their identity? Just a thought.

You're taking the piss; you've gotta be Hmm

ErrolTheDragon · 05/07/2020 17:32

drawing a line around the edges of “woman” is an impossible task.

Why does it never seem to occur to people who spout this sort of drivel that if it was true, the same would apply to men... and realised that actually 'man' can encompass gender nonconforming and even dysphoric men. (Have they never seen that photo of Fionne Orlander in his 'adult human Male' t-shirt?)

There's a clear, easy line to be drawn; notwithstanding DSDS, it's the binary of sex. The vast majority of humans know this.

ErrolTheDragon · 05/07/2020 17:32

drawing a line around the edges of “woman” is an impossible task.

Why does it never seem to occur to people who spout this sort of drivel that if it was true, the same would apply to men... and realised that actually 'man' can encompass gender nonconforming and even dysphoric men. (Have they never seen that photo of Fionne Orlander in his 'adult human Male' t-shirt?)

There's a clear, easy line to be drawn; notwithstanding DSDS, it's the binary of sex. The vast majority of humans know this.

ErrolTheDragon · 05/07/2020 17:33

Apologies for the double post, it said I needed to retry.

DickKerrLadies · 05/07/2020 17:51

@Fairenuff

A woman birthed every human on the planet ever.
Well exactly. You'd think people who spend so much time navel gazing would understand that.
ErrolTheDragon · 05/07/2020 17:54

Well, yeah, but they were all just mothers.

ValancyRedfern · 05/07/2020 19:04

In case it wasn't clear why I posted the link, both Helen Joyce and myself have a very clear and simple definition of womanhood which does not involve any comets hurtling through space or millennia old palimpsests!

New posts on this thread. Refresh page