@Whatiswrongwithmyknee
But an objective and factual definition of the word 'woman' is an adult human female:
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woman
That is one definition, which works in many contexts, but I don’t think it captures all of the ways in which people actually use and mean the word ‘woman’.
It is not OK to change the definition to suit one's own purposes and especially it is then not OK to assume that others are using your definition. Gender ideology has not even made an attempt to define woman in any objective or factual way. If it does become, by majority vote, a word which no longer means 'adult human female' but rather means 'people who have internalised societal expectations related to physical characteristics expressed due to chromosomal make up' then there are not many 'women' in the world and we'd need to come up with a new term to describe 'adult human female', which is clearly more than a little ridiculous.
I didn’t attempt to offer any definition of ‘woman’ or ‘man’. I don’t think there are single, concrete definitions that cover all of the facets of those concepts (as is the case for many words and concepts). When I said I was using language objectively I meant I was avoiding using the terms we are arguing about (man, woman, female and male), and instead describing the underlying factual circumstances to avoid getting into issues about definitions.
Do you really think that there are not many women in the world who have internalised societal expectations about what it means to appear ‘feminine’ - do you know how much money is spent every year on cosmetics and cosmetic surgery by women (compared to that spent by men)?
You say you want to be objective, but you don't seem to understand that you're not being objective. You are telling us about your own assumptions and you are naively assuming those are also other people's assumptions. The problem here is that you are not willing to accept that the ideas you have about why other people ask what sex a baby is may not be correct. This may be why you ask, but that does not mean that's the case for everyone else. The same principle applies to your explanation of why you are willing to call yourself a woman. You have internalised societal expectations even though you know they are a social construction. It's good to know your rationale here but it is completely at odds with mine. I am a woman as I am an adult human female and there is, literally, nothing else to that. I may have internalised some societal and other expectations, but some of those expectations which arose in my family, are not of the type traditional associated with females. So, for me, this process is irrelevant to my being a woman.
I wasn’t claiming to be objective - I honestly don’t think any of us is being objective on this subject! Just that I was using language in an objectively accurate way in that particular instance.
I should make clear that I am absolutely not someone who asks the sex of a baby in order to make assumptions about its personality or whether to buy pink or blue clothes. I ask the sex of the baby because it’s one of the few things to say once you’ve established the baby is healthy. And so that I can go out and buy the most gender non-conforming clothes and presents I can find for it. I am passionate about challenging gender-based assumptions and stereotypes, and often pull people up if they make generalisations about women or men, or girls and boys.
Your gender ideology is based on your own assumptions which I think are niche. That certainly seems to be the case on this thread. There is no research to prove that it's a niche view but there is also no research to suggest that the majority of people, specifically the majority of women, want to use the word 'woman' in an entirely different way to how we've been using it since the dawn of language. Such research is the kind of objective facts we need. Your call for objectivity is good. But trying to present your current argument as objective is far from helpful.
On the point about how terms have been used since the dawn of language - surely for much of the history of the word ‘woman’ it has been inexorably bound up with generally accepted (though obviously false) beliefs about the differences between men and women - in terms of capabilities, intelligence, personality and social roles. While I 100% agree that we should all fight to continue to break down those associations, I also think it’s naive to believe that the majority of people are using the words woman and man in a purely biological sense, free from that immense history of other meanings.