What is the biological definition of a woman (and man)?

[Wombat2WombatCombat]

I understand the argument for single sex spaces, but just for the avoidance of any doubt, does anyone have an exact, biological definition of a woman (or man) that we can hold people to? If we want to enforce the idea of single-sex spaces, we will need an exact criteria to determine who is or isn’t a ‘real’ woman, so I was wondering if anyone could tell me exactly what that is?

Why is intersex relevant to you ?

How many legs do humans have ?

mrkhvoice.com/

What I mean is how does the ‘designed to produce certain gametes’ translate into exact hormones/organs/genetics etc? Sorry if that wasn’t clear

It sounds like you're looking for something like this, OP. www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/anisogamy

Very interesting topic, and it's fascinating how the two-gametes model is universal in sexually reproducing animal species, so I hope you have fun educating yourself! But of course it's got absolutely fuck all to do with single sex spaces.

Four year olds can figure out which humans are male or female without needing to study a biology textbook, as can dogs and parrots. If you find it complicated then you owe it to yourself to understand why you are so atypical - I would guess that perhaps it's a culturally-bound syndrome of some kind rather than something neurological?

You haven’t cause offence, OP - but we are used to the faux naïveté of activists claiming on here that they just want to know more, but are really only interested in harvesting screenshots to post on Twitter to ingratiate themselves with their followers.

We have a great deal of knowledge between us here on Mumsnet. But we’ve done the graft to get to that position. It’s irksome to have someone come here and expect us to do all the grafting again because they can’t be bothered.

Why do you single out humans? Humans are no different from other mammals. What do you think is the difference between a sow and a boar? A cow and a bull? A ewe and a ram? A tib and a tom? A bitch and a dog? A doe and a buck? A nanny and a billy? A mare and a stallion? A jill and a jack? A woman and a man? The definition of male and female is consistent across all these species. What is more the same definition also applies to apple trees - large immobile gametes versus small mobile ones. Hormones, organs, genitals are just mechanisms to bring these types of gametes together and grown then into offspring but it is the type of gamete that determines sex.

Birds do it breed do it even educated fleas do it

Females are adapted to produce ova, males are adapted to produce sperm. That's the bio definition. Note that a female does not actually have to currently be producing ova in order to be female. A postmenopausal female has no more eggs but is still female because she is adapted to producing eggs (has the metabolic and cell differentiation in her gonads that is adapted to producing eggs).

In humans, of course. In flowers (for example), the words and appearance of the gametes would be different.

There are concepts which are called phenotypes. A phenotypical woman will have primary sex characteristics of a womb, ovaries, vagina, clitoris and vulva and a hormone profile in which oestrogen and progesterone are dominant and testosterone is secondary. She is very likely to have secondary sex characteristics of developed breasts, a high voice, a narrow waist and wider pelvis and hips, and no beard, as well as a shorter average height (and others which would take too much time to list). This is again very likely to result from a sex chromosome pairing of XX.

A phenotypical man will have male primary sexual characteristics of testicles, a scrotum, a penis and a prostate gland, and a hormone profile in which testosterone is dominant and oestrogen and progesterone are secondary. He will very likely have secondary sex characteristics of undeveloped breasts, a beard, a low voice, a narrow pelvis and hips and a higher average height. (Again, the full list is longer). These are likely to result from XY sex chromosomes.

Whether someone is a man or a woman (or, if a child, a boy or a girl) depends on which phenotype that particular person better matches. In most cases, people are pretty close to one or other phenotype and generally casual observation will suffice. That is aided by the fact that most people choose to adopt modes of dress and behaviour that are particularly associated with one or other sex.

While there are a number of recognised medical conditions that make those who have them a less good match for one or other phenotype, the number of those people is proportionally small (though a world population of 7.8 billion means that there must actually be quite a lot of them - there are different views in medical-scientific community as to what the proportion is, but if as a PP said, it is 1 in 40,000, then if there are 68 million people in the UK there are 1,700 of such people), most of them will identify more strongly with one or other phenotype and behave accordingly.

Ultimately, though, because biology is messy, there is no exact definition.

but recently I have learnt about all of the various intersex conditions, and wanted to know how they fit into everything

I am sure during your learning you will have learnt that people with 'intersex' conditions are either male or female. There is no third gamete and no human can produce both fertile ova and sperm.

If I’m understanding everyone correctly, it sounds like it isn’t so much of a case of there being clear cut biological conditions, so much as it is that the numbers of outliers are too small to be worth considering? Please correct me if I’m wrong as I don’t want to misrepresent anyone’s point

TalbotAMan there is an exact definition: large immobile gametes versus small mobile gametes. The production of gametes type is part of phenotype.

You are wrong

Woman- human with xx chromosomes whose body under healthy conditions produces eggs and has the capability of birthing a baby human from her womb.
Man- xy chromosomes whose body under healthy conditions has the capability of producing sperm in his testicles, delivered by a penis and which have the capability of fertilising eggs from a woman.
Simple biology 🙄🤷‍♀️

To be fair to the OP, it can be confusing.
For instance, the other day I went to buy half a dozen eggs. Chicken eggs that is.
Imagine my surprise when I got home and the carton was full of rooster spunk!
Goes to show…

(Apologies in advance for lowering the tone.)

The 'outliers' do not change the definition of sex.

Human

Primate
Homo sapiens
Mammal
Ground dwelling
Capacity for speech and language

Adult

Full grown

Somewhere between 18 and 25

I realise I have used other normal words in these descriptions

OP Going back to your original post. Could you explain simply why we need to enforce single sex spaces? Why do you think it is not enough to say "males are not welcome in female spaces"? Do you think males may try and abuse these spaces by pretending they are women?

it isn’t so much of a case of there being clear cut biological conditions, so much as it is that the numbers of outliers are too small to be worth considering?

You appear to think that "clear cut biological conditions" cannot have "outliers." (And I think you probably meant "edge cases" not "outliers.")

If you think about it for a moment I'm sure you'll realise that this doesn't make any sense. All categories have edge cases.

Going back to the op abs the word "enforce "

Don't worry your head OP the vast majority of the population are quite capable of the necessary enforcement without you understanding it

@Lovelyricepudding

TalbotAMan there is an exact definition: large immobile gametes versus small mobile gametes. The production of gametes type is part of phenotype.

No. That is the definition of female or male. OP asked about a definition of woman (or man). It is, I would argue, more complex than that. It does involve the consideration of the whole phenotype and the closeness of the individual to one or other phenotype.

In any case, in humans (and probably most animals as distinct from plants) it is wrong, because ova are mobile - they move from the ovaries at ovulation through the fallopian tubes and into the womb - they are just less mobile than sperm. Again, in humans sperm are self-propelled and ova probably aren't, but that's not true of all species (plants often rely on pollen being transported by insects or by air movements).

I believe OP was expecting us to tie ourselves in knots.
It seems very difficult to detect which of us produces large gametes but very easy to detect that inner feeling of pink sparkly brain.

Funny how most humans can manage without any definition ain't it