Jenni Murray: What is the point of women in Parliament if they're too scared to say what a woman is?

[Abitofalark]

Good question, Jenni.

She has written a blistering piece in the Daily Mail expressing her bafflement at the Dodds, Cooper, Sturgeon trio and hands them a lesson in history of women's struggle: "Why then do female politicians, who owe their place in the corridors of power thanks to the efforts of thousands of women who campaigned for their rights, appear unable to define what and who they are?"

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10600455/JENNI-MURRAY-point-women-Parliament-theyre-scared-say-woman-is.html

There's also an amusing coda to the piece, in which various female writers give their definition of what a woman is.

Who shall answer Jenni's question and call to arms? Not those three, nor her old radio programme either.

A transwoman's dysphora is the product of a biologically male brain. A transman's dysphora is the product of a biologically female brain.

This.

A male person with dysphoria feels like a male person with dysphoria, not a female person without dysphoria.

Similarly, when trans activists ask whether a woman born without a uterus (MRKH syndrome) a woman according to the scientific definition, the answer is clearly yes, because this is a medical condition which only affects female people. If you are a male person, not having a uterus is completely normal.

D Thomas: There are billions of women and some of us — like me — are trans. We are born this way. We did not choose our identity, only how to express it. We are daughters, sisters, friends, neighbours, workmates, wives — but not threats. And all we ask is to be women, just like you.

You are not a woman and never will be, you can never be just like us, get over it and stop fucking insulting women by saying the above risible nonsense.

The only way to make the concept of being born into the wrong body make sense is if you either start advocating for the existence of the soul, which is a religious belief, or you talk about personality -- and we don't make laws on the basis of people's personalities.

reincarnation, so if someone says they are Napoleon you must let them live as such and call them Emperor, or if they were formally a seagull you should let them nick your chips and poop on your head.

If the definition of a woman depends on the context, I wonder if Ms Dodds could explain under what circumstances she no would no longer qualify ?

Is there a tipping point when women shall be removed from womens prisons and placed in the mens ?

Deborah Ross in The Times had a better go at 'what is a woman?' - still a couple of points based on stereotypes but mostly firmly rooted in biology

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e7321bde-9fd1-11ec-b38e-10b333e9179b?shareToken=9731038f39b3acc3e5d3a05dbcdf9eef

Comments were turned off of course!

@Brainwave89

Okay so my definition might be: A woman is a genetic female characterised by a womb, breasts and a vagina. A very small number of women are born into the wrong body as men and then transition. Do you think this would cover it?

No. No one is born into the wrong body. Try again, try better.

@bishophaha you are not gay. You are clearly male and should identify as such.

You are not a woman and never will be, you can never be just like us, get over it and stop fucking insulting women by saying the above risible nonsense

This male person literally wrote a turgid self indulgent column in the telegraph for months about their "transition". In the 90s they wrote an MRA tome about how women always lie.

No fucking surprise that Liz Jones trots out all the tired old typical female stereotypes in one tedious paragraph.

@NoSquirrels

DOROTHY BYRNE

President of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University

A woman is a troublemaker who never does what a man tells her to do. And I believe a woman is a person who self-identifies as a woman.

——

Toe the party line, academia.
FFS.

Yeah, that one made me raise my eyebrows when this whole movement is exactly about women doing exactly what men tell them to or suffer the consequences.
She cannot possibly have missed this if she is following the debate at all.

@Brainwave89

Okay so my definition might be: A woman is a genetic female characterised by a womb, breasts and a vagina. A very small number of women are born into the wrong body as men and then transition. Do you think this would cover it?

A woman is an adult human female. That definition already covers it.

Not wanting to be a woman doesn't stop a woman from actual being one, really wanting to be a woman will never make a man a woman either. A woman is just a female person, not an achievement or prize, or feelings or stereotypes.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

You are not a woman and never will be, you can never be just like us, get over it and stop fucking insulting women by saying the above risible nonsense

This male person literally wrote a turgid self indulgent column in the telegraph for months about their "transition". In the 90s they wrote an MRA tome about how women always lie.

Well colour me surprised - misogynistic male accuses women of being liars and then doubles down on the misogyny whilst performing and telling the biggest lie of all.

@Brainwave89

Okay so my definition might be: A woman is a genetic female characterised by a womb, breasts and a vagina. A very small number of women are born into the wrong body as men and then transition. Do you think this would cover it?

It would cover it if there was such a thing as being born into the wrong body. There isn't.

Neither is it workable if you ignore that, because, given there's absolutely no evidence for it, you can't verify it in anyone. Anyone can say it.

And they do.

If your comment was genuine, and it might easily be, this is quite a good thread which provides sufficient knowledge to totally grasp the issue, by the time you're only halfway through it.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

@Ereshkigalangcleg

You are not a woman and never will be, you can never be just like us, get over it and stop fucking insulting women by saying the above risible nonsense

This male person literally wrote a turgid self indulgent column in the telegraph for months about their "transition". In the 90s they wrote an MRA tome about how women always lie.

Yes, it's remarkable how often it happens. Man who loathes women and thinks they are good for nothing, ripe for oppression and being treated like dirt, suddenly finds a compulsion to become one.

How Thomas manages to square the circle that Thomas can't stand women for almost all Thomas's adult life, and then claims to have always been one, is beyond me.

@VestofAbsurdity

D Thomas: There are billions of women and some of us — like me — are trans. We are born this way. We did not choose our identity, only how to express it. We are daughters, sisters, friends, neighbours, workmates, wives — but not threats. And all we ask is to be women, just like you.

You are not a woman and never will be, you can never be just like us, get over it and stop fucking insulting women by saying the above risible nonsense.

Nor do you become a woman by 'asking'. You are just stuck with it.

It's not some sort of reward for effort. It's not a preference. It's a fact of biology, no more and no less.

How Thomas manages to square the circle that Thomas can't stand women for almost all Thomas's adult life, and then claims to have always been one, is beyond me.

Always interesting to look at the expressed desire and reflect on whether it is a desire to join, or to replace.

Dorothy Bryne’s was the worst definition for me. So abused women aren’t women? Trafficked and prostituted women aren’t women? A woman with a male boss (a Labour or Tory MP perhaps) isn’t a woman? What absolute crap. Would expect a better effort from a Cambridge academic!

I heard Yvette Cooper being asked the question by Stig Abel the other day, and was so disappointed to hear her reply. Yvette you are a woman for goodness sake, you are allowed to call yourself one. WTF is the rabbit hole you are so scared of?

@Artichokeleaves

How Thomas manages to square the circle that Thomas can't stand women for almost all Thomas's adult life, and then claims to have always been one, is beyond me.

Always interesting to look at the expressed desire and reflect on whether it is a desire to join, or to replace.

Indeed. It's all rather, er, Stepford-esque.

If we can be born into the wrong body, then I strongly believe I should have been born into a body with knees that don't grind and threaten to throw me down the stairs.

I was also born into the wrong body. My real body, the one I suffer the most profound dysphoria over, doesn't have Sarcoidosis, Hypertension, Chronic Kidney Disease and Oedema.

(I think Charleze Theron got mine. Bitch won't give it back. I'm waiting for the appointment from the NHS about the liposuction and that weird one where they put metal rods in your thighs to make you taller, but they're taking their own sweet time about it..).

Dorothy Byrne is head of one of only two women’s colleges in Cambridge. I sincerely hope she doesn’t admit men who identify as women. (Whatever that means.)

Murray Edwards College admits anyone who identifies as a woman, no questions asked. Newnham admits anyone who identifies as a woman and has gone through or is going through some form of transition process.

Is Dorothy Byrne the one who told women not to forget about their fertility? There was a bit of a furore.

I did enjoy Amanda Platell’s “women don’t have a penis” being put directly below D Thomas’ rubbish.

Oh FFS I am too tired and too cross for this.

Woman is to have the inescapable biological reality that you are born with two XX chromosomes and that your entire reproductive system is aligned around producing large, immobile gametes.

This biological reality (centred around reproduction) means that you are going through female puberty instead of male puberty, that your skeleton is aligned in a different way compared to male skeletons. It also means a lower lung and heart capacity and less muscle mass compared to males, especially after males have gone through male puberty.

Due to this inescapable biological reality (weaker and reproductive capacity), women have been oppressed through history.

How did I do on the definition front?