"What Is A Woman" by Richard Dawkins - in the the New Statesman!!

[Qbishy]

Wow, I can't imagine the New Statesman, of all mags, commissioning this a year ago...

Why biological sex matters - New Statesman

Note: We asked two thinkers to address one of the most vexed questions of our time: “What is a woman?”
Here, Richard Dawkins argues that biological sex represents a “true binary”. See here for Jacqueline Rose on why that binary should be challenged.

OK, so they're doing a "both sides" thing, but a year or so ago there wouldn't have been two sides!

We should question a mindset that viciously excludes whole groups of people

ah, old vicious reality again

someone should really do something about that

This is happening even though it has always been a central goal of feminism to repudiate the very idea of womanhood, as a form of coercive control that means the end of freedom.

what self hating bullshit is this?

The opposing article is infuriatingly inane, bekind nonsense.

From Jacqueline Rose's woolly nonsense:

"This is why the suggestion that trans women are all potential abusers invading women-only spaces is so misguided and cruel. There are, it is true, trans women who assault other women in prisons – though, in one of the most notorious UK cases, contrary to the press reports, the most violent acts of abuse occurred outside prison before transition took place and included an assault against a man."

Oh well that's fine then

I see that 'what is a woman' question and think - they're the group of people so low on society's ladder that it's apparently fine for a lot of people, mostly men, to wank away philosophically and existentially on their reality and name and rights.

We should question a mindset that viciously excludes whole groups of people

No. We should instead be vigorously questioning a mindset and a mind that thinks women's reality and equality should be re organised around a small group of males with very special needs.

The excluded (mostly male) whole group of people!! Oh just fuck off. The constant baiting of women and girls is so tiresome.

This! Absolutely agree.

And it’s funny how men have never had to reshape their reality to accommodate women with a male gender identity. The ‘What is a Man?’ question has never become part of the discourse. How patriarchal of men, however they identify, to think they have a right to reframe and redefine womanhood without even asking for our opinions, never mind our permission.

"We should question a mindset that viciously excludes whole groups of people."

Why? Should we question a definition of disabled people that excludes able-bodied people? A definition of children that excludes adults? A definition of French people that excludes Germans?

The whole argument is so utterly moronic.

Anyone who thinks Andrea Long Chu, the misogynist who described women as blank eyes & an expectant arse, is a valid source has to be a complete idiot.

We should question a mindset that viciously excludes whole groups of people

But ’woman’ is not a mindset, it’s simply the name of half the human race. How can that be vicious? Or good or bad or any other quality?

Any defined group has to exclude some others, otherwise it wouldn’t be that group. Legs are the limbs that aren’t arms. Women are adults who aren’t male. Nothing vicious about it.

"This is why the suggestion that trans women are all potential abusers invading women-only spaces is so misguided and cruel"

For "trans women" read "men". Rose characterises the principle of sex-based safeguarding via segregation as vicious.

Anyone who thinks Andrea Long Chu, the misogynist who described women as blank eyes & an expectant arse, is a valid source has to be a complete idiot.

Zero mention that Chu is a male trans rights activist.

Dawkins - bunch of solid science.

Rose - meandering nonsense like ignoring the fact the word female was in English use long before we had slave societies. Also hilariously she relies on FREUD. Freud is outdated but it is totally based on a sexual binary. Also she should bear in minds Freud’s view of crossdressing, the “sexual inversion hypothesis.” Men's desire to dress as women was all about heterosexual sex drive focused on women's clothing and/or repressed homosexuality. Based on looking at a bunch of cases of transvestites the familiar pattern was apparent even then. Basically a forerunner of AGP theory. One of the areas where Freud's ideas actually have some merit.

However Rose forgets Freud's actual thinking in an attempt to create a fantasy world where men and women are vague terms.

A professor of critical theory versus one of zoology, evolution and actual science isn’t a fair match. But Rose’s piece is poor even for critical theory. It has all the ragged straw men and tired old tropes (misinterpretation of Beauvoir, not-all-men, be-kind, what about women who’ve had their uterus removed - and even ‘what about transmen with uteruses’).

Apparently concern about males in female spaces, services and sports, conceals “the yawning gulf between rich and poor, the escalating brutality of racial and gender inequality, the advancing climate catastrophe”.

It really is that piss-poor.

even ‘what about transmen with uteruses’).

Which is idiotic. Yeah, they are women. I don't believe in your ideology, that's the point. I've had genderists honestly say many times, what would you say if it was a "trans man saying he was a man", as if its a cunning gotcha because we're only pretending not to believe in gender identity ideology so we can be mean to "trans women".

Didn't even read that and knew that if it was Dawkins against anyone it would be Godzilla meets Bambi.

"This is why the suggestion that trans women are all potential abusers invading women-only spaces is so misguided and cruel.

This womenbekind bullshit is getting on my nerves.

...Dawkins actually understands and explains clownfish and DSDs, repurposes the phrase "fictive sex", alludes to "the new religion of transsexual transubstantiation", and references Shrier, Joyce and Stock.

Rose understands little, and throws in references to Chu to reflect her belief that the standpoint of a given member of the marginalised group must have precedence. The bizarre point she is keen to glean from Chu is that the notion of 'female' is racist. And demonising males is analogous to racism: the mindset that believes in safeguarding (ie separation of all biological males and females where the latter are vulnerable) is "characteristic of some of the most reactionary politics of our times", and "viciously excludes whole groups of people".

She hails "transitioning" as "one of the most imaginative leaps in modern society" without saying what the word means. Because, I guess, words do not have meaning.

I'm not the greatest fan of Dawkins, but it's an excellent article. Definitely one that can be shared with people not familiar with the debate.

In fact I can see me posting it every time someone posts that Scientific American article the TRAs like so much.

Shame about the mention of Jan Morris as a 'true transsexual', when this article by Suki Morys shows that Morris was quite typical of the late transitioning male.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jan-morris-was-a-trans-pioneer-and-a-cruel-parent-9x82s5cg9

I was disappointed by the Jan Morris reference too. I don't really believe in the "true transsexual" idea any more but I suppose it takes a long time to shake off these entrenched ideas.

For those who don't know her, Jacqueline Rose is quite famous in her field. It depresses the hell out of me that someone who has reached the pinnacle of her profession can be so unutterably stupid.

I'm actually quite ok with 'viciously excluding male people' so that female people have equality of access, can use public spaces, join in public life, minor stuff like that which those male people would happily deny them to meet their own needs.

There is limited point in wailing at women to care and mind about people who have no fucks to give about them. No. Not a doormat, not co dependent, not a misogynist, and not that bloody stupid.

Shame about the mention of Jan Morris as a 'true transsexual', when this article by Suki Morys shows that Morris was quite typical of the late transitioning male.

Yes, I doubt Dawks was aware of that.