Why the definition of woman as adult human female doesn't work for the TRAs

[Treaclemine]

I've been thinking this out for some time. Why does it anger the TRAs so much? Each part of it challenges them.
1 Adult. For a long long time women have been regarded as infants, in some cases openly and legally. In 1976, after the change in law, Halifax asked for my father to guarantee my application for a mortgage. He saw them off. No-one would now state this idea openly, but they still think it, or at some layer of the brain feel it to be true, and they don't want to change this.
2 Human. Of course, the default for human has been, for millenia, the male. We don't have the right dangly bits, so don't make the Linnean definition. We can't be human.
3 Female. Since they now have inserted some men into this, we can't have it without being transphobe.

So adult human female can't be true, and they viscerally reject it. By their man brains.

Another thing that may be relevant is that in our culture men get to define and name things. Babies take their fathers name, and wives take their husband’s. In the bible, eve meekly sat back while Adam got to name all of the animals. Women defining themselves as “adult human female” is deeply shocking to patriarchs, because women aren’t supposed to define anything let alone themselves. Men have been writing about women and their “nature” since writing was invented: Aristotle said women were mutated men and a slave class, Schopenhauer said women were more plant than animal, Kant said women weren’t fully moral creatures, Freud said women were a bundle of neuroses who had penis envy, Derrida said women were the lack of a lack and distance without distance.

so for women to turn round, after centuries of being told what they are by men, and to say “nah, we think we’re adult human females” is deeply threatening. Because men are so used to taking what they want and defining reality, they truly expected women to shrug and roll over when men announced that actually THEY are women now, and a woman is anyone who says they’re one. Indeed, some women have let men get their own way as usual but there has also been an uncharacteristic amount of resistance from women who say “no, you don’t get to take this from us”. Adult human female is anathema precisely because it’s a meaning which women have defined for themselves.

It's the 8th Rule of Misogyny:

Men are whatever men say they are and women are whatever men say they are.

Uppity women are destroying the established order.

I'll give Aristotle a bye, he didn't know any better, and at least thought we were human, and did biology, but those modern "philosophers" - more like plants? not fully moral? I suppose the plant thing is being more sessile, waiting for things to be done to, and only applied to the upper class. Not fully moral? And male rapists are? For example of what fully moral men can be? Did these guys ever talk to women?

Yes. When actual rape is handwaved away with a "well rapists are gonna rape regardless of what sign is on the"bathroom" door", yet the hurt feelings of males who want everyone to pretend they are women succeed in changing education, laws and social norms, it is pretty obvious that only one half of society is perceived as human. How very binary.

Missing point of thread entirely but I our house DD is more plant...(vegetarian allergic to eggs)
And ds is more animal... just wants to eat meat and drinks gallons of milk.

Back to the thread...

The Bible has been translated by men...so there are biases in the translation. Men pick the bits out that suit them corrupt them, take them out of context and use it as another tool to keep women under control. Stop women having access to learning etc.

Both men and women together were made in the image of God. Men forget that inconvenient truth.

There are still many branches of church that are very misogynistic. There is some change but underlying attitudes still run deep.

A great conversation if you haven't watched it,

From around 8.30 Helen says:

'And the other thing that's called transphobic is calling men 'men' when they want to be called women. So I won't use (myself personally, although I don't tell other people what they should do) I myself won't call a man who identifies as a woman 'she' and that's called transphobic. But I don't think there's anything hateful about being male - I mean, half the population is male, I'm married to a man, I've got 2 sons, I've got 5 brothers, I like my Dad. You know, I don't have anything against males, they're just a man, that's all.'

Which I know isn't quite the point you're making, but to me it's a control / comply thing. If you state woman = adult human female, you are not indulging their fantasy or complying with their demand that you see them as they see themselves.

Treacle They deconstruct the phrase in their head to make it fit. They are 'adult', they are 'human' and in their opinion (and maybe even under some laws) they are 'female'(after all, it is an F in their passports!).

They have issues being told they are not female or women because they hate being disagreed with.

Did these guys ever talk to women?

Of course not. Why would they bother to talk to an immoral plant with penis envy?

I used to have penis envy as a child when out for country walks, and Dad could go behind a tree and I had to crouch over brambles and nettles. And as adult on Ashdown Forest when I nearly crouched over a melanistic adder. But otherwise, no.

it used to be common to refer to women as 'creatures' (fascinating creature etc), and you still hear it sometimes

The idea of women as not really human is definitely a strong one

you've got to wonder what's wrong with men that this way of thinking seems to run so strongly through them

I don’t think it is anything about that phrase itself ( although it is short , memorable and undeniable biologically, so despicably successful) . I think any definition which doesn’t prioritise and emphasise the superiority of men would be equally enraging

’Non men’ I think was the Johns Hopkins’ suggestion recently. ( That would seem a good definition for the ‘new women’ as per Ricky Gervais btw).

I might start identifying as an immoral plant.

I'm not in the least bit envious of most of the penises I've seen

It’s because with that definition, which is factually correct, they can’t say they are a woman, it goes against their belief that a woman is simply anyone who apparently feels they are one (rendering the term meaningless or at most a feeling).

I say apparently because it’s as ridiculous as a white personal saying they feel or are black, they have no idea what it’s like to be black, they aren’t black and the only reason they feel they are is because of stereotypes associated with black people, it’s offensive and ridiculous, yet we accept men saying they are women for the exact same reasons we are outraged by people like Rachel Doza saying she’s black.

Conveniently they view the word woman and female as two different things and only place importance on the word woman, the same with gender and sex, a woman is an identity someone chose or “accepted”, rather than a biological reality or fact.

In short, in their heads they feel they should be women, but know they aren’t, so are trying to change the meaning of gender and woman/women to accommodate them and their delusions and feelings.

I may get someT shirts made with the slogan:

Woman=an immoral plant with penis envy.

Think it'll sell well?

https://open.substack.com/pub/suzannemoore/p/what-is-a-woman-does-jacqueline-rose?r=clsg2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

And the article which inspired Suzanne Moore's response:

https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/07/the-gender-binary-debate-jacqueline-rose

I'm afraid at this point I'm just done engaging with or debating the batshit, because it just encourages and validates it.

The answer now is 'no mate, you're a man'.

And if you find that offensive or upsetting, that's not my problem. You've pushed me to the discourtesy and if you don't like reality or the truth then get your walloping great size 13s off my feet and stop forcing me to point it out.

Jacqueline Rose is another of those privileged women for whom being a woman is an oppression they wish to escape from. She can only conceive of woman in negative terms.

Question: if it so negative and so oppressive, how come so many men want to be one ( aside from obvious paraphilias relating to submission and subservience):

This is encouraging at a time when the fight over the definition of what a woman is has taken on such virulence. Being a woman is at risk of becoming a protected category, as the binary man/woman hardens into place. 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.

It was Simone de Beauvoir who famously wrote, “One is not born a woman, but becomes one.” Whatever biology may dictate, becoming a woman is something that society, not nature, enjoins on all humans biologically classified as female, as it casts its oppressive diktats over them, mind, body and soul, layer upon layer. But the still-radical edge of de Beauvoir’s statement conceals its more conservative premise – “they become one” – which implies that “becoming a woman” is something that biological females, one way or another, manage to do, however restrictive their lives then become (de Beauvoir’s crushing account of those lives remains unsurpassed). Meanwhile, the idea that “female” is some kind of primordial condition remains, as if it were the bedrock of all the limitations to follow.

To which my answer is becoming an increasingly impatient 'oh ffs, don't be so bloody silly'.

Because all this head up arse wittering and wondering and philosophising has one aim and one end point.

To make 'woman' something a man can own and define and wallow around in for his own benefit, while removing any opportunity from women to protect themselves from him.

And any woman helping with that is nothing more exciting than a dick pandering twit.