Wossa woman?
On Any Questions yesterday, starting at 33:50 minutes, a caller named Arthur asked “What is a woman?”
Jackie Baillie, Labour, starts with “I’m supportive of the Gender Recognition Act,” then says she recognizes “there are women who will identify as being a women based on their sex”
Ok let’s pause there – that’s a “recognize” too many. Women don’t “identify as being women based on their sex.” They just are women. Women are women, based on their sex. Sticking the I-word in there adds nothing but confusion.
She continues “and there are trans people whooo you know may be born as a different gender who will identify as women and I think we should demedicalize the process and enable them to live as they feel they should do.”
So, she doesn’t answer the question.
The presenter says let’s take a step back, we’re talking about a conflict of rights, between people who identify as blah blah blah many words blah, tiny pause, “and women, and Jackie you would expand the rights for trans people…” In other words the important issue is these people who need many words to explain, not those stupid people who are just the one dull word “women.” The hell with women, let’s talk about expanding the rights of the enthralling mesmerizing fascinating exciting men who say they are women.
Next up, Lorna Slater for the Scottish Greens, who announces that it’s not a question asked in good faith, it’s an anti-trans position. Cool, so much for women then, because who cares. The presenter says hang on, you’re assuming Arthur’s motives, that’s not fair. Slater says it’s a dog-whistle question that tries to make it seem as if women’s rights are threatened by trans people which they are not, absolutely no conflict between women’s rights and trans rights, trans women are women. Human rights are human rights, she concludes. Breathtakingly stupid and fanatical and, if she only knew it, misogynist.
There’s more; maybe later.
I’m regularly astonished by how many TRAs manage to simultaneously claim that gender ideology is scientific and doesn’t need to define terms clearly. I can’t think of any scientific claim that has such vague, fluid, unexpressed and inexpressible basic concepts. “What’s natural selection?” “No, that’s a Creationist trap. It’s selection that’s natural and I’m not going to play your game.”
“Gender Identity” they’ve got, and will eagerly pipe up with some variation on “the internal sense/knowledge that one is a man, a woman, or neither.” It’s at least something.
Outside of that is a void.
“Man?” Don’t know.
“Woman?” Can’t say.
“Gender?” Not what you think it is, that’s for sure.
“Sex?” Assigned and a spectrum, the existence of which we aren’t denying.
“Patriarchy?” Gender-based, man over woman.
“Why?” Don’t know.
I’m also bemused that the above is supposed to be the questioner playing a game, and the questioned putting up with it more than they should. Because the science has settled all this.
Obviously, I’m open minded and progressive, so I do recognize that there are people who identify as being 155 lbs based on their weight. And there are transthin people whooo you know may be measured as a different weight who will identify as 155 lbs and I think we should demedicalize the process and enable them to live as they feel they should do.
@Nullius in Verba:
First business is for manufacturers to stop assigning “size” to clothing. We can announce our heartfelt weight-identity by wearing our preferred labels on our sleeves.
But how many people are actually asking what a “man” is? Damn few as far as I can tell. Maybe it’s because “man'” is the standard, the default, THE model of what it is to be human. “Woman” is the incomplete, defective, the non-standard, the exception, the alien, the exotic other. A novelty to be sure, but not an important one to be taken into consideration when organizing, planning, or designing…anything.
I don’t know of any health information campaigns aimed at “ejaculators,” “penis-people,” or “prostate-havers.” I don’t think for an instant that any such attempt like that would fly for far or long, because men’s needs are considered too important to fuck around with. Men are allowed to be self-defining: women are not. Men do the defining: women are defined. Men do: women have things done to them.
By reducing women to some mysterious, earthy, essence that nobody really knows how to define, then being a woman is open to anyone who can reel off that one sentence of de Beavoir. It’s not that hard to clear such a very low, ill-defined, vaporous bar of “womanhood.” “Yes/no,” and “either/or” gets replaced by, “Well, yeah, sure, why not?” I mean Eddie Izzard for fucks sake! Suddenly there are lots of ways to be a woman! Imagine that! Who knew? Once the bar is cleared and the redefinition is in place, and the word “woman” is drained of sense and meaning, the fight for women’s rights becomes a war on two fronts, and that much harder to sustain.
But it’s all a sham, because when it’s really important, the fog clears, and the certainty and clarity that has been so vehemently denied, magically reappears. When the patriarchs need someone to use, or blame, or both, they know exactly what a woman is.
While totally missing her point.
@Sastra: Well, the last shirt I bought off the rack said size S for “standard”, so I think we’re already heading that way. Because small would be just too insulting or something, I guess.