A word that seems to have a simple meaning
Steven Gimbel and Gwydion Suilebhan at 3 Quarks Daily tell us how stooooooopid people who think women are adult human females are.
For the last several years, elected Republicans, full of anti-trans zeal, have challenged their opponents to define the word “woman.” They aren’t really curious. They’re setting a rhetorical trap. They’re taking a word that seems to have a simple meaning, because the majority of people who identify as women resemble each other in some ways, then refusing to consider any of the people who don’t.
Yes that’s an honest account. Most people “who identify as women” are alike “in some ways” and then there are other people “who identify as women” who are not alike in those unspecified “some ways.” It’s entirely a matter of who identifies as what, and vague hand-wavey “resembling each other.” It’s squishy all the way down. It’s opinion, it’s idenniny, it’s resemblances; it’s all a matter of choice and taste and preference. It works the same way with identifying as human – most people who identify as human resemble each other in some ways, but others don’t. Clear?
They go on to explain that this is so clear, and so true, that dictionaries have taken note.
On December 13, the Cambridge Dictionary broadened their definitions of “man” and “woman” to include people who identify as either.
The original definition of “woman”: an adult female human being.
The new addition to the definition: an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.
So there! It’s in the dictionary! Take that, Republicans! Dictionaries don’t police words, they tell you how words are used, so once enough people say that men who call themselves women are women, the dictionary has to say it too, and therefore it’s true that men can be women, and we’ll police you if you don’t believe it.
In fact, the definition of the word “woman” has been considered complicated for quite some time. For more than 30 years, at least since the publication of Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, people have understood those complexities.
Judith Butler doesn’t get enough recognition. All by herself she changed what the word “woman” means – she should have some kind of Nobel Prize, shouldn’t she?
And just wait until five years or so from now, when the majority of people who identify as woman resemble each other in that they have penises!
If a definition is “complicated”, you’re doing it wrong.
Thing is, even those who want to be “inclusive” of all who claim to be women recognize the need for a word or expression that refers specifically to one of the two sexes; it’s just that they use phrases like “person with a uterus”. If things continue this way, probably in a few centuries people will be referring to something like “pewiturus” (and there may even be men who claim to be “transpewiturus”).
Which is why “inclusive” is such a ridiculous hooray-word when it comes to language. Words HAVE to exclude almost everything if they are to mean anything.
This seem to be trying to refer to the also stupid concept of ‘cis’ woman. If so, it excludes me (both this definition and ‘cis’). I do not identify as a woman; I am a woman.
I suppose they could get into a semantics argument here; if for some reason I am asked my sex (usually on a written form), I will put ‘female’ or ‘woman’ depending on the available choices. Ergo, I identify as a woman. Checkmate, atheists…oops, sorry, TERFs.
I also do not identify as someone who is comfortable in the sex assigned to me at birth. The expectations of females in this society sit with iron heaviness on my shoulders. I have shrugged off a lot of them, and feel much better now, but they still surround me, and periodically manage to bite me in the butt.
Will they insist Helen Reddy’s song be changed to “I identify as woman hear me roar”?
@ iknklast #5
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