4 ms·
It’s perfectly simple, until you lose track of the distinction between sex and gender.
by jimbokun 4y ago
It’s perfectly simple, until you lose track of the distinction between sex and gender.
- undersuit 4y ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> Define woman simply Define love. Define consciousness. These words are fractals, simultaneously simple and complex. It’s alarming that we’re unable, as a matter of discourse, to accept this useful ambiguity anymore. At its simplest, a woman is a person who identifies as such. At among its most complex, it’s an empowered expression of femininity. That there isn’t a single definition doesn’t make the word bad, it makes it human.
- undersuit 4y agoThis isn't a simple definition! But I'm OK with this. One of the original people demanding "define a woman" was a law maker. If we're making laws that use the word woman we need to have a stringent definition.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> we're making laws that use the word woman we need to have a stringent definition Not ex ante. That’s the strength of common law. If you have a problem with this, consider why we need laws which define womanhood. (Yes, I am an ERA proponent.)
- undersuit 4y agoI don't know why we need laws that define woman or womanhood. Would you offer an example? An ERA proponent is in reference to an Equal Rights Amendment?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> don't know why we need laws that define woman or womanhood I don’t. And I’m struggling to play devil’s advocate, which is uncommon. > ERA proponent is in reference to an Equal Rights Amendment Yes.
- dragonwriter 4y ago> One of the original people demanding “define a woman” was a law maker. If we’re making laws that use the word woman we need to have a stringent definition. We don’t (and, contrary to a sibling comment, this is not particular to common law, it applies in civil law jurisdictions as well, though it may be more true in the common law). If every word in law needed a “stringent definition”, the law would be so full of definitions you’d never be able to find the rules that actually apply them to the real world. Laws sometimes need stringent definitions, and they sometimes need disambiguation between plausible alternatives that don’t actually require a stringent definition, and sometimes they get by just fine with no definition at all.
- jimbokun 4y agoUm, court cases very often hinge on how to define the words used in writing laws.
- yibg 4y agoIt's a useless definition. A woman is someone who identifies as a woman. Circular definition much? Makes the word pretty much meaningless.
- undersuit 4y agoGood. I don't see a need for an outside authority to define whether I'm a man or a woman. I am my own person and I can make my own decisions. Is my gender identity invalid if I'm not someone who fits into the gender norms? Am I a woman if Customer Support thinks my voice is feminine?
- jimbokun 4y agoThe most basic rule of making a usable definition of a word, is that it cannot be self referential.
- sorokod 4y agoa woman is a person who identifies as such This is circular an so, not a deninition. Not a problem as long as this is part of an internal personal model. It is a problem when reasoning about social structures.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> is circular an so, not a deninition It’s Cartesian, not circular. There’s a difference. We don’t need it rigorously defined for it to have meaning—that’s the point. (This does make it a word incompatible with precise endeavours like lawmaking.)
- sorokod 4y agoYou did not define, rigorously or otherwise. As to needs, when we turn to conversations on how to structure a society, subjective meaning is not sufficent - definitions are required.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> subjective meaning is not sufficent - definitions are required This is the flaw. It isn’t. It is required if we will write rules with respect to it. But there is another way. Forcing everything into an objective definition is the source of our divides, not a solution to anything. Statesmen, from Cicero to Hamilton to Obama, understood this. But there is an emerging tendency to treat every system as technical, and that is destructive.
- sorokod 4y agoJust came back from my son's Judo competition. The children are paired by age and weight - girls separately from the boys. What is your take on this arrangement?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> girls separately from the boys. What is your take on this arrangement? That it’s irrelevant to the definition of a woman. That’s the strength of fuzzy definitions. When separating the kids, did anyone formally define what a girl or a boy is? Did every parent in that room need to resolve every edge case to their implied definitions ex ante? Could you guarantee conflict by forcing a formal definition on that group, even if it results in the same practical outcome the implied, unsaid definition yielded and which was peacefully accepted by the group? No, no and, of course, yes.
- StanislavPetrov 4y agoXX instead of XY. The fact that 1 in a million people is neither a man or a women has no bearing on this fact.
- undersuit 4y ago[flagged]
- vianneychevalie 4y agoWe call them a chimera?
- dragonwriter 4y agoSex essentialists exploding the gender binary is…a new one.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago[flagged]
- dragonwriter 4y ago[flagged]
- catiopatio 4y ago[flagged]
- dragonwriter 4y agoLike a “race”, a “gender” is a social grouping of either identity or ascribed membership that is distinguished by being viewed as being exclusive with (though, in some models, admitting mixtures as their own unique possibilities), others in the same named group.
- tomp 4y agoHuman female. And if you’re looking for a scientific definition of female, it’s ”an organism that in sexual maturity produces ova (large gametes (reproductive cells))” (Therefore, sex is binary. Also, there is no sensible, consistent definition of gender, making it nonsense.)
- undersuit 4y agoThe previous definition was Adult Human Female, dropping the adult is weird because you wouldn't consider an 11 year old experiencing their menarche to be a woman right? I think the tropey phrase would be "becoming a woman". But okay you would like to define a woman as a human female, "an organism that in sexual maturity produces ova (large gametes (reproductive cells))", if a prepubescent takes hormone blockers for their entire life does that interrupt your definition of woman? What about if an XY Swyer Syndrone individual has a functional uterus and ovaries? What if a female with hypogonadism takes hormone therapy to prevent infertility? Sex is not binary, gender is.
- tomp 4y agoWell, the word "woman" can mean both "human adult female" and "human female", but I think anyone accepting one of these definitions would accept both, so that's not controversial IMO. Probably we should look at potential over one's life, likely at (or even before) birth, otherwise the same could be argued for "what if a child dies before they're fertile"?
- undersuit 4y agoI think they will accept it because female and woman are synonymous in their minds. But human female isn't a simple definition either.
- Robotbeat 4y agoThe distinction between sex and gender wasn’t really made until the 1940s and 1950s in parts of academia. The idea of them as separate ideas is sort of a modern invention.
- jimbokun 4y agoWhen did terms like "tomboy" come into vogue? The idea of a person of one sex displaying common gender characteristics of the other sex is very old.
- Robotbeat 4y agoMaybe in a general sense, but not in the way we use the word “gender” today. This distinction was made by academics studying this in the 1940s and 1950s, really becoming widespread in academia in the 1960s.