What's a woman?

Honestly I think, as a cis man, cis people are probably very bad at answering the question.

humans tend ignore "harmony". When you walk through the field, do you look each blade of grass or at the cow? Do you feel "non-pain"? How could you possibly explain someone pain that doesn't know pain? Do you remember the last time, you sat next to your friend watching a show on tv, in the same detail, you remember the conflict/discussion that you had with them?

Generally we will remember and pay attention to the things that are "wrong".

If your gender is right for you, why would you pay attention? What would you even pay attention to?

If it is wrong for you, you feel the "pain", see the cow and remember the conflict.

Outside of a philosophy discussion, it's not a genuinely good question because it is irrelevant to our daily lives. In any way that matters to society, a woman is a person who says they are a woman. It's that complicated.

"Is irrelevant" and "should be irrelevant" are two different things. Fighting by saying the issues are not there—regardless of your actual opinion—has rarely, if ever, worked. It's the same as the "I don't see color" argument.

Also, why would we exclude philosophical discussion? The point is to make you think. I also don't know who this particular person is in the OP, but the question itself has no bias. Maybe this highlights our philosophical differences, but I firmly believe that understanding a system is the most crucial step to revolutionizing it.
- Would you say skin color is relevant in our daily lives just because some people think it is?
  
  I also said nothing about excluding philosophy discussions. Please do not put words in my mouth.
  
  Would you say skin color is relevant in our daily lives just because some people think it is?
  
  Yes. That was my point. Check your privilege. You don't have to be a flagrant racist to subconsciously make decisions and judgements based on race (and gender).
  
  I'm not going to explain how inherent and human biases work. If you care to start making a difference, then it's up to you to understand that you're not perfect and learn how to start changing how you see and affect the world beyond your idealist rose-colored glasses.
  
  I also said nothing about excluding philosophy discussions. Please do not put words in my mouth.
  
  I don't have to.
  
  I'm just going to ignore you implying I'm a racist and focus on the second part.
  
  Saying "outside of a philosophy discussion" doesn't mean "we can't talk about philosophy," it means it is generally not relevant in terms of the way it is necessary to live our lives.
  
  People make unnecessary things important to them all the time- skin color, religion, ethnicity, etc.
  
  But if you just ignore those things as irrelevant, the only thing that changes is that some people are treated less like shit. Which is my point.
  
  On the other hand, treating people like shit seems like something you're interested in, at least on a one-to-one level.
  
  You think you're perfect. You are not. No one is. I am not saying you are a racist. You are a human with human biases.
  
  What you've just told me is that you have no interest in discovering and changing yourself to help make a difference. Not to be on any sort of moral high-ground, but I have a really tough time with people that have no desire to learn and improve.
  
  What I'm going to ignore is your assertion that philosophy is not relevant to daily life. That is the stupidest claim in this thread, and it is at the very core of your (subconscious) bigotry. If you can't see that, then there is no next step.
  
  I mean it kinda makes sense, someone who doesn't think that the process of thought is useful not thinking they could make any kind of error.
  
  Yep. It's hard to point that out when my reasoning gets sucked into a circular black hole.
  
  I'm done responding. People that can be helped can read this thread in the future and maybe realize something about themselves.
  
  You think you’re perfect.
  
  You know nothing about me or how far from the truth this is. You are miles closer to perfection than I will ever be.
  
  What you’ve just told me is that you have no interest in discovering and changing yourself to help make a difference.
  
  This is a lie.
  
  I have a really tough time with people that have no desire to learn and improve.
  
  I have a really tough time with liars who make assumptions about me and put words in my mouth, so I guess we are both having a really tough time.
  
  What I’m going to ignore is your assertion that philosophy is not relevant to daily life.
  
  And more lies.
  
  But thank you for proving my point about you wanting to treat people like shit so well.
  
  Also, I like how you say both "I am not saying you are a racist" and "your (subconscious) bigotry" as if those aren't total contradictions.
  
  And more lies.
  
  If that's not what you were saying, then what were you saying?
  
  Also, I like how you say both “I am not saying you are a racist” and “your (subconscious) bigotry” as if those aren’t total contradictions.
  
  They are not. Subconscious bigotry or bias doesn't necessarily make one a bigot, as contradictory as that may sound. Whether they like to admit or not, everyone reacts differently to people who are noticeably different from them. There is no way to entirely avoid this, only to realize when it happens and not act according to it. Or in other words: "I don't care if you're racist! EVERYONE'S racist!"
  
  I was saying that it is not relevant outside of a philosophical discussion. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand. I never said philosophical discussions had no relevance.
  
  Also, while you're asking questions, maybe you should ask the person I'm talking to who I am supposedly bigoted against.
  
  It is somewhat relevant, though. For example, it's relevant for designing stuff so that everyone regardless of their phenotypical makeup is equally able to function in society. For example, if it didn't matter at all if a lot of people have no penises, we could have urinals everywhere, or conversely for the opposite, we would have no need for urologists. Or if it really didn't matter what colour someone's skin is, we wouldn't have to have differentiated medical care for people of different phenotypes, or we wouldn't need to think about calibrating sensors for different skin colours for detectors so that every device functions for everyone.
  
  But I get your point, a lot of the reasons people think biological differences matter are all made up and mostly bullshit.
  
  Okay, those are all fair points. I do think you could probably describe those things in terms that do not involve gender or race, but it would probably be with some difficulty.
  
  IMO, the whole topic is nothing but a political tool, and most people wouldn't care either way.
  
  So there is this one playbook that the Russian-aligned right likes to play, which is: take an issue nobody but a very small minority of people care about, but it has to be something they can't just let go. For example, the rights of trans people in the US, but in Hungary it has been the existence of one particular university at one point.
  
  Then start bombarding your base with misinformation about how this thing is bad for society and has to be opposed, and introduce legislation. Finally, watch the small minority protest continuously and very fiercely for the issue that is existential for them, and lay back while this issue occupies public discourse for months and years, precluding other serious issues being discussed as you can comfortably be in a majority position while doing whatever you want without public attention.
  
  The insidiousness is that the issue is really existential for the people affected, so you can't tell them to let it go, and a lot of very loud people would demonize you for letting it go as well since it is existential for them.
  
  So you have three options:
  
  Take up the fight in the issue and let it be the deciding issue for elections, driving turnout for your opponent - see gay and trans rights
  
  Try to take the opposite side and leave the minority group to fend for themselves, and lose them as voters - see funding the Gaza genocide
  
  Be a stereotypical politician and change the topic each time it comes up, which will blunt the first effect, but you will still get some of the second - this is unfortunately usually the good choice
  
  But to actually win, what you have to do is:
  
  Use the tactic to your advantage and make your own attacks, keeping the topics on your talking points
  
  Just off the top off my head, here are a few ideas the Dems could have done the same to the Reps, and I'm not a genius:
  
  Declare the KKK to be a terrorist organization
  
  Make it illegal to fly the Confederate flag on public buildings
  
  Institute a federal ban on child marriages
  
  I know each of these would rile up some small segment of the Republican base, but that's the point! You want to make them fiercely defend points that not all of them care about, as not all of them will turn out for all of these issues. You want the Mormons out in arms on the streets protesting the child marriage ban so you can be "tough on crime" and "crack down on the rioting Mormon paedophiles".
  
  Welcome to the modern era: you have to be eminitely aware of people's race and treat them differently because of it, or else you're racist.
So long as society feels it necessary to provide protections for women, the distinction has real consequences. Drawing a line anywhere is a tradeoff between inclusivity and effectiveness.

Taking the party line "high ground" stance of either conclusive self-determination or dodging the question entirely is why this question is so effective.
- I'm sorry, is "conclusive self-determination" the wrong answer? Why?
- Assuming good faith on the part of those involved, I don't see how inclusivity comes at the cost of effectiveness. Would you care to elaborate?
  
  Assuming good faith, that's a hell of an assumption
  
  Gendered bathrooms? It certainly does not require a lot of good faith to come up with this example.
  
  That's a terrible example. Gendered bathrooms would still fulfil their function if anybody could use them regardless of gender, causing no measurable harm to anyone.
  
  Assuming I'm a bicycle, I'd have wheels.
  
  Protections presuppose bad faith.
  
  What protections? Give me some concrete examples of what you're talking about here.
- And your solution is what?
  
  Honestly? I think that equal treatment should be afforded regardless of gender. I also know that opinion is wildly unpopular, and so long as society expects unequal treatment there has to be hard conversations and hard decisions made to support those structures. You can't have it both ways, and no amount of party-line fingers in your ears "wouldn't you like to know"ing makes that go away.
  
  This would be nice if we lived in a vacuum an didn't have thousands of years of patriarchy built up...
  
  That was essentially what I was saying.
  
  Not the person who you were talking with, but I think it's nuanced. Short term tradeoffs should be made for effectiveness, while long-term strategies should be relentlessly pursued for inclusivity.
  
  E.g. as a man, I think that the women-only carriages in a lot of SEA countries are a necessary thing, but it has to be a short term solution with a healthier society should be always consistently pursued, for example with educational measures.
If the question is so irrelevant, why do you even try to answer it in the same comment? Not only answering it, but also making it a fact. As if your opinion is the only one that matters and suddenly it's irrelevant when there's a different opinion.
- My opinion is not the only one that matters. I'm not sure where you got that impression unless you think people should automatically agree with you for no reason other than you want them to when they do not.
  
  I base my opinion on my observations on how the world works. I could be wrong, so feel free explain to me how it negatively affects in our society in any significant way if you don't define a woman as someone who calls themselves a woman.
  
  If other opinions matter, then it is not an irrelevant question. Since it prompts people to tell their opinions.
  
  You did not explain to me what I asked you to explain to me. I think you just want someone to fight with since you're clearly not discussing this in good faith and I'm not particularly interested.
  
  I didn't answer your "request" because that has nothing to do with what I originally said.
  
  If I wanted to get into an hours long conversation about gender I would've said something completely different. Got better things to waste my time on.
  
  Then I have no idea even what your issue is? That I dare to think my opinion on something is correct? Isn't that how opinions work?
  
  Can you tell me about one of your incorrect opinions?
I don't think it is that simple.

Women are treated different that men in many societies. In my country there are multiple laws that apply different to a person if it is a woman or a man.

If we are making legislative differentiation because those words, we ought to have them well defined and understand what we are meaning and why we say that a women gets X law applied that a man gets not.

If it is irrelevant it should be, at least, legislatively irrelevant. If it's meaningful we should be clear on what we are defining by woman (or any other gender that gets particular legislation applied for all that matters).

That without talking about the social importance of being a gendered society. I don't know any single society that is not gendered. Once again, if it is irrelevant then we should aim for genderless society. If it is relevant we should know and agree on what it is to be one gender or other.
- Why do you think such legislation is necessary? In fact, what legislation are you talking about that requires gender to be taken into account?
  
  I didn't say I thought it was necessary. It exists, that's just it.
  
  Necessary or not, is, again. A very complex question.
  
  I'm Spanish, from Spain/Europe. We have some laws made in favour of women. For instance, a special court of law that is only invoke in a case of a man hurting a woman he had a romantic relationship with. It's called "Juzgados de la mujer". We have also gender quota por power positions they have historically not being allowed to occupy.
  
  This may seem logical, as there are thousands of women killed by their male partners
  
  We also have, recently, a law that allows anyone to change their gender at any time, no questions, no prove requires to being trans to do so. You can just go to the civil office and change your gender.
  
  This also may seem logical. As trans are usually prosecuted and can get denied a gender change if the civil official didn't like them.
  
  But with these two things in place we happened to had a big number of cis males, that are 100% cis, going to change their gender just to get "inmunity" to "Womens court". Also several cases of cis males changing their gender to get into womens quota required for some positions (for instance here there's benefits and sometimes is required that half of the directive positions are filled by women).
  
  So we have a conflict here. At least I see a conflict. I don't even have the answer on what to do, as two of both things seem right to me (supporting a positive discrimination for a historically discriminated group and helping trans to be what they truly are). But cis males being able to break positive discrimination and mocking trans at the same time feels wrong to me.
  
  And the ultimate question to this topic is "What it is to be a woman". For what I do not have the answer, but I would love to know.
  
  And of course, in my book we all would be genderless, and there would be no discrimination. But my personal utopia is, sadly, not the world we live on.
  
  This may seem logical, as there are thousands of women killed by their male partners
  
  No, it doesn't seem logical. Men can be killed by their women partners, men can be killed by their men partners, women can be killed by their women partners.
  
  It's only "logical" in a heteronormative patriarchal society.
  
  This also may seem logical. As trans are usually prosecuted and can get denied a gender change if the civil official didn’t like them.
  
  Again, this does not seem logical. Why do you need a law to allow you to change gender?
  
  “Womens court”.
  
  Something else that is not necessary.
  
  (for instance here there’s benefits and sometimes is required that half of the directive positions are filled by women).
  
  Benefits should not be gendered, but the quota thing is the closest you have gotten to something being necessary in terms of legal definitions. But even there, all you have to say is that gender discrimination in hiring practices is illegal and it doesn't have to apply to any specific gender.
  
  Also, you are acting like 'man' and 'woman' are it and there is no such thing as a nonbinary gender. You are incorrect.
  
  I literally never said anything against non binary, but ok.
  
  I'm just explaining the legislation you asked me to explain.
  
  Legislation on my country does not take non-binary as an option. So I didn't talk about it. We could have talked about it if you asked about that, as I have lots to say as an non-binary person that really does not fit within my country own legislation on gender.
  
  I feel like you are not really reading me. And I'm feeling more hostility towards my person that I want to feel. So I'm out.
  
  Have a good day.
  
  Legislation on my country does not take non-binary as an option.
  
  Which is also not logical.
  
  No one is denying that gendered laws exist. We are talking about what is necessary. I am reading you. You just are not understanding that those laws are not necessary laws the way they are written and can be easily be rewritten to apply to all genders.
  
  For instance, the "women's court" I talked. Which is part of a law called "law against violence on women".
  
  I will give you the official explanation and the one with more consensus on the feminist movement. Even tho I don't really understand it for reasons I will explain later.
  
  The law defines violence against women as "violence that it is applied to women just for the matter of being women". This assumes that this kind of violence only applies to women being hurt by man. This is the consensus, this is the slongan.
  
  I do not understand it as I do not understand what it is to be a woman, to begin with, so I cannot understand that explanation.
  
  But I understand that there's a lot of people, that call themselves women, that are hurt by people that call themselves men. And some legislation that tried to specifically protect the group that is being targeted seems ok. Like really if this are the figures, if men are hurting women more than women are hurting men. And if we had had s "neutral" legislation that did not solve this issue before... It seems logical, at least to me, that maybe it is a problem that should be tacked on a gendered perspective. Maybe it is something gendered on that kind of violence. And thus maybe gender needs to come into place.
  
  I don't know if giving an example is the best way to go about this. And in whatever example I come up with I certainly won't be comparing "women" with that example. I'm just trying to exemplify other cases when "neutral" legislation may not be the best approach.
  
  For instance, different legislation on children and adults, or when adults hurt children, being different that when a kid hurts and adults. Again, and this is important, women are not children. It is just an example where differentiation may be needed to solve a problem.
  
  You will notice that I didn't brought the "women sports" example here. It is the classic issue on this matter. But for me sports are not important so really, I could just get rid of all professional sports and get done with it. Though if I liked sports the question would be similar, as I get why some people want to have gendered segregated sports. I also get with a trans woman should be able to compete in women league. And I also get why if we just adhere to the "being a woman is just saying so" approach then there a place for fraud in cis males breaking the women league. I'm glad I just don't like sports because it is a complex matter too
  
  I don't know. I'm not 100% on board with one opinion or other on the matter. I would really just want to do whatever leads to better society, with less violence. But I don't know the better approach here.
A woman is an adult human female. A man is an adult human male. We may have made up the stereotypical roles for them, but we certainly didn't divine the biology. The question is a challenge against the absurdity of postmodern progressive thought. Philosophically speaking.
- Sure, the anatomical features we use to categorise people into genders have always existed, but the categories themselves are made up and there's a rather large amount of overlap between them. The more strictly someone attempts to enforce a given set of criteria as the basis for this categorisation, the less practical utility their definition tends to have in terms of everyday use.
- What is an adult human with both sets of genitalia? They exist.
  
  A hermaphrodite. What is any other genetic condition?
  
  I have never seen "hermaphrodite" on any government form. What do they put down?
  
  It's an edge case. Does a government form determine reality? They can put down one, both, none.
  
  You cannot put down both or none on any government form that does not consider gender to be a non-biological thing.
  
  Laws are not supposed to be selectively applied. If they can put down whichever one they choose, you are admitting your definition of 'man' and 'woman' do not apply to how society works.
  
  I know "the exception that proves the rule" is a fun phrase, but it's not actually how things work.
  
  But this is a biological thing. It's a medical condition. It's not your gender if you were born with both sets of organs. The point of equality was to get rid of laws being selectively applied. By your philosophy, race also works similarly. Someone who is latino is whoever says they're latino.
  
  Again, laws are not supposed to be selectively applied. If they can put 'man' or 'woman' on any form, so can anyone else. Or do you think they need some sort of confirmation by a doctor before they're allowed to fill out any sort of government forms?
  
  And so what if they do? Nobody is throwing you in jail for selecting the "wrong" box. And if there is some special program you're defrauding.. well.. treating people differently on this in the law isn't part of my philosophy.
  
  If intersex people are an edge case, then so are trans people.
  
  And yet...
  
  Intersex. And there are more of them than trans people per 100k, I believe. Yet somehow they're never brought up.
  
  Many (maybe most?) end up getting some type of gender-affirming surgery very early on, but not always. And who knows, going forward.
  
  It doesn't get brought up because they didn't make an issue of it or make demands on everyone else. It's also a surgery based on physical medical need and practicality. No pushy activism was involved.

When does the answer actually matter? Maybe in situations where sexual assault is a concern, like bathrooms, etc? In that case, just get rid of gender identity and distinguish based on if the individual has a penis or not.

I talked in other comments about the legislative implications. But here I would like to give a more personal one.

For instance, I would love to have the answer for myself. Because I have asked myself plenty of times "Am I a woman?", and that leads to de subsequent question "What it means to be a Woman?", "What I want to be is a Woman or is anything else?". I know that only I can answer that question. But I want to know why I have to make that question to myself. Why society considers "being a Woman" something? Because that question didn't came out of nowhere. It came because I, as a person who lives in a society with other people, see people who calls themselves man, woman or other things. And while trying to decide what I want to be, or what I already am, need to take what other people are into consideration.

Idk, if I'm explaining myself. I'll give a dumb example: Maybe I want to be an Astronaut, but before becoming an Astronaut I need to know what an Astronaut is. Because Astronaut is a profession in our society, and it can be defined. In this context is easy, because I would love to be an Astronaut because I would love to go to space. But, if I love to be a Woman, why is it? What is the "going to space" of being a woman?
Why base it on the existence or nonexistence of a penis? How do you enforce that? You're in a bathroom, ideally no one is seeing your genitals.

Just get rid of gendered bathrooms in the first place. A toilet doesn't care what shape of butthole poops into it

Is it a good question though? Even if we set aside the fact that it's a loaded question, what are we going to do with the information?

It has a similar character to the question 'what is a race?'. Information that people look a certain way is not particularly useful, on the other hand we feel it viscerally. If we don't stop to think we end up making unhelpful judgements.

Race, gender, nation states, money, the past and future, these are just concepts and if we confine ourselves to the domain of concepts we run the risk of mistaking them for our actual experience, out in the world. We stop listening and start assuming that our internal narrative is infallible, because it is.

I agree to an extend.

I would love to live in a word where all of that does not matter.

But for instance, imagine if we stop taking race into account in the USA (not American but I'm soaked in American culture). How would people know and being able to prove that some race is being discriminated against if the people does not have a definition on some people being part of one or other race.

I despise racial classification. Seems wrong, it works wrong as races are all mixed. But it can work against racism.

For instance, in my country, racial classification is ilegal. There cannot exist any registry on anyones race whatsoever. So black people here does not have statistical data to prove they are being discriminated against. They have a harder time fighting against racism somehow because their race is not allow to be recorded anywhere.

So I don't really know if, same as gender, I want to know people's race or not. Feels wrong, but also useful to fight against discrimination.
- Very interesting and I would not have expected that outcome. In some ways the actions of avowed racists is easier to deal with. If our cards are on the table we can at least have a discussion. The racism that dwells in people and institutions who never admit it is incredibly corrosive.
  
  Reading historical texts about eras where the concept of race didn't exist as we know it today is refreshing. I suppose they had other problems but the modern conception of race feels like a political tool and completely artificial. So too with gender, it's encouraging to see kids abandoning those outdated notions.

Man xy, woman xx.

Nah. That's just sex.

But there's been long proved that what we call gender is not 100% defined by sex.

For instance, our traditional gendered bathrooms. The concept does not work if we just take sex into account. As the reasons we have for segregating bathrooms in genders does just not work if people have a different presentation, external sexual characteristics or behavior, that it is traditionally assumed for one sex or the other.

To put intro crude words. Women that would like to have a women exclusive bathroom would really not be happy if someone walks into that externally looks and behaves, and even have the sexual characteristics of what they perceive as a man. It would not matter if that person would have XX instead of XY.
- That's the extreme minority. To keep things simple let's just say xx one bathroom and xy the other. That encompasses 99.9% of bathroom usage. For the cases you are talking about I'm sure that person can figure out what bathroom to use for themselves and explain it to anyone that asks.
  
  Well, yeah. And trans/nb/etc people are part of that 0,1%
Biology isn't that simple. A person can have one fewer sex chromosome, monosomy, one extra, trisomy, and many extra, polysomy. In fact it's starting to show that a significant minority of people have trisomy 47 (the name for having one extra sex chromosome) but live perfectly normal lives because those extra genes are suppressed. You could have an extra x chromosome and never know it, does that exclude you from being a man or a woman? Which brings up the topic of gene expression and epigenetics which is even more complicated. If you're looking at science to give you a certainty about sex and gender you're in for a long search.
- That's the extreme minority. To keep things simple let's just say xx one bathroom and xy the other. That encompasses 99.9% of bathroom usage. For the cases you are talking about I'm sure that person can figure out what bathroom to use for themselves and explain it to anyone that asks.