Ask HN: What Is a Woman? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What Is a Woman?

10 pointsMathCodeLove21 comments

This question has been used as a "gotcha" by opponents of gender theory and gender reassignment. It's not an issue I'm particularly passionate about, but this question did stump me and I've spent a lot of time thinking about it.

Most dictionary definitions of woman define it essentially as an adult human female. Female, being a sex, would cause this definition to make it so that trans-women aren't technically women, and many people perceive that as a problem. But I, and my social circle, has been unable to think of a inclusive definition that still made sense.

Here are some of the forms of answers I've seen to this question:

1. Answers that include the word in its own definition. "A woman is someone who identifies as a woman" etc.

2. Answers that define by exclusion "A woman is a gender that is not man or non-binary" etc.

3. Answers that categorize instead of define. "A woman is a social construct."

4. Avoidance. "It's not for me to define what a woman is".

There's a lot of smart, reasonable people here. How do you tackle this problem? What's your answer?

Talk about a loaded question! I'll take the bait... As a gay man whose life coincided with the gay liberation movement -- and also as a scientifically-minded person, I think there are two answers.

Biologically, a woman is a human with two X chromosomes. This would be the best scientific answer I would give if someone asked me that question.

Socially, a person can choose to be perceived in any role they wish and which is accepted by those around them -- or not! In other words, social gender roles like other roles are varied around the world and over time. If someone feels more comfortable in a different role, I'm certainly ok with that.

I don't think one is able to change one's biological status but society has accepted that people can live in a different role than their biological status.

* Edit: I should add that I have two trans family members.

So maybe the best answer is to respond with a question: "Do you mean woman as a biological classification, or as a social construct?"

And I think that most people who ask the question are asking it as a "gotcha" question, and they either deny that "biological classification" has any validity, or they deny that "social construct" has any validity.

> Biologically, a woman is a human with two X chromosomes. This would be the best scientific answer I would give if someone asked me that question.

But science knows better, as will you, after reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter_syndrome, which says:

“Klinefelter syndrome (KS), also known as 47,XXY, is a syndrome where a male has an additional copy of the X chromosome. The primary features are infertility and small, poorly functioning testicles. Often, symptoms are subtle and subjects do not realize they are affected.”

The sex of an organism is defined by the type of gamete an organism produces (or will produce, or used to produce, or would produce if it was healthy, etc.) If an organism produces relatively large gametes that don’t move much, if at all (i.e eggs), it is female. If it produces small motile gametes (i.e. sperm) it is male. This holds true for all animals and plants that reproduce sexually, as it is the basic biological distinction between the sexes.

Chromosomes themselves aren’t sex, and only some animals’ sexes are “programmed” by their chromosomes. For example, alligator embryos’ (future) sex is determined by their incubation temperature.

People with Klinefelter syndrome are male because they have testicles, underdeveloped as they may be.

Edit: typos

There is also Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrom...

In Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome affected individuals have XY sex chromosomes but appear female because their body does not respond to naturally occurring male hormones.

So, essentially, the word has become a homonym? Just like "left" has multiple meanings depending upon context, now so "woman"?

That makes sense to me, but then still the question is unanswered, what is the definition of "woman" in a social context? We have the biological definition, but the other definition is still seemingly ephemeral.

Edit:

Small spelling errors. Also, what makes this a loaded question? I agree it's difficult to answer, but on the surface at least asking for the definition of a word doesn't seem loaded to me.

It seems to me like the argument is premised on an equivocation that neither side seems to really address: one side is referring to sex and the other is referring to gender.

My general definition is “adult female human” which makes sense taking into account how “woman” has been used by almost everyone (until very recently). For example, the “women” in “women’s sports” is referring to the sex of the participants, since sports are sex segregated due to biological differences, not gender differences.

I’d also argue that “man” and “woman” are parallel to the words we use to describe other animals, e.g. buck and doe for deer, cow and bull for cattle, etc. They’re species-specific sex identifying terms.

Those I‘ve talked to on the other side treat “woman” as signifying gender rather than sex, so a person who is trying to be treated as a woman socially should be referred to as such.

I don’t see a problem with generally referring to trans women as “women” in social situations out of politeness; the issue of whether a trans woman is a “real woman” only really comes up when the person’s biology actually matters (e.g. “womens health” and the like).

Edit: typos

In this case though the "other sides" definition still is ephemeral. In the context of gender, what is a woman? It's easy to say "woman is a gender identity" but thats a categorization, not a definition. There's no official or formal definition (that I can find) which defines the "other sides" usage of woman.

Side note: I dislike using "other side" or making it too partisan an issue. I know 99% of people make it a political issue but I'm really hoping that here on hackernews we can discuss this civilly from a more neutral position.

That’s a problem I’ve noticed too. There doesn’t seem to be any good definition of what constitutes either gender without referring back to the sex that it is most commonly tied to (e.g. “feminine gender is composed of those behaviors that women stereotypically do”), which seems to make it somewhat of a useless concept standing alone.

Also: I was merely using “other side” to refer to my friends who hold a differing opinion. It’s an interesting debate, not a war.

> There doesn’t seem to be any good definition of what constitutes either gender

Gender can refer to two different things:

“Ascribed gender”: what bucket (or buckets) of the set labelled “genders” by society does society at large (or, in certain contexts, some defined subset of society other than you yourself) put you in.

“Gender identity”: what bucket (or buckets) of the set labelled “gender” do you yourself feel you belong in.

There is no objective set of traits defining boundaries of gender buckets, no objectively correct number of gender buckets, and no objective need for their to be any set of buckets labelled “gender”. It is all path-dependent social construction that varies by social context and individual.

(“race“ works the same way as “gender” here.)

Does race work the same as gender here? I get that it's often still very arbitrary, but it's certainly less fluid (or rather, fluidity in this area is less acceptable). I can't love Mexican food, learn Spanish, and then decide that I identify as Hispanic. Inversely, if I found that I enjoyed wearing women's clothing and partaking in feminine activities then I could identify as a woman if it suited me.

> Does race work the same as gender here?

In the sense that “‘race’ can be substituted for ‘gender’ without loss of accuracy in the description in GP”, not “the dynamics of the degree of social acceptance of divergence between ascribed race and racial identity are identical to those for gender.”

A lot of people seem to see "female" as a strictly biological term, whereas "woman" is a gender term. While this would be convenient, I'd like to point out that lots of people use "female" to refer to gender too.

My answer would be, "woman" is a socio-cultural category (a "gender") with some associated traits deemed "feminine", which people who have a vulva at birth are placed into, but as a social category, any particular genitalia is neither sufficient nor necessary (in the formal-logic sense) for membership in any particular category.

This definition doesn't allow one to objectively place someone else in a category. The Spanish word "genero" is both "gender" and "genre" in English, which I feel is illuminating. You can't write a procedure to determine if any arbitrary song is rock music, as opposed to country or metal or blues, or if a movie is a thriller or horror or action or comedy. There will be cases that clearly fit in one category, there will be cases where the genres are mixed, and cases where people disagree on the genre. Same with gender. It's a classification system invented by humans; a "social construct".

You don't need an 'inclusive' definition. The reality is straightforward: a woman is an adult human female. As you already stated.

By contrast, a transwoman is a man who desires to be a woman, and perhaps also believes he is a woman, somehow. But he's not really a woman, and never can be, no matter how much he insists he is. Being male precludes this.

At most, he'll be a feminine man; a man performing femininity. Trying to mangle the definition of woman to include these men is ultimately fruitless, as it will be a lie.

The answer, as always, is "Once you know why you're asking the question, you'll know the answer."

People use the word "woman" to mean different things in different contexts. That's not surprising, because women are human beings, and human beings are complex. The only people who demand simple answers to complex questions are those who imagine that they benefit from the simple answer.

Should Person X be entitled to wear a dress? Sure, what the fuck do I care.

Should Person X be entitled to use she/her pronouns? Again, what the fuck does it matter to me?

Should Person X receive medical care for their uterus? Absolutely. I don't care what pronouns that person prefers. If they have a uterus, it's a medical reality.

Should Person X be eligible a scholarship originally intended for people who have been systematically excluded from a lot of other scholarships? I dunno. Probably. Trans women undergo lots of other kinds of discrimination, and so the intent is there. But I can see why you'd argue the other way.

Should Person X compete in sports with people whose performances are substantially difference because of a lifetime of lower testosterone? Again, I dunno. I think it's probably a much less big deal than most people want it to be. I think they argue about it mostly because they can't score any points on all of the other ones. They might actually be right about it, but I don't really think the question is anywhere near as important as the others.

Once you stop imagining that categories are the real things of the universe, and that we discover them rather than invent them, you can ask questions that matter instead of arguing semantics.

It's whatever your culture wants it to be.

Words are an extension of a culture, and as a culture undergoes a shift, so do its words. Eventually the culture will settle upon a communally agreed upon definition and life will go on.

There's little sense in worrying over it, since it's beyond any one person to control.

I think assuming that eventually the culture will "settle" on a definition as if it will suddenly reach a point of maturity and stop evolving is an inaccurate assessment. This strikes me as a non-answer.

Suit yourself.

"Person" (of which "Woman" is presumably a subclass) is a problematic category in itself. There are legal persons (like Meta) and then fictional characters. Is

https://date-a-live.fandom.com/wiki/Mukuro_Hoshimiya

a woman?

I guess the premise is that I am having a social interaction with this person and not just thinking in my head about it as I walk past by, right?

So yeah to the social and civilized me it will always be anybody who identifies as a woman.

But in extreme situations such as on a sinking ship or even in the sexual marketplace some women are more women than others /s

> anybody who identifies as a woman

I appreciate your sentiment but this does nothing to define the word. Anybody who identifies as what? That's like saying "An apple is any fruit which looks like an apple." It does nothing to define "apple".

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