Matt Walsh wants to know.
We are currently embroiled in a cultural war. Part of this focuses on a frankly disingenuous battle over the meaning of words.
So I’ll talk about sandwiches.
And porn. And dogs. And… Well, English has a lot of words, so this may take a while.
You know what, I’ll talk about prototypes.
The thing is, even though the English language has hundreds of thousands of words, there are still nuances that we can’t quite capture. And the more words a child has to learn, the more opportunities there are for mistakes.
You know what, I’ll talk about child language acquisition. But I’ll get back to defining “woman”, I promise.
So how do we acquire language as children? We listen (the process is similar for Deaf children, but the details are not in my knowledge base). We associate the sounds coming out of a person’s mouth with the things in our environment and our knowledge about what that person is referring to.
As a parent, I’ll say, “What a cute doggie!” A toddler will then look around for the object I’m referring to, and assume that something about it qualifies it to be called a doggie. Is that its name? Is there some subset of objects in the universe that are doggies?
At some point, they’ll hear someone refer to another object as a doggie, and they’ll compare the two objects for common characteristics. From this, they’ll start to build an idea of what causes things to be called “doggies”. But they won’t know what isn’t called a “doggie” until someone clarifies, either deliberately or accidentally.
“No, honey, that’s a kitty. That’s not a doggie.”
The child spends several years doing this with enough words that they can communicate, but during that time, they’ve made plenty of assumptions that don’t match the assumptions other people made when they were learning words.
During this time, they also develop a prototype for “doggie”: An idea, probably visual, about the common characteristics of doggies. They can distinguish good examples of doggies from less good ones.
But, when pressed, they can’t define the word dog in such a way that it includes everything they’d call a dog and excludes everything they wouldn’t. Either their definition will include some non-dogs, exclude some dogs, or both.
Anyway, back to sandwiches.
So what is a sandwich? A few years ago I saw this question take the mathematics social media community by storm, as if linguists hadn’t already been discussing versions of it for decades.
Understandably: “Sandwich” is an excellent example of the limitations of strict definitions, and mathematics prides itself (falsely) on its commitment to strict definitions.
I say “falsely” because we can’t even agree on what “fraction” means. Does it refer solely to structure (that is, is a fraction a numeric value written with a vinculum), solely to value (a rational number), neither, or both?
And when I say we can’t agree, I mean: We seriously can’t agree.
So if mathematicians (and some non-mathematicians, but most of those thousand were from reshares by mathematical friends) can’t agree on a basic mathematical term’s definition, what are we to do with “sandwich”?
Or “woman”?
The general consensus on sandwiches is that they should involve starch of some sort with protein of some sort in the middle, and that there are good examples of sandwiches (ham on rye) and less good examples (hot dogs, lettuce wraps, ravioli). That is to say, we each have a prototypical idea of what a “sandwich” is (which may be specific or may be more general), and we have flexibility about the edges.
Yesterday in the United States, it was Father’s Day. Back in May, it was Mother’s Day.
What is a father? What is a mother?
We could get completely biological: A father is a person who provides sperm for the creation of a human. A mother is a person who provides an egg for the creation of a human. Or, perhaps, a mother is a person in whose uterus a fetus is gestated. Or maybe someone can only have one father but, merging those definitions into either/or, two mothers.
Here’s one way the “biological terms only!” crowd defines “mom”:
Here’s one definition for “Dad”:
Language is complicated and flexible. We can have words that have conflicting meanings. “Peruse” can mean either “scan quickly” or “read carefully”, and we can still communicate effectively. At the end of a contract, someone can either resign or resign, and we won’t know which they did unless they say it out loud.
Anyway.
So we can have annoying pedantic conversations about how “mother” means that biological stuff above, “well, technically…”, but at the same time live in a culture where “Mother’s Day” and “Father’s Day” are cultural celebrations of caregivers who play specific roles in our lives.
For some of us, the only difference between “mother” and “father” might indeed be sex or gender. For others, we may have different conceptions of what “motherhood” and “fatherhood” are. And because some of us cling to the notion that those terms are biologically enforced, that brings up trauma for those of us whose sperm provider, egg provider, or fetus carrier were terrible, even abusive, caregivers.
A key point here: We don’t have a major culture war going on about “You can’t be celebrated on Father’s Day! You’re just the step-father!” Sure, some people say it, but it generally falls into the same realm as “You’re not my REAL dad!” And there are tons of TV shows and movies where someone comes to realize, “He may have sired me, but you will always be my REAL father.”
We can acknowledge this as the complicated linguistic and conceptual soup that it is, and we can navigate through these waters to successful communication. The conservatives at Hobby Lobby can grok that just fine.
So what is a woman?
What is a mother?
If “mother” doesn’t need a strict biological definition for use to function, and if we can define “mother” as a woman who is a caregiver, well…
What is a woman?
We don’t need to provide a strict definition for that, because we don’t need to provide a strict definition for anything. We can have a sense of womanhood which allows for good examples and less good examples. We may even have our own mothers as our prototypes for “woman” as well as for “mother”.
And here’s the rub: “They” don’t have a clear definition either.
The Matt Walshes of the world want to mock the idea of definitions like “A woman is someone who sincerely believes they’re a woman” as being circular, useless, and open for abuse, but the definitions they provide don’t match how they themselves function.
Usually, the law resorts to chromosomes or gametes, and that gets those of us on this side into arguments about intersex people. But that’s a rabbit hole argument. The rebuttal is far clearer: That’s not how they really define womanhood.
That may be their end-of-the-road slam-dunk this-is-definitely-a-woman argument, but their day-to-day sorting mechanism is based on appearance.
That’s how their sorting hat works. That’s how most people’s sorting hats work. (Yes, I understand the irony of using this analogy.)
One part of the discomfort is that the Matt Walshes want to cling to the biological definition while using their appearance-based mechanism, and the more people fail to match, the more anxiety provoking it is for them. As long as their hat correctly identifies 99% of people, they’re good. When it goes below that, though, it challenges their rigid worldview.
They want to cling to the idea that they have a rigid definition of “fraction” while function in a world where a “fraction” is anything that looks like a fraction.
Is a fraction form, or is it function?
Even a thousand self-selecting math-dominant Twitterers can’t come to a consensus.
Is a woman form, or is it function?
Both.
Either.
Why are you so obsessed with my genitals?
Here’s how we settle most linguistic disagreements. If I’m using a term in a way differently than you expect, I tell you how I’m using the term. Then we can move on. If I say a sandwich is any product involving bread surrounding protein, and I then offer you a tortilla wrap from the sandwich menu, it’s rhetorically tiresome for you to mock me on the grounds that that’s not how you define a sandwich.
You know what I meant.
Fair argument: “There’s no such thing as a ‘trans woman’ by my own definitions because a woman is someone who was born with a uterus and a vagina. I refuse to accept the word ‘woman’ as anything else.”
I disagree, but okay. That’s your definition.
Unfair argument: “Trans people are deluded because they think they can change their….”
I don’t even know how to finish that statement because the goalposts keep moving.
Here’s the truth: Trans people, in general, are fully aware of the bodies we were born with. When one of us says, “I may have a male body, but I feel like a woman inside,” she’s not denying her body. She’s implicitly defining “womanhood” in terms of hazier concepts of spirit and culture, as opposed to strict biology. It’s rhetorically tiresome to point out that that’s not how you (allegedly) define a woman, let alone to imply that your definition is the only functional one and that therefore this person is delusional because she’s not using your definition.
This is assuming, again, that your definition of “woman” really is entirely based on genitals. (Be honest and say that word, by the way. An emerging dodge is to refer to gamete size [“chromosomes” didn’t work] rather than genitals. Another tiresome aspect of this conversation is how one side wants to dodge honest words in favor of conceptual euphemisms because of their basic discomfort with those honest words.)
And my brain keeps coming back to: Why does it matter?
“I don’t want to support someone else’s delusion.” What delusion? If someone acknowledges they are biologically male but feels so much discomfort over that that they’re willing to undergo consensual surgery, or just hormone therapy, or just dress differently… there is no delusion.
“I’m just protecting the children from predatory doctors.” Any doctor that rushes a child into permanent body changes should lose their license. Any permanent medical decisions should be made with a high level of understanding and a long period of evaluation, but this is especially true for minors, and I have yet to meet a trans person who has suggested otherwise.
“Sports… bathroom… language….” I don’t play sports and I use the men’s bathroom. I do ask people to avoid masculine language with me, but except in the workplace, I don’t push the issue. Even so, I’ve personally been called a groomer and a pedophile. Tens of thousands of words have already been written on the dishonesty of the sports/bathroom/pronoun argument.
“Drag queens!” (1) Most drag queens are cisgender men who like play-acting women. (2) Most drag events for children are non-sexual. There are a handful of drag performers who sexualize their activities while directing their attention to children, and I think that’s disgusting, just as I think it’s disgusting when any adults of any gender or presentation do it.
At its core, this is about people wanting to categorize strangers based on assumptions about genitals. Unless I’m doing something with you where that’s at all relevant, it’s none of your business.
(I never did talk about porn, but if you know, you know.)