Thread by @sallyhunt666

Thread re: Republican U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn’s question to Ketanji Brown Jackson— Let’s talk about how utterly absurd it is to give the following command to another person: “Define woman”. The word ‘woman’ isn’t something that can easily be defined, due to the fact that 1/

it’s A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT. After all, just give it a try. Please just try to define the word ‘woman’. And as you’re doing so in your mind, I invite you to keep reading…
If you say a woman is someone who was born with a vagina, that statement is very obviously not always true. 2/

If any person who claims “women were born w/ vaginas” were to look at the person in this picture I’ve posted, they would *definitely* assume that she’s a woman. They’d *definitely* be referring to her with “she/her” pronouns and would believe she’s a woman. And they’d be right.3/

She is indeed a woman. And this particular woman, Janet Mock, was assigned male at birth (AMAB). She is a trans woman. When we see people, we have no way of knowing what their genitals are. And of course it’s none of our business, anyway, 4/

and we should not care what someone’s genitals might be. We interact with people in society each day without ever seeing what they have between their legs. And yet we are always making assumptions about the gender we believe other people to be. 5/

We perceive people as particular genders, and there are a lot of different reasons for this. It’s not always a good idea to make assumptions about someone’s gender, but it’s understandable and is just something that tends to happen automatically, inside our minds. 6/

If Janet Mock, the woman in the picture above, walked into a men’s bathroom, the men in the bathroom would probably be very confused, and they’d most likely tell her that she’s in the wrong bathroom. They would do this because they’d look at her and 7/

they’d probably immediately think to themselves: “This person is a woman.” No one would know she was born with a penis & was assigned male at birth. And no one needs to know this, since it’s no one’s business (unless a trans person chooses to tell you themselves). 8/

Also, look at this other picture I posted here. The same people who like to proclaim, “A woman is a person who was born with a vagina!” would also look at this person and would definitely assume that he’s a man. If they saw this person in real life, they’d believe he’s a man, 9/

and would most likely be using “he/him” pronouns. And again, they’d be correct in this case because he is a man. His name is Shawn Stinson, and he is a trans man. He was assigned female at birth (AFAB), and he’s absolutely a man. Let’s keep discussing this a bit further…. 10/

Some people might want to say that a woman is someone who can get, or who has gotten, a period. But there are some women who never menstruate. This happens. If someone doesn’t ever get a period, does this automatically mean they’re not a woman? 11/

There are some women who are never fertile/able to get pregnant. Are they not women?

Or what about if you want to define a woman as someone who has a uterus? Well, a woman who was born with a uterus can get a hysterectomy, meaning her uterus would be surgically removed. 12/

She would still be considered a woman, wouldn’t she?

We can say the same thing about having breasts. Anyone who claims to believe a woman is someone who has breasts should be reminded that a woman can always get a double mastectomy. A lot of women do get this procedure, 13/

of course, when they have breast cancer. Those women are still women, of course, even after their double mastectomy procedures.

So, how else could you define the word ‘woman’? Does a woman have to have long hair? Obviously not. We know this isn’t always the case. 14/

Does a woman have to like and wear the color pink? Of course not.

Does a woman have to wear lipstick and other makeup? Certainly not.

Does a woman have to shave her legs and armpits? Definitely not. 15/

Does a woman have to be sexually/romantically attracted to men? Certainly not. Lesbians exist, and so do asexual/aromantic women. Both types of women do not have an interest in men, sexually or romantically. Does a woman have to like wearing dresses and skirts? Of course not. 16/

Does a woman have to have large hips? Nope, definitely not.

Does being a woman mean the person cannot be strong and can’t have large muscles? Obviously this is not the case. 17/

So all of this begs the question:
Which traits are considered necessary for a person to have, in order to be defined as a woman?

This is not so clear or simple to define, as you can see from this thread.
18/

And if you’re trying to pretend it is actually simple somehow, you know you’re being disingenuous. This conversation about trying to “define ‘woman’” is utterly absurd, due to the fact that being a woman and being a man are both SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS.
19/

The entire concept of gender has been socially constructed and is deeply rooted in patriarchal beliefs regarding the ideas of gender “superiority” and “inferiority” with regard to beliefs that we as a society have about “femininity” and “masculinity”. 20/

It’s about which traits we as a society have deemed to be “masculine” and which we have deemed to be “feminine”.

I’ve used quotation marks above because femininity and masculinity have never been objective, but rather they are always subjective.
21/

And the belief that a trait is either “feminine” or “masculine” and is “a man’s trait” or “a woman’s trait” is completely arbitrary and made-up by our patriarchal society.
Even if there tend to be commonalities among a lot of women or a lot of men, 22/

there is no 1 rule that always applies to all men or to all women.

There is always a very wide variety of types of people who are all men, and similarly, there is also a very wide variety of types of people who are all women.
23/

Women can look, think, express themselves, and behave in all sorts of ways. There is not one way to be a woman.

And to be clear, even though gender is a social construct, stating this fact does not equate to saying that gender doesn’t impact us at all. Societal beliefs about 24/

gender have a very real impact on all of us each day, whether we like it or not. People are constantly reinforcing these beliefs about gender, femininity, masculinity, & what a girl/woman is “supposed” to be, as well as what a boy/man is “supposed” to be. #TransWomenAreWomen 25/

The social pressure, norms, and conventional ideas regarding gender are always at play and impacting us daily.

The bottom line is: Any person who pretends that it’s simple to define “man” or “woman” knows deep down that they’re full of shit. Any person like this has a very 26/

dangerous, abusive, & oppressive agenda. They are not speaking in good faith. Their intent is very harmful. What they say should be automatically disregarded.

#TransWomenAreWomen #TransMenAreMen #EnbiesAreValid #NonbinaryGenderIsValid #TransLivesMatter
#FuckTERFs

27/