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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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…