The recent failure of the Church of England in Great Britain to offer a clear definition of the term “woman” continues society’s slide into absurdity. At the church’s recent General Synod, the question was asked, “What is the Church of England’s definition of a woman?” The Synod failed to offer a definition in response, citing “complexities associated with gender identity”.
The Church of England is not the only organisation that is now struggling to define what a woman is. Politicians around the world are back-pedalling furiously in their effort to avoid offering a clear definition.
The issue of defining gender came up during the three-day Senate confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in March this year, prior to her appointment as America’s first female African-American Justice of the Supreme Court. President Biden had previously indicated that he had nominated her because she is an African America, a woman and a progressive. Given the President’s clear affirmation of her ’womanhood’, as well as the fact that she is the mother of several children, one would anticipate that Judge Jackson would have no problem furnishing a clear definition of a woman. But that was not the case. When asked by Senator Marsha Blackburn, “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?”, she replied, “Can I provide a definition? No, I can’t.”
The same awkward avoidance of the issue is echoed at the highest levels in other nations. At a recent Australian Senate Estimates hearing, the National Health Secretary, Dr. Brendon Murphy, was asked the same question by Senator Alex Antic and he could not provide an answer. The following transcript reveals the laughable reticence of Dr. Murphy to provide an answer to what should be a very simple question:
SENATOR ANTIC: “Can someone please provide me with a definition of what a woman is?”
The question was met with uncomfortable silence, so Senator Antic persisted.
SENATOR ANTIC: “Department of Health? Definition of a man? Definition of a woman? Anyone? Professor Murphy?”
Dr MURPHY: “Look, there are a variety of definitions …”
SENATOR ANTIC: “Just a simple one, please …”
Dr MURPHY: “I think perhaps to give a more fulsome answer we should take that on notice.”
SENATOR ANTIC: “You’re going to take on notice the question of what a woman is?”
Dr MURPHY: “No, well there are a variety – it’s a very … it’s a very … it’s a very contested space at the moment, Senator.”
It goes without saying that Dr Murphy was the subject of significant ridicule and criticism for his inability to answer such a simple question.
This extraordinary state of global uncertainty has come about as a result of the aggressive agenda of the LGBTQI movement which has sought to push their own ‘woke’ definition of gender upon society and vitriolically attack anyone who dares to disagree. According to their new definition, ‘You’re a woman if you think you’re a woman.” But that is not a definition. It is a circular argument. You can’t define something by its own term. The statement, “A woman is anyone who thinks they’re a woman” is a completely meaningless statement. It makes as much sense as saying “A piano is anything that thinks it’s a piano”, or in the case of an inanimate object, “a piano is anything you want to call a piano”.
No. A piano is an ACTUAL THING with clearly defined, objective characteristics. A piano is not merely a concept or a feeling. And it is those clearly defined characteristics of a piano that help me to clearly differentiate a piano from everything else, including myself. I might wake up one day and think I’m a piano, but those feelings or thoughts would be misplaced, because a piano is a clearly defined ACTUAL OBJECT – not a nebulous concept or feeling.
Furthermore, it doesn’t even make sense to say that you ‘think’ you’re something, unless that ‘something’ is clearly defined. What does it actually mean to say that someone ‘thinks’ they’re a woman, if the only definition of a woman that society now has is “A woman is anyone who thinks they are a woman”? It is completely nonsensical. It effectively means that EVERYONE is potentially a woman (whatever we now mean by ‘woman’). If every person in the world woke up tomorrow and decided that they thought they were now a woman, according to this illogical definition there would be no more men in the world; they would all have mysteriously disappeared overnight!
We don’t apply this kind of farcical thinking to any other sphere of life. If I wake up tomorrow morning and decide I am a brain surgeon, no hospital in the world will give a job unless I can present them with verifiable documentation that proves that I have done the necessary training and am appropriately qualified. In this case, truth is determined by evidence-based facts, not by my feelings. I may feel that I am a brain surgeon – I may truly believe it – but the facts contradict my feelings and show them to be false. I may decide one day that I am an airline pilot, but the absence of verifiable, observable documentation proving that I am appropriately trained and qualified proves that I am merely delusional. Because truth, in almost every other sphere of life, is determined by objective facts, not feelings.
But not so with gender – at least not any longer. We are now being told that your gender is merely whatever you want it to be, irrespective of observable facts. In the area of gender, feelings now dictate truth, and observable facts are irrelevant.
This leaves us with a huge dilemma, because there is no longer any distinction between a man and a woman. There is no longer any means of defining and distinguishing between the two sexes. Two identical twin biological males can now stand before you, each an almost exact copy of the other in every physiological aspect, but we are now being asked to accept that one may be a man and the other a woman – purely based upon their feelings.
So, somebody please help me out here! What is a woman? And what is a man? Give me a definition!
We used to have a very clear definition of the two sexes. A woman was a person with XX chromosomes and female reproductive organs, and a male was someone with XY chromosomes and male reproductive organs. It was unequivocally clear. Gender was defined by verifiable biological facts, rather than nebulous feelings or thoughts. But if that biological definition has now been discarded – if a man with XY chromosomes and male reproductive organs now qualifies as a woman – then WHAT IS OUR CURRENT DEFINITION OF A WOMAN OR A MAN? No one has been able to answer that question for me, apart from the ridiculous exercise in circular logic, that says “A woman is someone who thinks they’re a woman, and a man is anyone who thinks they’re a man.”
Out of curiosity, I looked up a variety of online dictionaries and encyclopaedias to see how they define the term ‘woman’. Almost all of them skirt around the issue by defining a woman as a ‘female’ person. That, of course, is no help whatsoever, as it simply moves the goalposts so that we now need to define what we mean by ‘female’. Wikipedia’s definition starts off along the same lines, “A woman is an adult female human”, but then it provides more detail:
“𝙏𝙮𝙥𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮, 𝙖 𝙬𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙬𝙤 𝙓 𝙘𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙣𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙜𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙗𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙝 … 𝙁𝙚𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙮, 𝙖𝙨 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙮, 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙙𝙚𝙨 𝙁𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙩𝙪𝙗𝙚𝙨, 𝙤𝙫𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨, 𝙪𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙪𝙨,𝙫𝙪𝙡𝙫𝙖, 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙨, 𝙎𝙠𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙨 𝙜𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝘽𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙣’𝙨 𝙜𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨.”
Apparently, someone needs to tell Wikipedia that they are living in the dark ages!
Society’s decline into absurdity has been remarkably rapid. In a few short years we have moved from a world whose understanding of gender was founded upon objective facts to one dominated by subjective feelings and preferences. Gender is now determined by how we feel about ourselves, rather than by objective, observable, verifiable facts. In this strange new world, if a biological woman with verifiable female physiology – XX chromosomes, breasts, a womb, and female genitalia –declares to us that she thinks she is now a man, we must agree with her. Similarly, if a person who is biologically male with all the right ‘bits’ declares that he now thinks he is a woman, we are asked to accept this as fact. Indeed, if he told us one day that he was a man, and the next day that he now believes he is a woman, we are asked to believe him on both occasions. We must lay aside all observable, quantifiable evidence to the contrary, because feelings and opinions now reign supreme over facts.
I am reminded of the fairy tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, by Hans Christian Andersen. A vain emperor is sold a non-existent set of ‘magical’ new clothes by some swindlers who tell him that the clothes are only visible to intelligent people and that fools cannot see them. Not wishing to be seen as a fool, the emperor pretends to see the clothes as the swindlers pretend to dress him. He then parades naked through the streets of his city, with his subjects being told that only fools would not be able to see the clothes. Not wishing to appear to be fools themselves, everyone pretends to see the clothes until an innocent little boy speaks up and declares, “But the emperor has no clothes!”, at which point everyone’s eyes are opened.
That fairy tale is being played out in our world today in regard to gender. We are being asked to ignore the clear evidence before our eyes and pretend that a man is a woman, and a woman is a man. The pressure to agree with this fantasy is enormous and anyone who dares to disagree is regarded contemptuously as a fool.
But I suspect that there is a silent majority who are whispering to themselves, “But the emperor has no clothes!”.
In the opening chapters of the Bible, God created mankind, male and female. Significantly, Adam did not have to ask Eve, “Are you a man or a woman? What do you think you are, today?”. The facts were plain to see. They still are, if you are willing to be honest with yourself.
