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"What is a woman?"
"What is a woman?"
265 comments
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I don't accept the assertion that your definition isn't recursive.
This is like someone who says they believe in God, because their definition of God is 'The Universe'
That's cool, define God however you want. But it's not a very helpful definition when the majority of people are using that word in a very different way.
Remember, language is descriptive, not prescriptive.
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Let's try an experiment, hm.
"I am not a woman."
Using the definition "a woman is someone who identifies as a woman," would you call me a woman.
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When you say "call you a woman".
Do you mean, "would I personally agree with the definition?", or "would I refer to you as a woman in public?".
If it's the former, then you should know I don't use that definition.
And if someone asked me to refer to them as a woman, I would, no problems.
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If it's the former, then you should know I don't use that definition.
"Remember, language is descriptive." You only need to know how I'm using it.
So, using my "recursive" definition, is it correct or not correct to call me a woman. Is it possible to derive an answer from the information given to you.
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"Beer is good for your health"
Assuming the word "good" actually means "bad", then the statement is correct.
But I'm sure you still disagree that "good" actually means "bad", because it isn't helpful for describing what either of those words mean.
I believe you are prescribing a word, rather than letting it be descriptive. Furthermore, even if it was descriptive, I am not convinced it describes anything accurately, and is functionally useless because of its recursive nature.
In any case, can we say that your experiment wasn't very good because we have failed to discern anything? Have you got any other experiments lined up for me?
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Assuming the word "good" actually means "bad", then the statement is correct.
This is perfectly simple to follow. I have no idea what this is meant to prove.
You can prescribe words. You just make an argument. For instance, when you tell people the thing you made is called a "Tesla." You can also tell people your website is called "X," and if people disagree, well, they prescribe the opposite then, don't they?
I don't "naturally follow from sociological norms that the site is called Twitter" as much as I just refuse to call it the other one. I am prescribing something here.
In any case, can we say that your experiment wasn't very good
No, because you refuse to engage. You know what the correct answer is, I gave you a child's problem, you just won't say it.
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I'm not refusing to engage, I simply don't see things the way you do.
I don't think we're likely to make much progress here I'm either direction.
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You are.
I wasn't asking you to agree with the definition, I was asking you to follow it through. You know, like a descriptivist.
If a woman must identify as a woman, then a person who says "I am not a woman" should not be called one. You're in the category if you want to be, you're not if you don't. Simple. Easy. Much utility. This is exactly what people in my camp use it for.
I'll point out, by the way, dictionaries provide a lot of useful context, but you cannot expect them to teach you the world. Words there depend on words for meaning. If you don't know any single word, you can't parse any of the meaning. If you don't believe me, read a French dictionary (no translations) and see if you can parse out from the words alone what anything is.
The only way to parse meaning is to match words you see to experiences you have in life. This is actually how children learn languages. No child knows "the definition," but they do know how to use the words.
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He's refusing to engage with me too because he's a coward. It's honestly pathetic. He started the fight with misogyny thinking it would be easy and now he's embarrassed he's being beaten by women so he's refusing to try. Such a worm.
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Yeah, it's the anti-intellectualism that really gets me. Reeally bothers me when people refuse to concede even simple, obvious points.
It's been funny reading your branches, too.
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If a woman must identify as a woman, then a person who says "I am not a woman" should not be called one. You're in the category if you want to be, you're not if you don't. Simple. Easy. Much utility. This is exactly what people in my camp use it for.
I don't agree with this. What I've been trying to tell you.
I don't identify as a man, I just do what's expected of me socially as a man. I fit every conventional definition of man, so I believe that's a very good descriptor and has utility. It helps that I fit the traditional role of a man too.
You mention kids learning what words mean through usage. So what is a child's conception of a woman? It's going to be based off roles within our society, not how someone feels.
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I don't agree with this.
Then you will forever misunderstand us.
You don't identify as a man? So, if you did things that society expects of women, would you be.. a woman.. then? Look, the dispassion is admirable, I just wasn't expecting you to be so loose about it.
So what is a child's conception of a woman?
It's gonna be faces of people they know along with liberal use of the word "woman" in their presence. I mean, do you understand an orange is like a banana the very first time you see one?
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It depends who raised that child. There are children currently raised by queer and trans people who have very different ideas of woman versus you. Children also tend to appreciate fairness and know not to name call, so respecting gender is pretty easy for them. They play pretend all the time so someone wanting to be something unexpected is definitely okay with kids.
That's fine that you repress your gender to fit the status quo and traditional role of a man. Kinda like gender Stepford Wives. That's allowed and probably won't give you brain cancer later.
Some people like having gender euphoria and happy feelings about their gender, which they can come up with for themselves as their own ideal. We don't need to make everyone cool suffer because of society's lack of imagination.
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What are you trying to communicate or understand about someone when they say they are a woman? Will your answer change if you remember that your mom is included in that definition?
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I'm not trying to communicate or understand anything in particular when someone says they're a woman.
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Then what's the point of using the word woman at all?
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Because it is a useful descriptor.
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What is it describing? Can you be more specific?
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It may be describing the appearance of someone.
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What specifically about their appearance tells you they are a woman? You've said it's a useful descriptor. What about their appearance does 'woman' describe? You're the one claiming "woman" is a descriptor. How so? Support your claim with specific examples.
Ps aren't you embarrassed trying to weasel out of saying your actual opinion? Like I have transparently asked, we both know there are visual cues you're using to define woman. The reason I'm guessing you refuse to list them, is that we know I can find a woman who doesn't fit that mold and would still be defined by society as a woman. You're a coward afraid of losing and intellectually dishonest.
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This is very frustrating. You're accusing me of being disingenuous but I'm not.
In any case, I'm really going to have to just ask you to infer how I evaluate how I evaluate which of those three people is a woman, and which is a man.
Let's just roll with it and see how it goes.
One physical trait is the hairstyle.
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There's no real issue with recursive (self referential) arguments in philosophy or math. An example being the Fibonacci Sequence. I'm going to assume your criticism for this is that you, like many conservatives, think this definition is circular.
The following definition is not circular:
A woman is somebody who says they are a woman.
This definition proposes a test, "do they say they are a woman?", to determine if somebody is a woman (according to the given definition). This test can be performed without needing to circularly apply the definition of the term "woman" ─ because we don't need a definition of "woman" to know whether or not somebody says they are a woman.
You may argue it is not a useful definition, because it does not depend on what the person who says "I am a woman" means by the word "woman", only that they use that word to describe themselves. Others will disagree. But the definition itself is not circular.
Perhaps it will help to make an analogy with a similar non-circular definition which was used historically, though is no longer used in modern times, but the definition was not contentious and I am not aware of anybody seriously arguing that the definition was invalid due to circularity.
Before marriages had legal status in modern law, it used to be that a husband and wife became married in a ceremony, in which a religious leader declared "I now pronounce you husband and wife". This pronouncement itself used to be what made two people husband and wife, so if two people had not been married in such a ceremony where such a pronouncement was made, they would not be husband and wife.
So the definition of "husband" and "wife" included that the husband and wife had been pronounced as such, by the power vested in whoever officiated wedding ceremonies. (There were other aspects to the definition as well, but this criterion was required.) Does this mean that until modern times, marriages were meaningless, because being a "husband" or "wife" depended on a pronouncement being made, where the pronouncement itself necessarily included those terms which were defined by the pronouncement?
Of course not. This definition is likewise not circular, because we can apply the definition to determine if two people are husband and wife ─ i.e. has such a pronouncement been made by someone qualified to make it? ─ without having to more deeply investigate the meaning of the words in that pronouncement. The fact of the pronouncement being made, regardless of its meaning, is enough to satisfy the definition.
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Oh, I was looking for something like this. The husband and wife example is really good.
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Holy gish gallop.
Just engage with me as a person instead of a place to throw text at.
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That's fine, if you can't keep up with the few paragraphs I will accept your resignation and defeat. It's cool I won here and we can agree "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman," is a good enough definition for women.
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265 comments