[neilep (OP)]

Why oh why do some people struggle to define what a woman is ?


(This could be ' just Chat;  but it's also I think the ideal section to post this question.)


whajafink ?





Mine......a grown female with XX chromosome's , with all the apparatus to have babies ...cervix, uterus , boobies lol etc !


Please add your own or elaborate on mine !


What's your definition ?

[Origin]

A female human.

[neilep (OP)]

A female human.

agreed !!

[alancalverd]

Just stick with the XX chromosomes. The reproductive bits don't always work and are sometimes removed if they go very wrong, but every cell of a woman's body contains two X chromosomes and every adult member of homo sapiens with two X chromosomes is a woman.

[chiralSPO]

Just stick with the XX chromosomes. The reproductive bits don't always work and are sometimes removed if they go very wrong, but every cell of a woman's body contains two X chromosomes and every adult member of homo sapiens with two X chromosomes is a woman.

well... there are some people who have two X chromosomes and a Y (XXY). As I understand it, they present as male, and are considered male with Klinefelter syndrome. https://kidshealth.org/Nemours/en/parents/klinefelter-syndrome.html

But yes, we should definitely avoid requiring body parts to define womanhood.

[neilep (OP)]

Just stick with the XX chromosomes. The reproductive bits don't always work and are sometimes removed if they go very wrong, but every cell of a woman's body contains two X chromosomes and every adult member of homo sapiens with two X chromosomes is a woman.

Thank you Alan.

Even if some of the girly bits fail they are still part of her biology.

[neilep (OP)]

Just stick with the XX chromosomes. The reproductive bits don't always work and are sometimes removed if they go very wrong, but every cell of a woman's body contains two X chromosomes and every adult member of homo sapiens with two X chromosomes is a woman.

well... there are some people who have two X chromosomes and a Y (XXY). As I understand it, they present as male, and are considered male with Klinefelter syndrome. https://kidshealth.org/Nemours/en/parents/klinefelter-syndrome.html

But yes, we should definitely avoid requiring body parts to define womanhood.

That's very interesting Chiral and thanks for the link. Very good article.

I wonder if there are any YYX's ?

[chiralSPO]

Why oh why do some people struggle to define what a woman is ?

It depends on what the context is. The simple, men and women model is appropriate for most considerations.... But in some contexts, this oversimplified model must be extended. There are many different ways in which it can be extended, depending on what the question at hand is:

• Including age: boys, men, girls, women. And then, we have to wonder what defines the cutoff. Is it a certain age that applies across the board? (ie legal adulthood definitions for voting, driving, drinking, etc.) Perhaps sexual maturity (for which multiple thresholds could be defined), which would make sense when considering sexual activity/risks etc.

• For sports. It might make more sense to look at hormone levels. (Even without administered hormones, genetics alone doesn't necessarily dictate which hormones are produced and at which levels, and even then, the bodies might have atypical responses to hormones. For example, some people are born with XY genes, but no testes, and therefore develop as female https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/swyer-syndrome) If we consider administered hormones, then does a female who transitions to male compete as a female or a male? What about someone who has developed as a male and then transitions to female? Should there be more than two categories, or maybe only one? The rules should be decided for each competition, well in advance of the actual competition.

• What about for medical treatment? Just M/F is terribly oversimplified, especially when it comes to treating diseases related to sex. Ideally, doctors should know the genetic makeup, hormonal history etc. of each patient. Think of it this way: a flashlight (torch) can be on or off (simple enough, no?), but if it is off, one must know whether the switch is off, if it has batteries in it, if the batteries are installed with the correct polarity, if the circuit is broken etc. It is similar for human bodies. There are so many interconnected systems, and an apparent error can have many different causes (disease, mutation, toxic exposure, injury, etc.)

• Definitions base on body parts suffer from complications such as surgeries (as alancalverd pointed out). And sometimes, people are born as intersex, with genetalia that are not obviously assignable as strictly male or strictly female. (going off of neilep's tagline, some people are only partially inside out) https://www.healthline.com/health/baby/what-does-intersex-look-like

[neilep (OP)]

Why oh why do some people struggle to define what a woman is ?

It depends on what the context is. The simple, men and women model is appropriate for most considerations.... But in some contexts, this oversimplified model must be extended. There are many different ways in which it can be extended, depending on what the question at hand is:

• Including age: boys, men, girls, women. And then, we have to wonder what defines the cutoff. Is it a certain age that applies across the board? (ie legal adulthood definitions for voting, driving, drinking, etc.) Perhaps sexual maturity (for which multiple thresholds could be defined), which would make sense when considering sexual activity/risks etc.

• For sports. It might make more sense to look at hormone levels. (Even without administered hormones, genetics alone doesn't necessarily dictate which hormones are produced and at which levels, and even then, the bodies might have atypical responses to hormones. For example, some people are born with XY genes, but no testes, and therefore develop as female https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/swyer-syndrome) If we consider administered hormones, then does a female who transitions to male compete as a female or a male? What about someone who has developed as a male and then transitions to female? Should there be more than two categories, or maybe only one? The rules should be decided for each competition, well in advance of the actual competition.

• What about for medical treatment? Just M/F is terribly oversimplified, especially when it comes to treating diseases related to sex. Ideally, doctors should know the genetic makeup, hormonal history etc. of each patient. Think of it this way: a flashlight (torch) can be on or off (simple enough, no?), but if it is off, one must know whether the switch is off, if it has batteries in it, if the batteries are installed with the correct polarity, if the circuit is broken etc. It is similar for human bodies. There are so many interconnected systems, and an apparent error can have many different causes (disease, mutation, toxic exposure, injury, etc.)

• Definitions base on body parts suffer from complications such as surgeries (as alancalverd pointed out). And sometimes, people are born as intersex, with genetalia that are not obviously assignable as strictly male or strictly female. (going off of neilep's tagline, some people are only partially inside out) https://www.healthline.com/health/baby/what-does-intersex-look-like

This reminds me of (forgive me if my recollection is inaccurate) of a man who transitioned to be a woman and became a world champion swimmer, leaving the competitors far far behind. More muscle mass, more stamina, bigger lungs etc Whereas a man, he was something like 670th in the world.


It's the silly politicians and public figures who seem to be unable to give a definition.

The intersex are a very rare exception.
 
There are now parents who will not define their offspring allowing them to choose their own gender.....these are three-year-olds etc

Thank you for the link Chiral.

[Halc]

I wonder if there are any YYX's ?

There are, but they don't seem to have given it a nice name like 'Klinefelter'. It's just XYY syndrome.

[paul cotter]

Going on memory here without checking. I think there is quite a number of other "intersex" syndromes connected with the xy chromosomes.

[evan_au]

As I understand it, all embryos start development as females, but around 6-8 weeks of gestation, the SRY gene on the Y chromosome kicks in, and steers the embryo towards development of male characteristics.
- Females don't have a Y chromosome, so SRY does not activate

If this SRY gene is mutated and/or is not activated, the embryo will continue development as a female, even though there is an X & Y chromosome.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testis-determining_factor

[Petrochemicals]

A strange one is the self fertilising human, never recorded but I have read theoretically possible, they would have to be both.

Plus is it joke time yet?

154bd2025d64214c94cabc53d81f907a.jpg (17.49 kB . 236x298 - viewed 3322 times)

[bezoar]

I read an article a while back as to why, when there is no functional need for them, men have nipples, and this was because all you guys started out as females.

[alancalverd]

There is very little functional requirement nowadays for most of the human male anatomy. The likely longterm outcome is that, like some fish and spiders, evolution and food shortages will favor smaller males, gradually diminishing to genitals on legs.

[chris]

I read an article a while back as to why, when there is no functional need for them, men have nipples, and this was because all you guys started out as females.

Males have nipples because they form during embryonic development following a default developmental pathway that is not linked to sex hormones. A specific body segment is genetically programmed to produce that tissue as the skin forms. When we go into puberty, under the influence of some hormones, the tissue there responds locally to turn the nipple area into a breast.

For this reason, males given the right stimulus (physical and or chemical) can augment their glandular tissue there too and produce milk. Males of some species do this anyway to participate in breast feeding - bats are an example.

[neilep (OP)]

There is very little functional requirement nowadays for most of the human male anatomy. The likely longterm outcome is that, like some fish and spiders, evolution and food shortages will favor smaller males, gradually diminishing to genitals on legs.

 

[alancalverd]

Plato asked  Marx (Groucho, that is) "What is a woman?"

GM replied "A woman is always a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke."

"Aha", said Plato "so a woman is anything that cannot be smoked."

Let us test this hypothesis. Is a woman a herring? No, you can smoke a herring.

[chiralSPO]

There is very little functional requirement nowadays for most of the human male anatomy. The likely longterm outcome is that, like some fish and spiders, evolution and food shortages will favor smaller males, gradually diminishing to genitals on legs.

You are forgetting that not all traits that are selected for evolutionarily are for survival. Attracting mates is also quite important, and many phenotypes are selected for purely for mate attraction, even when they are detrimental to survivability (see: bird plumage)

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/sexual-selection-13255240/

[alancalverd]

As a hairy-chested baldie I've often wondered about the role of plumage, but never worried about it..