If someone can’t define ‘woman,’ they will not be a useful ally in defending women’s rights. Opening up access to womanhood for anyone who identifies as a woman is a luxury afforded to people ignorant of the plight of women in many parts of the world, where they serve at the behest of men and are not allowed to travel alone, or drive, or own businesses, or seek medical care, or say no to unwanted sex. Freedom from rape (or prosecution of those who rape) is another luxury women cannot afford, even in the US where 90 percent of reported rapes are women. Men get raped too, but at a one to ten ratio of the incidents occurring among women, who are then faced with a possible unwanted pregnancy in a culture that prohibits abortion or leaves a terrible scar for life when the woman feels forced to choose this option….
The link discusses this reality of voting rights, even in parts of the world where it is ‘technically’ legal for women to vote, they are still prevented from doing so if the husband does not want them to vote and therefore won’t give them access to their ID..
Allowing men who don’t even present as female to claim ‘womanhood’ will have a regressive effect on the pursuit of equal rights for women. Allowing women to identify as men has its own set of problems, but they don’t reinforce the male female power imbalance in the same way…. Men for the most part are not scared of women who present as male coming into male spaces, yet the opposite prompts society to once again put women in the closet and force them to prove that they deserve certain protections from the oppression of men, aka the sexually privileged class, who are now free to claim ‘womanhood’ regardless of their physical stature or masculine presentation…
And I can’t help but notice how no one is asking ‘What is a man.’ I wonder why that is, although I think I know.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-where-women-cant-vote
Tales from the Little Shed 