by LoveUniHateExams 16 Replies latest social current
What I’m not in favour of, is just making stuff up - I didn't make stuff up, I just got it wrong.
The use of “egg providers” was apparently a fertility context, not a general replacement for the word “women” - but the word 'woman' would be ok here, because the vast majority of women have eggs and are fertile.
Fair enough.
But most women are not fertile. Women are fertile roughly between 15 and 45, and not all women are ever fertile. So you can’t define “woman” that way. I don’t think “egg provider” is any more problematic than “sperm donor”. It has a reasonable meaning in that context, so I don’t see the point of taking offence at it.
The average woman will be fertile between roughly 15 and 45 years of age. This is the case for the majority of women.
It is intellectually dishonest to try and disentangle female fertility and women!
But most women are not fertile - pure nonsense (see above).
I don’t think “egg provider” is any more problematic than “sperm donor”. It has a reasonable meaning in that context - this is a fair point.
But there is a tendency for activists to try and disentangle 'female fertility' from 'women' that is having an impact on free speech. Look at the recent case of JK Rowling if you want to know what happens when you disagree.
How? Most women are not between 15 and 45. Not all women are fertile until 45. Some women are never fertile. I don’t think we need an expert demographer to deduce, from there facts, that most women are not fertile.
I don’t think this is good evidence that people are trying g to “disentangle female fertility and women”.
As I understand JK Rowling, she is saying there should be a word that describes someone whose biological sex is female, and that word should be “woman”. I think that makes sense. A lot of the more extreme debates are just nonsense on both sides.
As I understand JK Rowling, she is saying there should be a word that describes someone whose biological sex is female, and that word should be “woman” - As I understand it, Rowling came across the following term in social media: 'people who menstruate'. She mocked it by responding thus: 'mmhh, there used to be a word for that'. She got a lot of verbal abuse, including death threats, apparently.
A lot of the more extreme debates are just nonsense on both sides - well, not in the recent case of Rowling. She implied that people who menstruate are women, and a bunch of social media activists called her names and made death threats.
How? Most women are not between 15 and 45. Not all women are fertile until 45. Some women are never fertile. I don’t think we need an expert demographer to deduce, from there facts, that most women are not fertile - ok, let me try and reason with you on this.
The majority of women will be fertile for approximately half their adult lives. This means that the average woman will be fertile for approx. half her adult life.
Some women are born without a uterus. Some women are born with a uterus but are infertile. Some women are fertile for longer than the average woman. But all these types of women are atypical because they lie outside the average. None of these groups is a majority.
So, it is intellectually dishonest to try to disentangle female fertility from the word 'woman' because the majority experience fertility in their lives.
You said most women are fertile. Not “most women are fertile at some point in their lives”. That’s clearly not the same thing.
For older women the distinction may be important, because they don’t stop being “women” when they are no longer fertile. That idea some would find insulting.
I’m not wasting any more time on this.
For older women the distinction may be important, because they don’t stop being “women” when they are no longer fertile - yes, you're right: after menopause, women are still women.
When I originally said that the vast majority of women have eggs and are fertile, did you honestly think I meant that those women don't go through menopause? I thought that was a given, lol.
Female fertility cannot be disentangled from the word 'woman' because most women are fertile for a certain period of their lives. This isn't difficult to grasp.
