Talk:Woman/Archive 25

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"Woman" refers to gender or sex?

This article as it's currently written appears to be equating woman to female human, which means that it is only addressing the use of the word in relation to sex. However, according to other sources, in the last 10 years, "woman" has increasing come to refer to gender, not sex, whereas "female" still refers to sex. Bespeak (talk) 14:31, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

You may wish to review the discussion at Talk:Woman/Archive_24. From my view, the introduction of the article could be revised to better reflect the contents of the article. I considered developing a proposal to edit the lead, but creating a lead per MOS:LEAD and WP:NPOV policy may be a more appropriate issue for the Neutral Point of View Noticeboard to consider, so more editors can participate. Beccaynr (talk) 14:50, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
@Bespeak, @Beccaynr You may be interested in an ongoing discussion of the corresponding question on the Man article: Talk:Man#RfC_on_footnote_in_lede. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 19:24, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
Please revisit this article to fit the current definition. "A woman is an adult female human." This description is exclusionary to transwomen. PalmScrost (talk) 21:53, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
This is the article that references Trans woman Lukewarmbeer (talk) 08:15, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
The female article makes clear that at times it does refer to gender. Crossroads -talk- 13:59, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
I think the lead should clearly set out a brief sex–gender distinction and be as inclusive, balanced, and neutral as possible. Currently I think its heavy weighting towards discussing largely physical characteristics could be considered trans exclusionary (and exclusionary to those born as a woman but without these physical parts, like some intersex people for example). In this manner I think to avoid disputes and hostility it would be better to remove the short description. Using oversimplified definitions and not being clear, distinct, specific and precise in regards to sex and gender I think can often lead to trans exclusionary people using definitions in the form of a weapon to be hateful and exclusionary. Trying to define a woman (like trying to identify a man or a human in general) it’s not something that everyone can agree to boil down to a short and simple agreed upon definition. We as humans are more complex than this; as are the matters of sex and gender. Thus, I think the lead should reflect this in a more balanced form. Helper201 (talk) 06:37, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
I agree that the introduction should be more clear that the word is used to refer to gender more than "adult female human". One of the citations is 14 years old and so not the best. Wikipedia should not be seen to be taking sides and just be balanced. AussieWikiDan (talk) 16:07, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
This historical analysis might be useful. Also this one. I think there is at least enough coverage to mention the sex-gender distinction in the body. The body is a good place to start, as some might view it as required as a prerequisite for mention in the lead, per WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY. The void century 20:10, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
This thread came to a natural end in May. It should not be revived as a dumping ground for disruptive argumentation per WP:NOTFORUM and WP:DENY.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Wikipedia should be scientifically correct and neutral. Gender is not a scientific metric; It is a social construct, one that is not accepted by the vast majority of people and scientists or politicians. Wikipedia should not be the playground of people with a specific ideology. What imo would be most fair and correct is that this page links to a separate page about trans-woman where it mentions these are men who feel born in the wrong body, often feel woman but biologically are still men. I am well aware this might hurt some feelings. But it would be scientifically correct. A transwoman is a man that transitioned to a woman, often genuinely feels woman but is biologically still a man. If we start masquerading science because of feelings this would know no end. There are almost 8 billion people on the planet with their own personal views and feelings. It is imo not the responsibility of this site to try not to hurt any of them but to be scientifically correct. And science overwhelmingly disagrees a transwoman is a genuine woman. It is a person that feels a woman and deserves the respect and same human dignity that all people do. But they are not woman as they have other DNA/Chromosomes. RealHarveySpecter (talk) 08:32, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Please provide a reliable citations to back up your claims that are more reliable and verifiable than the current sources, if you wish to make these changes. As such sources do not exist, these changes shall not be implemented. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 08:42, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Your name clearly shows you want to make wikipedia your own personal playground. That is not how it works.
[1]https://unherd.com/2023/02/the-problem-with-trans-women-are-women/
Also it is not you who decides but the community. Wikipedia needs to be scientifically correct. Transwomen are born male and thus cannot be woman. THat does not take away their right to feel and live like one. THis page however is not about that; It is about defining what a woman is; And that is an adult female. Not a man. However we should recognize the existence of trans people hence a link to a separate pages seems fair and most importantly, correct and unbiased. RealHarveySpecter (talk) 08:50, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Please, Comment on content, not on the contributor. Repeated unsubstantiated attacks on editors in the way you did above will likely result in sanctions. Your correct that Wikipedia needs to be scientifically correct, but this is done by citing reliable sources by scientists, not your own thoughts or those of writers in news opinion sources (when they conflict with academic sources). You could for example read any of the high quality sources at Sex–gender distinction#References, Transgender#References or many other articles in this area. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 09:11, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
The existence of a few sources fitting a narrative does not remove the fact that gender - as I poster earlier with a link from WHO - is a social construct. So the question is, is Wikipedia a source of social constructs or a source of facts and truth. It can/should be both. Hence, have a page defining what a woman is and a page defining what a transwoman is. It is a tough subject. I get that. Claiming a trans-woman is a woman is scientifically incorrect. Sure it might make some people feel bad. Stating the opposite will also make people feel bad. Wikipedia should not care about feelings for reasons I explained before. It should be a source of scientific truth. https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/06/changing-the-concept-of-woman-will-cause-unintended-harms RealHarveySpecter (talk) 10:30, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
You do know that Social construct doesn't mean being "made up" or "fake", right? It just means that it's a system created by humans and is changeable.[2][3]3 Money is a social construct but is also very real and important. The idea of Mammals or Fish are also social constructs (created by humans for the purpose of categorizing things). None of these things are fake and all are based on some thing in reality, but are at the end of the day constructed by humans and are able to be changed by humans. to quote your WHO source As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time.(emphasis added). You'll notice they don't call it fake. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 13:24, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Gender is a social construct: RealHarveySpecter (talk) 08:53, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Oh, dear. Please lay off the Matt Walsh/Daily Wire propaganda. Your bigotry is showing. Wikipedia pages does not define anything. All we do is describe what reliable sources say and reliable sources do not agree with you. If you're in any doubt, the Daily Wire, not Matt Walsh are not considered anything near a reliable source. If you have any, please cite one. Kleuske (talk) 09:07, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
You have no place on this site if everything that doesn't fit your fragile worldview is considered propaganda and bigotry. It's a pathetic excuse.
Hope you will be removed from wherever possible. 62.59.37.27 (talk) 10:20, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Are you User:RealHarveySpecter? Also, please do not violate WP:NPA. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 10:33, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
I added reliable sources too which refute your claims. There is no scientific source saying a transgender woman is the same as a biological woman. None. Sure sources state these people feel like one and mentally even might be one; Biologically speaking however, they are none; They do not have XX chromosomes, do not have a womb, uterus, cannot have babies etc. I don't understand why we are even having this discussion.
[4]This article scientifically explains that it is a difference in the brain leading to the feelings transgender people have, feeling different. We cannot deny this. We should accept transgender people of course. That's not what this article is about. This article is about what is a woman. There is no proof nor consensus that a transgender woman is a biological woman. Maybe to solve the discussion Wikipedia could add the word 'biological'. That would make the distinction clear and we could surely add a link to what is a transgender woman. Is that an acceptable compromise? RealHarveySpecter (talk) 10:36, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
1. You cited two opinion pieces.
2. I said earlier ""Are trans women the same as biological women" doesn't work, as 1. "biological woman" is not a term used in academia or really anywhere academic. If you mean "cis women" then the answer would be no, according to literally everyone, as cis women are women who were AFAB, whereas trans woman are women who were AMAB. Nobody disputes them being different terms, so I'll assume you mean just "women", which is like asking "are Greek women the same as women", it doesn't really make sense."
3. I encourage you to do some reading on the topic; Chromosomes do not at all determine sex. There are Fetuses/Zygotes with XY chromosomes that develop as females due to androgen insensitivity, and are fully female.
4. No, that study does not say that a difference in the brain causes the feelings, it says that trans women typically have more female brains. That is not the same thing. Correlation is not causation. And Additionally brain structure is not a good determiner for gender identity. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 11:11, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
(I think you meant XY chromosomes in that third point.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 11:35, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Oh yeah lol A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 11:38, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
@User:RealHarveySpecter's only contributions is on this talk page, and their account was created today, 2 hours ago, and 10 minutes before their first edit (which was here). I suspect we may have a sockpuppet here. I also believe that 62.59.37.27 is RealHarveySpecter on their mobile device, as their edits are mobile edits, and as their writing style is identical, and taking the same position in the same argument. RealHarveySpecter's writing style and writing is indicative of being a pre-established Wikipedian, and not at all someone who joined 2 hours ago, As them saying "You have no place on this site" suggests, as well as making statements of what "Wikipedia should not be", knowing about redirects, all this suggests being an established Wikipedian, which it would also not be explained by having been an IP editor previously seeing as 62.59.37.27 only has one edit which is here. I can't say anything definitive yet, but this is some reasonable ground for suspicion. We should maybe start a sockpuppet investigation. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 10:49, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
You are attacking me personally with irrelevant claims. I will not take any part in this. I said what I felt necessary. I kindly remind the community that Wikipedia is a community thing where neutrality and correctness is key. When people attack others with fallacies to demonise their contributions, in my opinion that are signs of wanting to make it personal. I respectfully do not think that is wise. I also never said 'you have no place on this site'. This is another character murder on me. I will not longer answer and report your form of abuse to administrators. This is unacceptable. RealHarveySpecter (talk) 11:00, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Though I should add, it may be possible that they started editing on another language Wikipedia first. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 10:56, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Lady, an IP address does not give you any information on the type of device. I also do not see the relevance. You clearly have different views and this results in an attack by you on my person. Again, I will not have any of this abusive behavior. RealHarveySpecter (talk) 11:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Correct, you can't tell device from IP address. But You can see here the edit has the Tags "Mobile edit, Mobile web edit" which is how I know.
Second, I'm not attacking your person at all, I've just noticed some suspicious things that suggest your account being a sockpuppet. A CheckUser would tell us if there's two or more accounts. If it is not, then nothing negative occurs.
Additionally, WP:NPA does not apply here. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 11:24, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Those tags show the website (en.m.wikipedia vs en.wikipedia), not the device type. You can use the mobile site on laptops and the desktop site on smartphones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 11:36, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
That is true, I myself use the desktop site when on mobile, but nobody uses the mobile site on desktop. And also the being on an IP, it doesn't make sense for one to log out and use the mobile site on desktop. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 11:41, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

The argument that sex and gender are distinct is one of politics. It is not accepted by the majority of English-speakers - especially in the United States, Singapore, and Australia - and academics in the field of biology. This is just more partisan nonsense trying to influence Wikipedia which is discrediting the website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.187.131.115 (talk) 04:27, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

First, remember to sign your comments!
To address your points, as clearly stated on the page sex–gender distinction "most contemporary social scientists,[8][9][10] behavioral scientists and biologists,[11][12] many legal systems and government bodies,[13] and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO[14] make a distinction between gender and sex.". I encourage you to read said article. As explained by Hist9600 in the section This article really needs a massive overhaul; "Healthcare services, systems, and software generally make a distinction between sex and gender these days. They may also include other information related to gender as well, such as pronouns. They have been adapted to the sex and gender distinction because this isn't the 20th century anymore. The idea that only select corners of "academia" make a distinction between sex and gender is flatly false.". Furthermore, polling suggests that the majority of people in Australia, the UK, and America support an identification model of gender, and even in the UK, which has a reputation of being "TERF island", according to this poll, The majority of people agree with the identification model, 24% are neutral, and only 24% opposing. Only excluding those who didn’t respond neutral, a supermajority (68%, over 2/3rds) support it. So that too is not the case. In Australia, there is a super-majority in favour. America is far from having any consensus, though that's not all that surprising considering that it's at stage 7 of the 10 states of genocide, but that's off topic. I do not care about Singapore; it is a city state, and it should be noted that a majority of people do not speak English at home. Not that public support isn’t redundant, as it’s not academia and public support cannot be cited, but the notion that it’s some fringe idea only held by a small portion of academia is not the case. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 05:54, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Your points only show gender is accepted as a social construct and that governments accommodate it by altering their software. The poll you refer to talks about "identifying as another gender". To be relevant however, a poll would have to ask "is a trans woman the same as a biological woman". Most people believe in freedom. If the individual identifies as something they should be free to do so. You couldn't stop them if you tried. By the way your link to "there is a super-majority" does not work. Again, gender is a social construct allowing people to ID as something of their choice. But it is highly controversial and not the topic of this article; What is the topic is: what is a woman. A majority does not agree: a trans woman is the same as a biological woman. Hence my suggestion: leave this page for real woman and link to a specific page about transgenders. That seems fair as it respects scientific reality and also acknowledges the existence of people with gender dysphoria. RealHarveySpecter (talk) 08:46, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
The "There is a super majority" link didn't work due to me adding an unnecessary "|". It's fixed.
So, 1st of all the "Are trans women the same as biological women" doesn't work, as 1. "biological woman" is not a term used in academia or really anywhere academic. If you mean "cis women" then the answer would be no, according to literally everyone, as cis women are women who were AFAB, whereas trans woman are women who were AMAB. Nobody disputes them being different terms, so I'll assume you mean just "women", which is like asking "are Greek women the same as women", it doesn't really make sense. So that question is nonsensical, and also is a biased question. Reminder, WP:NPOV must be abided by.
Next, your link is an opinion piece, and not the survey itself. Link to the survey so we can review the terminology and such. Even by that link, that doesn't even say that a majority disagree? It's a tie according to that. Additionally, that article cites "the UnHerd Britain poll, published today", which the Britain Unherd poll on trans people conducted from Fed 3rd to Feb 5th 2023 was the one I cited, yet the article phrases it as "Published today", which there was no Britain Unherd trans poll released then, to my knowledge, so I will believe the listed release of the article of Febuary 10th is after that opening portion was written, (which is poor writing). It appears that the poll in reference is the one I cited, before it was finished? If I'm mistaken correct me. But I believe it's quite likely that I merely couldn't find the survey, so please link it directly if that is the case. It should also be noted that Unherd is a biased and partisan source.
Though, I have already explained that public support is redundant, and irrelevant. So there is no point to arguing over it, since it makes no difference; There is extremely reliable academic and IO citations saying that sex and gender are distinct, and the majority of academia saying it, which disproves the point I was responding to there. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 09:25, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Your claim that biological woman is not used is incorrect. Furthermore, the term cis is considered a slur like the n-word. Elon Musk confirmed that on Twitter. Also most people who do not have gender dysphoria do not take kindly to the term. I posted the link with the poll because another contributor here did so too making claims my poll refutes. Imo polls are not good sources anyway as the results will vary highly depending who you ask.
I feel we are drifting off scope. The title of this page is: woman. What is a woman. It is again a tough subject, especially when there is no consensus in society. Therefor I feel we should make sure it is correct from a scientific point of view. Another option would be this page links to 1) Biological women and 2) transgender woman where both can be properly explained. Imo that would be the best compromise as it does not exclude anyone and I hope it will not offend anyone. RealHarveySpecter (talk) 10:51, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Do you know what else a social construct? The meaning of words. People, not "science", decide which sounds their mouths should make when they are talking about something, and people can even change the meanings of words over time.
I think you need to figure out what "gender is a social construct" actually means before you post anything else. I'll give you a hint to get you started: When society collectively decides that things like nurturing, expressing emotions, or talking a lot is (or isn't) associated with women, and that other qualities, like aggressiveness and risk-taking, are associated with men, and that still other qualities, such as curiosity or wanting to be healthy, apply to everyone, then that's "social construction of gender". It's "social" (because society does it, not each individual separately), it's "construction" (because society is assembling different ideas into one thing) and it's "gender" (because society is deciding which things belong to gender and which things don't). Note that statements like "'Science says' that females are better at seeing red colors than males, which means society should associate picking ripe fruit with womanhood" is still social construction of gender, because that statement is society saying that they believe that this non-biological behavior (picking fruit) is appropriately associated with womanhood, for reasons that the current society accepts ('Science says'). NB that 'Science says' only that modern females are better at seeing red colors; science doesn't say that this has to be associated with either gender or fruit. It's people who make that connection. WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
We are not here to discuss your personal beliefs. Wikipedia is not a tool for self promotion or whatabouttism. While true people are free to invent/create terms and concepts, these often live at odds with scientific/biological/factual reality. While interesting to share views about this, I do not believe this is the right place to do so. We are here to make this article correct and to answer the question: what is a woman. It is up to the community to decide how to properly address that and to evaluate everyone's input and sources.
It is clear the question "what is a woman" today has a different answer than it had a coupe of years ago. That is the challenge: how do we properly fill that in. I have stated my views. Imo we have the biological women and the transwomen; My proposal was to keep this page to describe the former and add a link to include the latter. This would not exclude anyone and would also properly distinguish between a biological one and people who suffer(ed) from gender dysphoria. I look forward to your comments about this proposal. Please stay on topic. Thank you. RealHarveySpecter (talk) 13:15, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Edit request

Remove this sentence from introduction... "Trans women have a gender identity that does not align with their male sex assignment at birth,[5] while intersex women may have sex characteristics that do not fit typical notions of female biology." Ubaidullah2555 (talk) 12:53, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

It seems like a necessary part of the definition to me. Please can you say why you think that this should be removed and what, if anything, you think should replace it? --DanielRigal (talk) 18:30, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. No sense debating this until then. Xan747 (talk) 18:43, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Dictionary definitions

The Cambridge Dictionary now defines "woman" as "an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth." [5] This should be reflected in the article.Chaptagai (talk) 10:15, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 12:27, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Why? Lord Bedroom, 1st Earl of Wetsheet (talk) 17:00, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
See above discussion "This article really needs a massive overhaul." on the definition. (it's ongoing) A Socialist Trans Girl 09:12, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
@Chaptagai: That's dishonest. The Cambridge Dictionary does not now define "woman" as "an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth." It offers two (2) definitions, of which the first and main one is "an adult female human being". The longer sentence is a secondary, or alternative, definition. Not the definition. --Edelseider (talk) 17:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Both definitions should be included. I am not arguing for deleting "adult human female". --Chaptagai (talk) 19:05, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Both should absolutely be included. Defaulting to excluding trans people because one of two definitions is about cis women, and one includes trans women, makes zero sense. Hist9600 (talk) 19:14, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Definitely. The article mother also includes both biological and non-biological (adoptive) mothers. There is no good reason why this article should be treated differently. --Chaptagai (talk) 20:54, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

The change of a single source is hardly conclusive in this matter. We've discussed this issue with dozens of sources. Also, we're not a dictionary whose job is to provide an exhaustive list of definitions. That's why Wiktionary exists. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 21:53, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

It's not just the change of a single source, but one of many sources. But it is a notable source, and when basic definitions of a term are at odds with our very "legacy" article here, it shows how outdated these Wikipedia articles are, including their cisnormative assumptions. Hist9600 (talk) 22:53, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
See, I don't agree with the idea that our definition is somehow cisnormative. Female can refer to sex or gender. Obviously, the underlying dispute here is "are trans women women" (they are, duh). But I find the implication that trans women are not intrinsically female to be a bit odd (i.e. that they merely identify as such), and I fear that in changing the definition we give in to that implication. Also, the lead already mentions that trans women are women who were AMAB, so I continue to fail to see the real issue. This seems like a case of good intentions and bad outcomes, especially when the sources just don't seem to be there. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 00:09, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
The article currently relies only on two medical sources for "adult human female." This is not a medical article. Woman is more than a mere biological concept. Chaptagai (talk) 17:51, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
Agreed, CaptainEek. Crossroads -talk- 21:06, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Why is this discussion labelled as trolling? I have provided a reputable source. Please remove tag. Chaptagai (talk) 09:09, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Because the content that was collapsed was, at best, not constructive. EvergreenFir (talk) 16:10, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure what part of this is Trolling. Have I missed something? Lukewarmbeer (talk) 13:07, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
Hi Chaptagai. I'm the one who rolled it up so maybe it is best if I explain. First up, please don't worry. I was not accusing you of trolling. If you expand the rolled up section you will see the trolling that I was trying to put a stop to. It started with an IP deliberately trying to be obnoxious which triggered an argument that was never going to help us improve the article. It ended with two comments so abusive that I had to remove them completely and so I decided to roll it all up before things got any more out of hand. You posted your question underneath and I didn't include that in the roll up as that was clearly a separate, and legitimate, matter. It is just an unfortunate side-effect that my warning about trolling ended up right above your question. I have inserted a new section title to separate this thread from the trolling section. I hope that puts your mind at rest. --DanielRigal (talk) 18:23, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Possible split discussion

Here's a draft that uses the "pro and con" style from Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Example formatting. The overall structure is to have a proposal, followed by reasons for and against the proposal. It's structured so that we get a vote, which is generally a bad idea, but in this case might help us settle the question. The devil is in the details, but overall, we either focus this article on gender identity, or we don't; there really aren't compromise positions in which the focus is simultaneously on and off of gender identity. Please feel free to comment either in this section or elsewhere on the page. This section definitely won't be the RFC, assuming that any such RFC actually happens.

If we decided to do something like this, what I'd like to achieve is not the first sentence, but a change to this talk page. A {{FAQ}} at the top that says "Yes, we know that you would prefer this other approach, but we had an RFC in 2023, and it decided this article would include _____, so we're not going to make this article do something else." (Assuming, of course, that we could get a consensus.)

Background: There are disputes in the real world about the definition of a woman. At the moment, this article includes (or is intended to include) information about all women under any definition, regardless of whether that definition is based on gender identity, sex assignment, gender role or gender expression. For example, the article currently includes information about people who could be called a woman by virtue of sex assignment (e.g., could get pregnant) but who could not be called a woman by virtue of gender identity (e.g., with a non-binary identity).

Some editors would like to improve this article, but before continuing with that effort, would like to be certain about its overall direction. Thus they ask the community: Should this article be WP:SPLIT, so that it focuses on Gender identity?

Should this article be split?
Yes, let's split this and put separate concepts on separate pages. No, we should have everything on the same page.
This article covers too much territory and ends up lumping together subjects that most scholars see as largely unrelated. We should improve this article by splitting out most (but not all) of the biology-oriented content to a separate article. The focus of this article should be on gender identity, with Wikipedia:Summary style {{Main}} links to a new article on Female human. The resulting article would:

Optionally, we could similarly split off new, more focused articles about women's gender roles and gender expression.

This article currently covers everything about anyone who is a woman. It should continue to be inclusive. Anyone who is a woman of any type should be included here, with all of the information in the same place.

In particular, this article should include:

WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 24 July 2023 (UTC)


Something that is very important and should be noted, is that we are not to do an RFC, as according to WP:RFCNOT we are not to do an RFC for splitting. A Socialist Trans Girl 06:06, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I think the article should be not only about the gender identity, but also the social roles and charectaristics of it. With the "No" side it makes no sense to include trans men and enbies? If it's going to include the gender of non-binary people, it may as well include men as well, which then I don't see much of a point of the article if we do that, so we shouldn't do that. I also think that it's dishonest (whether intentionally so or not) to say that "At the moment, this article includes (or is intended to include) information about all women under any definition, regardless of whether that definition is based on gender identity, sex assignment, gender role or gender expression." Considering the fact that it directly leads with one of the definitions (though I think we're getting close to consensus on the definition in its section) but additionally since it only mentions gender identity 2 times (there's a duplicate of the one in the lede), and only in the context of intersex and trans women, and while only so much can be covered on the gender identity of it, it's absolutely more than what currently is.
As for the RFC, what is the purpose of it? Like what do we gain from it? A Socialist Trans Girl 02:02, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
As it says in the "no split" column, trans men and enbies would be included because and to the extent that their sex assignment aligns with "biological" women. That is, the "no split" says this article is not exclusively (or even primarily) about gender, and therefore people whose gender identity is not women can be included on exactly the same basis that people whose gender identity but not other characteristics are also and equally included. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:58, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
As for what we would get:
If there is no consensus, then we're no worse off than we are now.
If the decision is to split the article, then you get an article focused on gender identity, which is what you (seem to) want.
If the decision is not to split, then when the next person who proposes that information about women as biological females be removed or downplayed can be told that this has been considered and was not supported.
On that last point, imagine that when you made your proposal a couple of months ago, you were told "Yeah, we considered that, and the community decided to do this other thing instead. You can read about it <here>". The next identity-focused person might say that the decision was wrong in every possible respect, but basically we could say "Sure, but even if it's wrong, that was the consensus, and we're stuck with it whether we agree with it or not". If you consider how many hours have been spent talking about this (again) just with you, it could be a significant time saver. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:03, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing I believe you've misinterpreted what I've said, I think the article should be about the social roles and characteristics, some about the gender identity, and it can also have part about biology, though summary as it being just a section on the article doesn't do it justice, so we should do a WP:SPINOFF as it's definitely worthy of it's own article. Keep in mind I don't think that we can really have the article be majority about the gender-identity, moreso the social roles and characteristics as there's far more to talk about, and the gender identity is identifying with those roles and characteristics. Does that make sense? A Socialist Trans Girl 06:56, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
I was against a split but it won't go away so I think the discussion must take place (again?) and I have, after all the wordage, come to the conclusion that yes we should have.
Pondering this I note that the entire conversation here is trying to find a place for Trans Women in the article that makes sense and is based on RS.
But we actually already have a split as we have Trans woman.
In the Woman article we cover the other aspects including Intersex Women already so.....
So I'd say leave this article pretty much as it is but if we are going to have an RfC it would be.
1) Leave Woman and Trans woman articles much as they are accepting that they are two different groups of people (as we do now).
2) Combine the two articles and accept that there is only one group of people (Women) with sub groups of Cis, Trans and Intersex.
(Which is where I think the thrust of much of the foregoing discussion stems from). Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:36, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
I think we're always going to have a separate article on trans women, even if this article becomes fully and exclusively based on gender identity. There is a lot to be said about trans women (e.g., the history of psychiatry) that would be too much detail for this article.
The question that needs to be answered here, before any (re-)discussion of the subject matter, is: Would this question solve the problem?
Imagine that this question is presented to the community, and imagine that we get 100 responses (which is a lot for an RFC, but not unreasonable for this subject). There are two things to consider:
  1. Will we get an answer?
  2. Will that answer be useful in the future?
On the first, you've indicated that you would be able to agree (at least more or less) with one of the two presented options. I think that if editors were constrained to the two options, most people could. But an RFC operates under the normal talk page guidelines, which means that editors could propose alternatives. So we need to think: Do we have a significant risk that editors will wish for a third way? What third (or fourth, or fifth) ways could we expect to be wished for?
On the second question, imagine that a substantial majority are in favor of Yes/Split (or of No/Merge – it doesn't matter which one is chosen, as long as one of them is clearly chosen). Then, a couple of months later, an editor appears on this talk page and says "This article is all wrong! Everyone knows that woman means ______! Please stop reverting me, and give me permission to re-write this article to reflect the definition of woman as ____, which is the view that is widely accepted inside my own filter bubble."
Do you think you could point that person to this RFC, and expect the editor to agree that the RFC did come to a conclusion about the question, and that even though it's the "wrong" decision (according to that person's POV), that it really was the decision made by the community, and therefore the changes they want to make are going against consensus? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
I think that an RfC of this sort would be a massive hassle, and would definitely not stop people from complaining afterward. In fact, it isn't even clear at this point who, if anyone, is actually themselves calling for a split. We shouldn't waste time on an RfC on a position with negligible support. And no matter what the outcome is, people will complain occasionally at some point - more so if all biology is purged from the article, IMO. The status quo holds significant weight because of its support through numerous past discussions, as well as consensus by editing.
For the record I'll briefly rebut here the rationale for splitting. The idea that most scholars see as largely unrelated gender and sex is completely unsupported and is not correct; there are numerous sources that cover both, or that are about women and cover sex-related biology. Sex and gender being "distinct" is a far cry from "unrelated". The article talks about female biology and pregnancy because, per the body of sources on women, these are highly relevant to the topic of "women". Just because there are trans women and AFAB non-binary people to whom certain aspects of the article may not apply, these are much smaller groups and do not negate the general case. Regarding articles about women's gender roles and gender expression, note that femininity already exists and has for a very long time. Crossroads -talk- 22:07, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
I believe that @A Socialist Trans Girl would like to see most of the sex/biology content split to a new article.
I don't expect any RFC or other discussion to stop questions in the future. My question is whether an RFC on this(-ish) question would produce a useful answer (one way or the other), so that when (not if) people ask questions, we can show them that the question has been asked and answered. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
Huh, apparently I misread something when skimming the discussion after I was away, since looking again just now it looks like they might still want to. But in any case, lots of other people have explicitly disagreed, or commented without agreeing. I don't see a reason for experienced editors to humor this proposal because splitting the topic apart like that is not in line with how sources treat this topic, as though biology and pregnancy is disconnected from women's health or whatnot.
I don't think such an RfC would make a meaningful difference for future people asking questions or complaining, for the record. No matter which outcome happens some would be unhappy and complain about it (probably more if the topic is reduced to gender identity only).
Lastly, I must emphasize that the article femininity exists, and mention that feminine psychology, sociology of gender, feminization (sociology), social construction of gender, and many other related and therein-linked articles exist. Many of these need improvement and even are tagged with issues. I believe that improving these would be vastly more productive and successful than attempting to split this article. Crossroads -talk- 23:37, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
@Crossroads I said the following as my proposal(s?) for what to do with the sex/biology section for the female/biology part of the article, even those who consider sex to be the determining factor mostly hold the position that it's the social roles and charectaristics held by females, so I think we should probably definitely have a link to the main article of human female, and then we can; simply state that typically women are members of the female sex(link to main article) OR, have a small section of the article covering the basics of the typical features of the female sex (like the second paragraph in the current lede!) in the lede or a seperate section, [still] with a link to the main article of human female covering it in more depth.
Your statement Splitting the topic apart like that is not in line with how sources treat this topic, as though biology and pregnancy is disconnected from women's health or whatnot. I believe you're misinterpreting what I said, because I never claimed that? Women's health is partially biology and pregnancy (as well as other things such as mental health, etc), however this isn't what this article is about, Women's Health has its own article, this article is about Woman, the gender, not woman's health. I think my proposal of "have a small section of the article covering the basics of the typical features of the female sex (like the second paragraph in the current lede!) in the lede or a seperate section, [still] with a link to the main article of human female covering it in more depth" can be done. Additionally, Biology and Gender Studies (part of Sociology) are different subjects? Like Academically, they're not the same topic, there may be some conducted studies of an overlap/both, but they're still different topics, and saying they're the same topic is not correct. A Socialist Trans Girl 01:40, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
I believe this page gets two basic complaints: One is that it puts too much emphasis on biology, and the other is that it includes trans women. I think that this question (assuming it came to a clear conclusion) would provide an answer to both of these, by basically saying that we're doing this article "wrong" (according to whichever POV is complaining) on purpose. I do expect people to question and complain for decades to come; I think the part we can address is not "Do they ask?" but "Do we have clear evidence that <whatever is decided> is what the community wants to do here?"
I'm not sure that an RFC would be all that much work, unless it is the victim of off-wiki trolls, and semi-protecting the page might solve that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:23, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
What is the RFC for? Like is it just to get more people to give imput on their opinions for if we should do a WP:SPINOFF or not? A Socialist Trans Girl 04:27, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
I commented once above (that I think the article is fine as it is) and have not bothered to make any further comments, because despite the massive wall of text they've generated beating and beating away at the horse, it seems only one or two (near-SPA) editors want a split, and no-one else is persuaded by their arguments (which also don't make sense, since we already tried splitting everything there was to split, long ago, hence Female exists, Trans woman exists, Femininity exists, and the 'female gender' article was removed by AfD). I think we're fine keeping this article as it is, and like other editors above have said, I'm not really seeing a need or appetite for an RFC or change, I'm just seeing a couple editors beating a horse with walls and walls of text that nearly everyone else who watches this talk page has stopped bothering to respond to. -sche (talk) 03:29, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
@-sche First of all it should be noted that I am not at all a Single-purpose Account, I make contributions to numerous topics, namely Sociology, Politics, Geography, and others. It's just that a lot of my edits are in Gender studies, because that's what I am/have been involved in discussions on the talk page in, potentially due to them being contentious topics and therefore possibly more likely to have talk page disputes. You should focus on the subject matter, not the person.
Additionally, consensus is not a popularity contest over the sides, it "involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines." which dismissing editors legitimate concerns on the basis of counting the opinion of editors and (If with the negative connotation of being a WP:SOAP, which I assume as if it wasn't then it wouldn't make sense to bring it up) SPA accusations does not help to achieve consensus. You may oppose a WP:SPINOFF, in which case you can make a case for why human female does not warrant it's own article and should remain a part of the article of the gender Woman, instead of dismissing it completely based on number of editors supporting it, and making accusations of SPAs (whether with a negative connotation or not). With the "no-one else is persuaded by their arguments", framing this as an argument I think is not a good idea, as it results in people getting defensive, and not having it be a discussion to achieve consensus.
As well, it's dishonest to say that the discussions here are just "beating a horse", as there has been significant movements towards consensus especially with the definition discussion, and with the WP:SPINOFF discussion too.
Furthermore, the Female article is really heavily about animals, not human females, and female gender being removed makes sense due to female referring to sex, not gender, and the article of the gender being what this article is for. A Socialist Trans Girl 04:20, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
Proposal is a weird dichotomy; neither option is the status quo. To address the topic at hand, the proposed options seem to express some strange/backwards conceptions about the article's current state. Sources consider trans and intersex women to be women (and relevant to the definition), so Wikipedia includes them in the "woman" topic. Sources devote nearly all other coverage of the "woman" topic ("women's health"/"women in society"/etc.) to "typical" women (i.e. cisgender and allosex), so the article body follows suit (providing caveats where necessary). Some statements made about "typical" women's bodies also incidentally apply to other AFAB people, but do not imply that the current article text "includes" transmasculine people, whose bodies and experiences in society can differ significantly from those of cis women (ex. not all trans men can get pregnant). Sources generally do not consider trans men and transmasc enbies to be "female humans", and ascribing such a label is obviously both politically fraught and inaccurate.
By analogy: most Mammals are viviparous, to the extent that entry-level biology textbooks might cite it as a defining characteristic that separates them from other classes of animal, and occasionally take this for granted in explaining mammalian reproduction. Nonetheless, this does not imply that Monotremes are not Mammals, nor that Wikipedia must WP:RGW and satiate the whims of Platypus-Exclusionary Radical Viviparyists by trailblazing its own classes, Viviparous animal and Egg-laying animal (which, like "Female human", sources do not recognize as meaningfully distinct standalone topics). –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 08:42, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
I hope that the article does not stay in the "status quo" state, because that would imply that it does not get improved significantly. In that last two years, we've added more than 30 sources; during the last year, we've added about 500 words. I would like to see that continue to improve.
If the article doesn't currently mention non-binary people and trans men as examples of people for whom Woman#Biology is relevant but who don't have the same gender identity as cis-women, then that's something that we should be improving. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:19, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
Nah, people such as (trans or cis) men who are specifically not women aren't "something we should be" or would be "improving" the article to add. As others have said, an RfC with your proposed framing where the status quo is not either of the options would be weird. Given how vociferously people at large complain about there being too many gender/sex/trans-related RfCs (and how routinely they get canvassed and/or get no-consensus outcomes), I can't say I find "let's make everyone spend a month of energy on this thing that only ...two?... people want, although it'll most likely produce no substantive change to the article" as appealing an idea as you seem to, nor do I find "this time trolls/users will listen 'there was an RfC about this' and stop complaining, and they definitely won't just respond 'consensus can change' and keep complaining" as likely an outcome, lol (since we have definitive counterexamples in Trans woman and MOS:GENDERID, where telling users 'there was an RfC on this' does not in any way deter them, lol). -sche (talk) 15:48, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
You don't think that the article should mention trans men at all, not even to the extent of adding a sentence like "Trans men were assigned female at birth, but are considered men because of their gender identity"? We mention men about 30 times, so why not trans men? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:11, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
Little if anything is said in the Woman#Biology section about the "typical" development of binary allosex female bodies, that is strictly, universally true or relevant, for trans/non-binary/intersex AFAB people, who, definitionally, do not fit within those typical conceptions. Trans men do not necessarily exhibit any of the sexual characteristics or functions described in that section. Shoehorning "inclusion" of transmasculinity into such a section would require extensive (UNDUE) caveats, and serve little purpose except to confuse lay readers, and instead should be discussed in the relevant article. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 22:15, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
That's mostly true (thought I'm not sure that trans and non-binary AFAB people weren't born into, and frequently underwent typical adolescent development of, binary allosex female bodies), but it's also true that everything we say about gender identity doesn't apply to women with very low IQ, or to grandmothers with advanced dementia, and yet the world is still willing to call them women.
But perhaps you're not quite understanding what I think would be an appropriate, WP:DUE-compliant level of inclusion? I don't think we need a long description of what a trans man's body looks like after medical transition. I think we need something closer to "Trans men were also born with ovaries, uteruses, and vaginas, and may require appropriate medical care for those body parts, but they live as men" and not anything even close to "Let me tell you a textbook's worth of information about how exogenous testosterone affects morbidity and mortality for AFAB bodies". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
Roxy has expressed my thoughts on the matter better than I could. The platypus example is excellent, and reflects why "human female" is in the full context, not a valid topic. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 15:42, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
While I think there is merit in the proposal from User:WhatamIdoingI have to agree with User:-scheon this - for the practical reasons mentioned. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 16:39, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by (which, like "Female human", sources do not recognize as meaningfully distinct standalone topics), There is PLENTY of information on human females which are not covered in Female that warrants it's own article. A Socialist Trans Girl 09:08, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
Oh, you've heard that argument before. It usually runs like "Human bodies exist on a spectrum, and the cutoffs are a bit arbitrary; therefore, there is no meaningful difference between bodies that produce sperm and bodies that produce eggs". One should probably believe that there is no difference that the speaker personally finds meaningful (or relevant womanhood), but one should not assume that, say, an infertility specialist holds the same POV about there being no difference between bodies that produce eggs and bodies that produce sperm. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:13, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
I mean as a distinct topic from Woman, not from Female. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 02:23, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Well it's still the case that there are a TON of sources that distinguish the gender and sex; i.e most contemporary social scientists, behavioral scientists and biologists, many legal systems and government bodies, and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO. A Socialist Trans Girl 08:37, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
Given the RS cited in this article, and looking back through several other discussions on this talk page, I'd have to say that neither of the options proposed above seem particularly sensible, and I'd encourage that we should continue with the current status quo. I can't help but feel that the dichotomy presented between the two proposed options is rather like saying, "We must paint it red, or we must paint it green, and those are the only two options," which quite ignores orange, pink, gray, and indeed, the current and quite acceptable blue. Joe (talk) 10:06, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
@JoePhin, can you describe "the current status quo" in a way that is:
  • short enough that people will read it, and
  • clear enough that people who want to change it to a different approach will know that their goal diverges from the current consensus?
WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree that the binary phrasing of it is not accurate to the nuanced positions held on what we should do, though what is your reasoning for doing continuing the status quo? — Preceding unsigned comment added by A Socialist Trans Girl (talk • contribs) 08:42, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Physiological abuse at gender clinics

The article says (with four sources) "Intersex women like trans women often face physiological abuse at gender clinics". Does anyone know what "physiological abuse" means? Is this supposed to be about physiology (e.g., metabolism) or about psychology (e.g., emotions)? Most of the cited sources don't mention abuse at all, and the one that does says human rights abuses, which is definitely not a physiological thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I would like to know, too. It was added in this edit of 17:57, 3 June 2023 by Des Vallee. Besides that, I question whether there should be an entire section on intersex women in the Woman article, as that seems WP:UNDUE for this topic. Prior to June 3, even trans women, far more numerous than intersex women, had one passing mention in section § Terminology and a brief mention at the end of the lead, which seems about right. (Since then, one additional mention, in the #Intersex_women section.) I would favor dropping this section, in favor of a brief mention somewhere in the body. Mathglot (talk) 02:20, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure about that. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/ says that 0.6% of Americans are trans (40% of them trans women), which is much less than the number popularly given (1.7%) for the more expansive definition of intersex (i.e., that includes LOCAH and other disorders of sex development that do not result in any ambiguity about the person's sex), and a substantial majority of the diagnosed people in that expansive number were AFAB as babies and both identify as and are accepted by society as women throughout their lives. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:21, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Your quoted figure of 1.7% for intersex is one outlier stat which takes the most expansive view possible. However, most authorities report numbers one hundred times smaller than that. In any case, DUE is not based on incidence, but on the proportion of published secondary sources about a topic. By one measure, that is between 5–1 and 83–1 (via google scholar):
By the definition of transgender that takes the most expansive view possible, intersex is included as one subgroup under the umbrella, which also covers many others as well. Finally, your argument (and "expansive numbers") might work better at Transgender, where the comparand would be "Intersex", and is much closer in the comparison above. In the case of "intersex women", the comparison is much more lopsided. Mathglot (talk) 06:32, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

This article really needs a massive overhaul.

There are several severe issues with this article.

  1. The main focus of the article, the social and gender roles associated with being a women, is severely under-talked about.
  2. Biology takes up far too much of the article, considering the fact that sex and gender are separate things, [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] it should not be present in this article, and should split off and made it's own article of Human female.
  3. The article previously had poorly sourced definitions for the lead, which I have replaced with definitions that are well sourced and reputable.
  4. The sociological aspect should be further included in the article.

I think it's very much unacceptable that a level 3 vital article is in as bad of a shape as it is, with a large portion being off topic, and the lead paragraph using outdated poorly sourced definitions, when the academic consensus has been otherwise for decades. This article needs a serious overhaul and improvement. Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 04:29, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

There's already a trans woman as the picture and that isn't enough inclusivity for you. (Personal attack removed) that might be interfering with your perspective of the bigger picture. 70.125.40.4 (talk) 02:48, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Where is the citation for the person as the image being trans? I’d like to see it.
As for your point, I’m not sure what you are talking about with the inclusivity. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 03:49, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
I find this attitude towards the gender/sex distinction very frustrating. While certain segments of academia define gender different than sex, this is an oblique definition that is not generally accepted by society. There's a tendency for people to go "gender and sex are different, get over it", as if it is an already settled debate which gets us nowhere.
I'm not opposed to an inclusion of a non-naturalist definition of woman in this article, but it must actually be argued for—not accepted as a fait accompli. Istandwiththesilent 03:09, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Healthcare services, systems, and software generally make a distinction between sex and gender these days. They may also include other information related to gender as well, such as pronouns. They have been adapted to the sex and gender distinction because this isn't the 20th century anymore. The idea that only select corners of "academia" make a distinction between sex and gender is flatly false. Hist9600 (talk) 03:37, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Reliable academic and IO citations support the sex-gender distinction, which is what is to be cited on Wikipedia; You cannot cite “society thinks this” on Wikipedia.
Additionally, while (to my knowledge) there are no sizeable polls on the sex-gender distinction, polling shows acceptance of trans people being a different gender than the AGAB (which does neccesitate a sex-gender distinction) to be far higher than not; according to this poll, The majority of people agree, 24% are neutral, and only 24% opposing. Only excluding those who didn’t respond neutral, a supermajority (68%, over 2/3rds) support it. Not that public support isn’t redundant, as it’s not academia and public support cannot be cited, but the notion that it’s some fringe idea only held by academia is not the case. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 03:49, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Most people do not accept the “assigned gender” paradigm you casually used in your comment. Your ideas are far outside the mainstream. Polls on this issue are fatally compromised by social desirability bias; respondents are unwilling to transgress the new social norms severely enforced by far left activists like you. Blocky1OOO (talk) 04:05, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
First, your comment is a large violation of WP:NPA (see WP:WIAPA) I suggest you revoke it. Polling is anonymous; so there is no pressure to answer according to the supposed "far left social norms". And, said poll is not a Self-report study, and is an anonymous survey, so is far less subject to Social-desirability bias, to which you have not provided evidence that it is affected by it. And if "my ideas are far outside the mainstream", then why are my ideas the ones with the Social Desirability bias? here's another poll showing more support for it than not. Additionally, you haven't provided any citations backing your claim, so the burden of proof is on you. That said, Reliable academic and IO citations support the sex-gender distinction, which is what is to be cited on Wikipedia; You cannot cite “most people think this” on Wikipedia. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 06:28, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
I find it so frustrating when things start to go this way.
While I don't really agree with your point User:A Socialist Trans Girl it is well argued and your restraint in helping the discussion not descend into slagging and slagging is to be commended (at least by me).
There is no NPOV when it comes to editors. We shouldn't be interested in "where anyone is coming from" All editors have their own perspectives and POV. What we seek to achieve here is a distillation of those ideas into an encyclopaedic article based on RS. We don't do polls or "most people agree" (or disagree).
Please lets avoid directing comments at editors and citing polling and instead direct them at improving the article. It makes the whole thing tedious, time consuming and unproductive.
This is what I think we know (correct me if I am wrong)
RS say that 'Trans Women' make up a tiny proportion of the population. That is what informs us about the weight any reference to 'Trans Women' has in this article.
RS also overwhelmingly accept 'Trans Women' as being a sub group (my phrase) of 'Women' and therefore that group must be referenced here - biology, chromosomes, or whatever not withstanding.
Our purpose must surely be to accept those fundamentals and focus on how we represent them. I have tried heading us towards mapping out the ground a little better above....
There must be more criteria than self definition and that is the nub of this. We need to develop what characteristics or criteria a person must meet in order for others to reliably identify them as a 'woman'. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 09:38, 15 June 2023 (UTC)"
but didn't meet with much sucess.
Since then I have been waiting for someone else to propose a way forward but I'm not seeing much progress. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 09:42, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
User:Lukewarmbeer I absolutely agree that there is no point to citing polls, as it is redundant and not relevant whatsoever.
I also agree there is no NPOV of editors, I am only concerned with the NPOV of sources and content.
As for the definition/criteria, woman is a social construct and social role, and a matter of identity, and there's no real criteria or definition other than identifying as a woman; it's like identifying as a football fan, you can define it as "someone who likes football", but when it's asked how to determine that, its "identifying as a football fan". You could try and make some criteria based off of like how many games they watch, or how often they play it, but really no definition other than "identifying as a football fan" works. It's the same with woman, as it is a social construct and a matter of identity, you can have the definition being "the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex", but for the determiner of a person, all there is is "identifies with". You can't have the definition be based off of abiding to said roles and characteristics, due to GNC people and different roles in different places and time periods. I feel that moving forward requires acknowledging that fact, and then we can move forward. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 10:16, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for engaging on this. I'll reply through your analogy because it's a good one.
I would say that someone can start or stop being (identifying) as a football fan at will and therefor it's not really comparable.
Also someone who has football memorabilia, who regularly attends and watches games, talks about the game a lot, is knowledgeable about the game and their (or many) teams, plays amateur football as often as they can - and encourages their children to support the same team as they and their mum or dad / grandparents etc, do / did is a football fan even if they deny it.
Similarly someone who does little of the above, even if they always wear football related clothing, have a football related tattoo and go to a sports bar where football is shown but they don't really watch - isn't even if they claim to be.
There are many things that, while not defined by sharp lines and cliff edges, are still capable of being viewed objectively from the point of an observer.
You have succeeded in helping me clearly understand the issue here.
Can you help me further by giving us something that is a little more than 'just' self identification here. This is one of the things that has helped me be more open on this (although it's the wrong way round in that it's more women are genetically men that expected) https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/news/more-women-than-expected-are-genetically-men/ If we can find RS like this the other way round we will be motoring! Lukewarmbeer (talk) 11:39, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
I have to disagree on that, "Similarly someone who does little of the above, even if they always wear football related clothing, have a football related tattoo and go to a sports bar where football is shown but they don't really watch - isn't even if they claim to be." Someone can like and enjoy the sport without watching it that much. And where do you draw the line? How much do they have to watch the sport to be considered a fan? All these are arbitrary, and there's no real answer, Other than by self identification.
And I explained, though one may want a clear cut empirically observable definition of woman, you really wont get one, and if you try, it will make the definition have no utility. Because the reality is, woman is not an empirical biological concept, it's a non-empirical social construct, and I think this quote puts it well: "There are obviously things that we refer to which are in the purview of the experience of being a man and a woman, which are not defined biologically, whether it be light blue and pink being distinguished gendered colours, the clothing that we wear, the way we style our hair, these are things which are not derivative of our biology, they are derivative of social standards which change, you can look at other parts of the world in which they’re different, you can look at different points in time within your own country, and they are different. There’s no getting around that. It’s not like biology is changing rapidly year to year as the fashions do.". You cannot create an empirical definition for a non empirical concept. I feel like we just need to accept this fact if we want to make progress. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 12:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
I don't want and accept that there isn't a totally clear cut empirically observable definition of woman".
But I don't accept that it can be self defined - although that may be one of the characteristics.
I'll have a think and see if I can find something that may bridge the gap. But if self definition is a red line for you then I won't succeed. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 16:55, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Well you're looking for something that doesn't exist. Gender is an unempirical social construct. Gender, itself, is an identitification with a set of social roles and characteristics typically associated with sex; and those social roles and characteristics cannot be used as a determining factor since they are different depending on the place and time, and also GNC people exist, so it's the identification with said social roles and characteristics, so one can identify with the social roles and characteristics but not adhere to them at all. And the determining factor being sex does not work at all since it's merely setting the typical association to which the social roles and characteristics are of, and attempting to use it as a determining factor runs into issues with ambiguous classification and it not being how gender is used at all, with non-binary people existing and being accepted in many places, and transgender people. No objective clear cut empirically observable definition will be applyable, as GNC people exist. A Socialist Trans Girl 08:29, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
I do understand what you are saying. Just in case you don't understand what I am saying because I haven't expressed it well - We are an encyclopaedia. Our definitions can therefore be 'discoursive' rather than definitive. That means we can have several aspects of our imaginary football fan described and even explore where the boundaries of that term are.
That still leaves us with needing some objective criteria otherwise what use is the term?
I believe we have largely found what I am looking for in what we already have but am open to improvements on that.
Can I ask you to put forward your suggestion for a 'new' or modified lead. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 06:45, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
I think there's a leap of logic in this: those social roles and characteristics cannot be used as a determining factor since they are different depending on the place and time...so it's the identification with said social roles and characteristics. You couldn't use "wears hair ribbons", but you could logically still use "lives in this culture and matches this culture's roles and characteristics for being a woman and therefore is a woman, regardless of internal identity". We'll want to follow the sources carefully, to make sure that we're getting this right. (And if the sources say that other approaches exist, but self-identification aligns better with their human values, then that's okay, too. We should represent the sources accurately, whatever they say.)
But – and I think this is the key point for this article – even if every person on Earth agreed to that gender self-determination was absolutely the One True™ Way, it would not automatically mean that the word woman has the exclusive meaning of gender identity. The meaning of a word is socially constructed, and it can be socially constructed to mean the "wrong" thing. If a time traveler came back with a report that English speakers a few centuries from now were use womanid to talk about self-identification, womanole to talk about someone doing women's work, and womander when talking about gender, then that would be okay! Science doesn't say what words mean. Science tells us what exists or doesn't exist, and then humans choose words to describe that. Right now, it seems that different groups of humans believe the word woman is a good way to describe completely different bits of scientific reality. We can cope with that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
You could not logically still use "lives in this culture and matches this culture's roles and characteristics for being a woman and therefore is a woman, regardless of internal identity". That would mean a seperate definition for every society, sub-society, and different years, and as well it means that GNC people would not exist. I understand you're not saying that that's the definition, but you are saying that that definition logically could be used, which is not the case.
Even if every person on Earth agreed to that gender self-determination was absolutely the One True™ Way, it would not automatically mean that the word woman has the exclusive meaning of gender identity. The meaning of a word is socially constructed, and it can be socially constructed to mean the "wrong" thing. That's completely incorrect, as you have nailed that the meaning of words are unempirical and socially constructed, but, if that happened, then that would be the right meaning, since what is the right meaning is determined by it. An important thing with the meaning of words from humans is that humans construct words to meet human need; to serve utility, so if there's a disagreement over what a definition of a words is, then the more utility serving definition what is the definition.
Right now, it seems that different groups of humans believe the word woman is a good way to describe completely different bits of scientific reality. I'm don't understand what you mean by this, can you explain? A Socialist Trans Girl 03:23, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
  • That indeed would mean a separate definition for every culture, changing over time. However, it would not mean that GNC people would not exist. In fact, it might make them more obvious: "That person over there doesn't match our roles and characteristics for being a woman and also doesn't match roles and characteristics for being a man, so that person is not a woman or a man. We'll call people like that _____ instead." Maybe that culture would pick a word like "non-binary", for example.
  • I was using scare quotes on the word "wrong", but let me say it more clearly: The meaning of any word can be socially constructed to mean:
    • Something you think is right
    • Something you think is wrong
    • Something scholars think is right but non-experts think is wrong
    • Something scholars think is wrong but non-experts think is right
    • Multiple different meanings
    • Multiple incompatible meanings (e.g., wikt:biannual, which is either twice a year or once every two years)
    • Multiple self-contradictory meanings (e.g., wikt:inflammable, which is either flammable, or not)
  • There isn't an inherently correct or incorrect meaning for any collection of syllables. There are, at most, only agreed-upon meanings – and sometimes there aren't even agreed-upon meanings.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 09:59, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Now to explain about the multiple meanings of the word woman:
There are several bits of scientific/scholarly reality, which I will simplify here as these four categories, and use "woman" as the example for all:
  1. Gender identity
  2. Gender role
  3. Gender expression
  4. Biological sex
In more detail:
  1. Some people (e.g., all queer studies scholars) believe that the first group – the people with a given gender identity – is properly called "women". Some other people (e.g., some politicians) believe that the first is properly called "women, plus some men who are trans".
  2. Some people believe that the second group (gender role) is properly called "women", as in statements like "Women's work doesn't pay well". Some other people apparently believe that this group is called "women and <various insulting words for people who do women's work but aren't cis women>".
  3. Some people believe that the third group (expression) is properly called "women", as in "Women's clothing fills a third of this department store" or "This beauty salon specializes in women's hairstyles". Some other people believe that this third group is called "women and cross-dressing men".
  4. Some people believe that post-pubescent humans with XX chromosomes and no disorders of sexual development are properly called "women". Some other people believe that this fourth group is properly called "biological females". Some might might say "people of the female sex, who may or may not be women", and if we include trolls on Twitters we might even get an answer along the lines of "'Egg producer', and let me remind you that even thought 98.5% of humans don't have any disorders of sexual development at all, and >99.9% of them don't have such an extreme one that it would be difficult to say 'more male than female' (or the other way around), the fact that there is any variation at all causes me to reject the idea of biological divisions between the sexes entirely, and yes, I'm aware that if I made the same argument about plant species, I'd be laughed out of the room, even though the amount of variation and overlap between plant species is far more extreme that the differences between male and female humans".
Science doesn't say which of these groups is using the right definition for the word woman. Science can't say this. Science can tell you these four things exist. We have to work out the labels for those things without being able to say "I did an empirical study last week, and it proves that the true definition of woman is _____, and anybody who uses a different combination of sounds to talk about this is scientifically wrong. All the non-English speakers going to be so mad when I publish this".
Right now, at least in wealthy English-speaking countries, we have people using the word women to describe gender identity and people using the same word to describe biological sex, and some people in each of those groups are very loudly insisting that My Definition Is the Only True™ Definition and If You Disagree You are Bad and Wrong.
The English Wikipedia has three basic options for the page that is at Woman:
  1. We can choose one of the four definitions as The True™ Definition, and put only that content there.
  2. We can write an article that includes all four definitions. Everyone, regardless of their beliefs about the proper meaning of the word woman, will find information about their idea somewhere on this page.
  3. We can turn the page into a Wikipedia:Disambiguation page, so that nothing is endorsed as the True™ definition, and we instead split the content into four separate articles: Woman (gender identity), Woman (gender role), Woman (gender expression), and Woman (biological sex).
So far, editors have taken option #2. You have been arguing for #1, assuming that your preferred definition would be the one chosen. (I gently suggest that this might be a naïve assumption.) Since no definition that gets used in practice is wrong – there are only definitions I disagree with, not definitions that are wrong – then none of the choices we make about how to organize these pages are wrong, either. We just have to make some choices. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:03, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Very well put. Thanks. I think that is progress. Hopefully the reaction will be positive. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 15:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
First, I'd just like to say that I commend the efford put into writing all that.
  1. That would would mean that there would be GI GNC people, but there would not be GE GNC people, nor cis GNC people. But it still would be really illogical, though what it may be (if you could SOMEHOW have criteria's gender roles that everyone in a society/sub-society agree on, which is basically impossible and really infeasible) is consistent (but very not utility-serving).
  2. Apologies for misinterpreting the meaning, And that is entirely correct. That is correct, what meaning is deemed "correct" is the meaning that is perceived to serve more utility, as humans created definitions to serve them, but there is no objective meaning.
With the 3 options, I wouldn't say I'm really arguing for having the article be about one of the things in the quaternity, as the definition I proposed is "An adult who identifies with the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex", which does include all four, but merely has the qualifier being identification, what thing it is of (the social roles and characteristics), and what those social roles and characteristics specifically are in typical association with. I'm advocating for the article to be about the social roles and characteristics, as that's what woman is with the qualifier for a person to be that being identifying with those social roles and characteristics (not adhere to).
So far, editors have taken option #2. Well, the lede sentence explicitly has one of the definitions, and the article is quite a bit lacking in the social roles and characteristics, which should be expanded.
I feel we aren't really arguing over whether gender and sex are different, as they obviously are. I also don't think anyone here is arguing for the definition qualifier to be the roles and expectations either, due to the aforementioned reasons. So, Woman (proper noun) is the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex, and is not just "the female sex", so human female should have it's own article; it's biology, not sociology, and this article should be about the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex (Woman). The question is the determining factor for one to be a woman, and I think an option for what we could do (not necessarily supporting this option, just saying it is an option), is have the lede sentence be "Woman refers to the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex", which does not say the qualifying factor for someone to be that, and then have the first section cover the different proposed qualifying factors for one to be a woman, with the article being about the social roles and characteristics. Though, it is far more preferable to have a definition at the start of the article, in which case reliable sources say that gender and sex are different, and are far more reliable than the sources for them being the same, and I don't know of any reliable sources suggesting that adherence to the social roles/characteristics is the determining factor, so that just leaves the identification then, no? And either of the other 3 definitions would exclude either; trans people, or; GNC people (GNC with gender expression/roles, not GI), or both. A Socialist Trans Girl 04:58, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
The first sentence only has one of the definitions if you believe the word female refers exclusively to biology. If you believe, as the Merriam–Webster Dictionary does, that female means "having a gender identity that is the opposite of male", then the first sentence could be understood as "A woman is an adult human who has a gender identity that is the opposite of male".
Your off-the-cuff sentence doesn't work, as woman doesn't refer to roles or characteristics; it refers to people (who may have such roles or characteristics).
Also, if the first section is going "cover the different proposed qualifying factors for one to be a woman", then the article should expand on all of those different proposed qualifying factors. It wouldn't necessarily make sense to say "Women are defined in different ways, especially A, B, and C, and this article is only going to talk about C. Go read some other article if you want to know about A and B."
I don't know of any Western sources saying that adherence to the social roles/characteristics should be the sole determining factor, but that's not the way the whole world works. In a book about the Teduray people (it's mentioned at the top of that article), the anthropologist said, "I learned that in their view of things, what made you really a certain gender was the social role you played: how you dressed, how you wore your hair, what you did all day..." Trans people were fully accepted in that culture for any purpose except marriage. He later concluded that their lack of concern about trans people was due to their culture not thinking that either men or women had a higher social status. Switching genders didn't gain any sort of privilege. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:08, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
There is ambiguity ambiguity of what it refers to, as definitions vary, so to solve that, taking that definition of "An adult human with a gender identity that is opposite of male" then extrapolating "the gender identity oppose of male" to be "identifying with the gender opposite of male", then having the meaning of gender and the opposite of male (female), then it becomes "An adult human identifying with the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex". However, there's multiple issues with the MW definition; 1. The Common meaning of "female" is of the sex, which even the MW page you linked uses the definition referring to the sex first. 2. Dictionaries take far less priority than academic sources for academic topics such as these. (Sidenote said definition does not follow APA style guide for what that's worth). However, nobody interprets female in that way, even MW uses uses it to mean sex as it's first definition, and so do other dictionaries.
I believe you misunderstood what I was saying, Woman (capitalized, proper noun), would be referring to the gender, rather than a person of the gender, though this usage is uncommon/not really used and I don't it should be in the lede.
Additionally, I don't think we should do said proposal, but instead do the one I said right after it. So, what do you think of said point? that being: Though, it is far more preferable to have a definition at the start of the article, in which case reliable sources say that gender and sex are different, and are far more reliable than the sources for them being the same, and I don't know of any reliable sources suggesting that adherence to the social roles/characteristics is the determining factor, so that just leaves the identification then, no? And either of the other 3 definitions would exclude either; trans people, or; GNC people (GNC with gender expression/roles, not GI), or both. Interested to see what you think. A Socialist Trans Girl 07:39, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
I think User:WhatamIdoingis on the right track here.
Looking at discussions in the talk on the subject there seems to be some sound thinking.
We can expand but we have to keep the essence of the word otherwise there is no real meaning to it.
Wikitionary Gender
There is a large use of the terms men and women as gender identities that do not depend on the biological sex, so this definition may be presented too. 31.154.8.9800:22, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This is covered by definition 1, IMO: "an adult female human", where "female" can refer to either sex or gender (senses 1 and 2 of "female"). - -sche (discuss) 00:53, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply] Lukewarmbeer (talk) 17:31, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
  • I don't know of any reliable sources suggesting that adherence to the social roles/characteristics is the determining factor – I quoted a source that said exactly that, so now you know of one reliable source stating that adherence to the social roles/characteristics is the determining factor in one culture.
  • that just leaves the identification then, no? – No, because (a) social roles/characteristics is actually a thing (just not in modern Western academia), (b) calling someone a woman due to biological sex is still a thing (though disapproved of by most scholars of the subject), and (c) we still don't have an agreement that this article must be about either sex or gender instead of both sex and gender. Just because things are different doesn't mean that we can't have a single article on both of them.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:01, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
Addressing your 'C' User:WhatamIdoingI think we need to get this aspect sorted and agreed (if we can). Can you see the article saying 'Woman as defined by Sex' and also Woman as defined by gender. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:03, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
I think this should serve as a warning if we go for a split:
FYI, there is already Draft:Female (gender). The article was originally in main space and nominated for deletion, leading to one of the longest AfDs in wikipedia history and resulting in a draftify decision. The draft has made some progress, but hasn't gotten much attention. Your help in developing the draft is more than welcome. I will qualify by saying that I've personally found it challenging to develop a WP:NEUTRAL article on the gender of women. The void century 03:38, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:20, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
(sorry for the long response time @WhatamIdoing, I've just been busy) that's just one culture/society though, and we could say mention that fact in the article while agknowledging the fact that it's definitely not the case for most societies.
I think you may have misunderstood what I said/meant, I mean the identification with the social roles and charectaristics, and also I said that in the context of being in the article, as it was preceded by saying that reliable sources say that sex and gender are different.
What I think we should do, and this also adresses @Lukewarmbeer's point, is that I really don't think we can arrive at Consensus or anything by advocating for a single definitive definition in the lede of the article, so I propose the following; State in the lede sentence that the definition of woman is subject to dispute and there is no universally agreed upon definition. (this is objectively correct, and even is demonstated in this talk page discussion.) Then, we can say either in the lede as well or in a section of the article, that most of academia and IOs consider gender and sex to be different, though there is still some who consider them the same, and there are some societies which consider the roles and charectaristics to be the determining factor. Then, as for the female/biology part of the article, even those who consider sex to be the determining factor mostly hold the position that it's the social roles and charectaristics held by females, so I think we should probably definitely have a link to the main article of human female, and then we can; simply state that typically women are members of the female sex(link to main article) OR, have a small section of the article covering the basics of the typical features of the female sex (like the second paragraph in the lede!) in the lede or a seperate section, with a link to the main article of human female covering it in more depth. I think this is a massive step towards Consensus, and I'm very exited to see what you both think! A Socialist Trans Girl 03:52, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for that. It's a good effort at trying to tie the thing together but I think that we do need to decide if we think this can encompass both sex and gender. I thought we had but User:WhatamIdoing has pointed out that we haven't and reading back I realise that I was mistaken and we haven't. If we can keep as one article then what you have proposed could for the basis. If not then this discussion will need to develop into how we split. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:08, 24 July 2023 (UTC)'
@Lukewarmbeer Well from my proposal above; Then, as for the female/biology part of the article, even those who consider sex to be the determining factor mostly hold the position that it's the social roles and charectaristics held by females, so I think we should probably definitely have a link to the main article of human female, and then we can; simply state that typically women are members of the female sex(link to main article) OR, have a small section of the article covering the basics of the typical features of the female sex (like the second paragraph in the current lede!) in the lede or a seperate section, with a link to the main article of human female covering it in more depth. we could do either of those. A Socialist Trans Girl 08:38, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
Before we get into the split conversation I reference the part of the discussion I quote below because I think it says it all for me.
Can we agree that this article needs to remain just that - one article?
If you can support that I feel we can move on. If it's going to come back and bite us in the arse then we will just end up going round in circles again.
Agreed, an article split is needed and should be proposed. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 05:56, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
I can emphasize from experience that such a proposal is very likely to fail, however, because that article would be a WP:POVFORK. Regarding the above more generally, women-as-gender and women-as-sex are not separate groups of people, they are in the vast majority of cases the exact same people, and most importantly, sources do not divide the topic in this way. There are many sources about women which discuss both gender and biology (namely, women's health), and even the ones only about one or the other are both about 'women'. Crossroads -talk- 00:01, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:32, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
@Lukewarmbeer It would actually not be a WP:POVFORK, however this constitutes WP:OKFORK, so it's perfectly fine. And to also quote my own response to said thing: I don't see how having two articles, one covering biology, and another article covering sociology, would be a POVFORK. Additionally, a very significant number of people fall into the category of woman, but not female, and negligence of that fact is unencyclopedic. Furthermore, within academia, woman and female are mostly discussed separately, due to the fact that sociology and biology are completely different fields. Additionally, misuse of the term woman to be synonymous with female (a practice which has fallen out of fashion in recent years), does not mean they are the same concept. Furthermore, it appears you are neglecting the MANY sources which discuss woman in sociology, and female in biology; separately. Additionally, it should be noted that Women's Health encompasses mental health, which is affected by societal roles and such. (you isn't directed at you there, rather the person I was responded to which you quoted). However, a WP:POVFORK according to itself, states "In contrast POV forks generally arise when contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page. Instead of resolving that disagreement by consensus, another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) is created to be developed according to a particular point of view. This second article is known as a "POV fork" of the first, and is inconsistent with policy" this is not the case. I would actually infact, due to me previously saying we should/can move a lot of the biology section of this article to the Human Female article, it would probably be a WP:SPINOFF (if we took the route of split off; small section in lede/seperate section, which I'm fine with either of my proposed options for the biology part), which is an OKFORK.
Also @Lukewarmbeer, seeing as you didn't state any disagreement with my proposal for the definition, are you fine with said proposal? A Socialist Trans Girl 08:38, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
So you are a one article person. Me too. Lets see if we get any more feedback on that but in the meantime...
No I don't disagree in principle to the broad direction - except the 'subject of dispute' thing is rather clumsy. I'd like to pay more than a nod to how this is constructed. Particularly the bit I have enboldened.
I would include a modified form of this text between our ...a shared goal of achieving gender equality. and
Trans women have a gender identity that does not align...
Gender includes the social, psychological, cultural and behavioral aspects of being a man, woman, or other gender identity. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender expression. Most cultures use a gender binary, in which gender is divided into two categories, and people are considered part of one or the other (boys/men and girls/women); those who are outside these groups may fall under the umbrella term non-binary. Some societies have specific genders besides "man" and "woman", such as the hijras of South Asia; these are often referred to as third genders(and fourth genders, etc.). Most scholars agree that gender is a central characteristic for social organization. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 08:57, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
@Lukewarmbeer I'm not sure what you mean by a "one article person", I proposed to do a WP:SPINOFF (or other WP:OKFORK type) for Human Female.
Oh yeah we definitely shouldn't use the phrasing of "the definition is subject of dispute", I was paraphrasing.
I'm not entirely sure if we should include that on the article for woman, seeing as it's more about gender, however, I think that's a bit off topic from this discussion, and is probably more suited for a seperate TP section, either now or when this one is resolved. A Socialist Trans Girl 09:22, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
If we are moving forward (one article) I think we can take much from our article Gender Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:35, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
i totally disagree with you @A Socialist Trans Girl with regard to:
With the 3 options, I wouldn't say I'm really arguing for having the article be about one of the things in the quaternary, as the definition I proposed is "An adult who identifies with the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex", which does include all four, but merely has the qualifier being identification, what thing it is of (the social roles and characteristics), and what those social roles and characteristics specifically are in typical association with. I'm advocating for the article to be about the social roles and characteristics, as that's what woman is with the qualifier for a person to be that being identifying with those social roles and characteristics (not adhere to)". Woman does not refer to an "identification" with "typicality" of the female sex because that would disqualify me from being a woman, and, although i'm often misidentified as a male for a second by males who seem to assume that a certain type of dress is indication of sex, they quickly and without me needing to ask, apologise for their mistake. i am identified as a woman by society from birth (having moved up the ranks from girl to woman), which by definition, even in Wikipedia, is an adult human female. I don't identify with and am not identified with what some people describe as the "typical characteristics and role of" female/woman. I rarely wear dresses, my favourite colour is not pink, I don't wear make-up, my hair is not long and neat nor in pig-tales. I have more leg hair than most female women and some men because i don't shave my legs, nor my arms and my arm-pits, nor my philosopher's goatee, and don't pluck the hair from eyebrows, but like my mother and my sister, i am a hairy female/woman, which is not typical of women/females as far as we can tell given most women identify as opposed to men and thus hair free and subservient so shave to epitomise this fake aspect of womanness. Plus, i am not a wife nor mother so do not have or take on those roles.
And it is these characteristics and roles i think you are pushing for to be those that we can use, and only those as the characteristics that allow one to self-identify and be identified as a woman (how will you police this as i walk down the street that everyone around me identifies me as not woman? i suppose you'll get published and therefore sacrosanct). And given woman and female and all knowledge we have is socially constructed then society not the self is who identify what fits a certain category.
i fit the category woman because for one i was identified via observation to be female at birth, and woman is society's word used to refer to an adult human female. i identify as a woman because i am an adult human female and that is a woman.
i identify as a woman, but i do not identify as the gender that typically identifies female's stuff in opposition to males. i do not believe woman ought to be defined in oppostion to males. Woman ought to be defined of herself, not given her definition in opposition to males as the negative of the male. For example, in psychoanalysis and other areas woman is identified/defined in opposition to males, only she is castrated, thus lacking, woman has no sex of her own as Luce Irigaray notes. So, for example, woman is opposed to man and thus likes pink, not blue, is "irrational" to the male "rational", or "without a phallus" to "with a phallus".
The primary signifier is the phallus and it is the measure of everything, the synecdoche as Judith Butler says. Thus, woman in the socially constructed psychoanalytic theory is not something in herself but instead is gendered as a castrated male.
That is an example of gender: the socially constructed idea of females. And i, a female woman, do not identify with this construction and some other constructions of female/woman "characteristics" but i do identify as an adult human female and woman. The category construct that says there's a typicality to female is not a law of nature but a statistic that has a standard deviation and is a socially defined category thus its boundaries are limited and delimit and permeable so but designates female, not male.
Because the idea of female and woman is socially constructed, it is not an essential aspect of a person, rather this idea is relative to time and space so is open to change and dispute, thus freedom to be without a typical characteristic of female to be identified as a woman: an example or individual of the female of the species.
I do not believe there is a logical argument that says gender is essential to one's being but will be happy to read the argument(s) because i need to reacquaint myself with gender studies because i've been out of the discourse since about 2007 when i graduated with that major. Gender is the social construction of sex. Woman as a category is a social construction that categorises the body into sex, one of two sexually reproducing sexes out of the possibly 5 sexes.
at this point, i disagree vehemently that the article needs to be split because "woman" is an adult human female and a socially constructed term that we as a society use to identify and describe and talk about so a category of the human species, synonym of female. We are not aphids so reproduce via sexual reproduction (unless in vitro) which is still sexual reproduction, not parthenogenesis, asexual reproduction (yet). and here:
"So, Woman (proper noun) is the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex, and is not just "the female sex", so human female should have it's own article; it's biology, not sociology, and this article should be about the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex (Woman). The question is the determining factor for one to be a woman, and I think an option for what we could do (not necessarily supporting this option, just saying it is an option), is have the lede sentence be "Woman refers to the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex", which does not say the qualifying factor for someone to be that, and then have the first section cover the different proposed qualifying factors for one to be a woman, with the article being about the social roles and characteristics.
i'll attend to this when i've more time. but just so you have a glimpse of my disagreement with you here. Woman as a proper noun refers to an individual, not roles nor characteristics. Woman does not refer to roles or characteristic but as a proper noun to individual people of the female sex. This page 'woman' does not need to be split-off into female and woman, the two terms are synonymous and refer to the same objects.
The only thing that ought to be split off from woman is trans-woman because they are an Other category on their own: they self-identify, and are not very often identified as a woman, they need to transition to be a woman, they were not observed female at birth, they were observed male at birth. and if i had more and unlimited time to spend here in the talk of wikipedia, i would go on more about how trans-women are a category of their own and on their own, these are fundamental differences that distinguish woman from trans-woman. Women are identified, trans-women identify. Women are not-men, thus don't do their own identifying are subjugated as not-men (they are assigned if you like as not-men), trans-woman do their own assigning and thus are not subjugated. *a cis woman growing a philosopher's beard MichelleGDyason 21:27, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
oh, and i forgot to mention, i've only read up until the part i'm not completely done with commenting on, so apologies if i'm repeating someone else's arguments, but if so, i accord with them and am adding to the vote to split-off trans-woman not females from woman. *a cis woman growing a philosopher's beard MichelleGDyason 21:30, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
I’d have to say - we probably aren’t going to see eye to eye on this.
But stranger things have happened  ;) Lukewarmbeer (talk) 21:37, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
@MichelleGDyason There's several points here so I'll adress them all invidivually. One important thing that should be noted however is that I think it would be best to do my proposal of not having a single definition, which you can read above. Also, I am going to use "SRC" in place of "the social roles and charectaristics" to shorten it.
  • Woman does not refer to an "identification" with "typicality" of the female sex because that would disqualify me from being a woman, and, although i'm often misidentified as a male for a second by males who seem to assume that a certain type of dress is indication of sex, they quickly and without me needing to ask, apologise for their mistake. i am identified as a woman by society from birth (having moved up the ranks from girl to woman), which by definition, even in Wikipedia, is an adult human female. I don't identify with and am not identified with what some people describe as the "typical characteristics and role of" female/woman. I rarely wear dresses, my favourite colour is not pink, I don't wear make-up, my hair is not long and neat nor in pig-tales. I have more leg hair than most female women and some men because i don't shave my legs, nor my arms and my arm-pits, nor my philosopher's goatee, and don't pluck the hair from eyebrows, but like my mother and my sister, i am a hairy female/woman, which is not typical of women/females as far as we can tell given most women identify as opposed to men and thus hair free and subservient so shave to epitomise this fake aspect of womanness. Plus, i am not a wife nor mother so do not have or take on those roles. You misunderstand what I mean, the definition in question is identifying with the SRC, not at all requiring adhering to them. And oneself can have a different outlook/viewpoint/opinion/view of/on what those SRC are to the general view, and it isn't any more incorrect. One can also not view oneself as having/possesing the SRC typically associated with the female sex, while still identifying with them. A semantic analogy is that of being an American; there's many things such as views or roles or attitudes that some people will tell you if you ask them what it means to be an American, yet one can not adhere to those and still identify as an American (note this is only a semantic analogy for comprehension, we shouldn't shift the conversation to it). Also the "typically" refers to the relation of the SRC to the female sex, i.e, that it's not always of the association with the female sex; the meaning of the typical SRC would have the 'typically' preceding it.
  • And it is these characteristics and roles i think you are pushing for to be those that we can use, and only those as the characteristics that allow one to self-identify and be identified as a woman (how will you police this as i walk down the street that everyone around me identifies me as not woman? i suppose you'll get published and therefore sacrosanct) As said above, I do mean identification with the SRC, whatever thy perception of them is, not adherence to. With the definition in question, possessing/adhering to said SRC and charectaristics is not a prerequesite in the phrasing, but rather identification with them.
  • And given woman and female and all knowledge we have is socially constructed then society not the self is who identify what fits a certain category. There's two things to this, the first thing is that while gender and sex are both social constructs, they are not social constructions in the same way; i.e, sex is moreso empirical in that it is a category which is socially constructed though partially determined through empiricism (though where we draw the line is very arbitrary. Also, it should be noted that sex is not intrinsical and unchangeable, as it is from hormone washes, to which HRT is and can therefore act to change it.) whereas gender is a fully arbitrary social construct and matter of identity. The second thing is that that's not how social constructs work, the meaning (i.e, definition) of the term is socially constructed, However, We are on Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, which has policies and guidelines, one of which is WP:DUE, which states that "The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered.", so therefore it is irrelevant.
  • "i fit the category woman because[citation needed] for one i was identified via observation to be female at birth, and woman is society's word used to refer to an adult human female.[citation needed] i identify as a woman because i am an adult human female; and that is a woman.[citation needed]"
  • i identify as a woman, but i do not identify as the gender that typically identifies female's stuff in opposition to males. i do not believe woman ought to be defined in oppostion to males. Woman ought to be defined of herself, not given her definition in opposition to males as the negative of the male... ok. i don't see what this has to do with the subject at hand.
  • The primary signifier is the phallus and it is the measure of everything, the synecdoche as Judith Butler says. Thus, woman in the socially constructed psychoanalytic theory is not something in herself but instead is gendered as a castrated male. That is an example of gender: the socially constructed idea of females. And i, a female woman, do not identify with this construction and some other constructions of female/woman "characteristics" but i do identify as an adult human female and woman. The category construct that says there's a typicality to female is not a law of nature but a statistic that has a standard deviation and is a socially defined category thus its boundaries are limited and delimit and permeable so but designates female, not male. Is this a WP:SOAP? (not an accusation, just a question) I dont see the relevance of this to what I said.
  • Because the idea of female and woman is socially constructed, it is not an essential aspect of a person, rather this idea is relative to time and space so is open to change and dispute, thus freedom to be without a typical characteristic of female to be identified as a woman... Yeah, that is correct (I believe the supposed relevance is again from the misunderstanding of the "identifying with the SRC"), however you follow woman with ": an example or individual of the female of the species." which is contradictory to that which is said prior; i.e, you emphasize woman not being an essential aspect on oneself and a fluid meaning of it, then follow it with assigning a largely essentialist meaning to woman?
  • at this point, i disagree vehemently that the article needs to be split because "woman" is an adult human female and a socially constructed term that we as a society use to identify and describe and talk about so a category of the human species, synonym of female. from WP:UNDUE: "The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered."; What general society says the definition is does not matter on Wikipedia, we should give the DUE weight to "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." (quoted from WP:NPOV lede), with inline attribution. AND, Woman refers to gender, so we should have an article about the gender, and Human Female is referring to sex, so should have an article about the sex.
  • Woman as a proper noun refers to an individual, not roles nor characteristics. Woman does not refer to roles or characteristic but as a proper noun to individual people of the female sex. Grammatically, an individual 'woman' is a common noun, and requires an article. For example; "[person] is a woman" is gramatically correct, whereas "[person] is woman" is gramatically incorrect; the plural 'women' is also a common noun, just the plural form. 'Woman' as a proper noun can be used to refer to the Gender itself, rather than just a person of it, and usage of Woman as a proper noun to refer to the Gender itself I find to be very useful.
  • This page 'woman' does not need to be split-off into female and woman, the two terms are synonymous and refer to the same objects. objects??!?!!?!!???!!
  • The only thing that ought to be split off from woman is trans-woman because they are an Other category on their own: they self-identify, and are not very often identified as a woman, they need to transition to be a woman, they were not observed female at birth, they were observed male at birth. Several things; 1. Trans woman is not 'an other category', it's a subcategory of woman, and it is a seperate article from it being a sub-category, like other sub-categories. It's no more 'an other category' from women any more than Greek women is, it's merely a sub-category. 2. "and are not very often identified as a woman" you're going to need to provide me a source on that, if it's OR then it has no place on Wikipedia, and is likely the product of Survivorship bias, and has zero legitimacy or weight on Wikipedia. 3. "They were not observed female at birth, they were observed male at birth" you mean assigned, not observed, as assigned is the correct terminology, see Sex assignment.
  • and if i had more and unlimited time to spend here in the talk of wikipedia, i would go on more about how trans-women are a category of their own and on their own, these are fundamental differences that distinguish woman from trans-woman. Women are identified, trans-women identify. Women are not-men, thus don't do their own identifying are subjugated as not-men (they are assigned if you like as not-men), trans-woman do their own assigning and thus are not subjugated. this is a blatant case of WP:SOAP and has no place on Wikipedia. Wikipedia requires citations from RS and a following of WP:NPOV.
  • but if so, i accord with them and am adding to the vote to split-off trans-woman not females from woman. Polling/voting is not a substitude for discussion, and Consensus is not the result of a vote, and reaching consensus involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Also Trans woman already has its own article as a sub-category.
Overall I think that this is largely just a combination of a misinterpretation, being off topic, and some WP:SOAP. Again, I'll stress that I think it would be best to do my proposal of not having a single definition, and have the attribution and such with WP:DUE weight, rather than having the definition in question. Cheers and have a good day! (=^ ◡ ^=) A Socialist Trans Girl 06:59, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
Goodness gracious, you all. Even in an actual debate club there is a time limit. GMGtalk 16:11, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
Well, Wikipedia discussions are not debates, and time limits make no sense (there's also no Policy against them), However MichelleGDyason absolutely was doing a WP:FORUM and moreso a WP:SOAPBOX. A Socialist Trans Girl 04:10, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Yeah. That's when you reply "I'm deeeeefinitely not reading all that. Pick a point and make it." GMGtalk 22:53, 25 August 2023 (UTC)



I agree the meaning of 'woman', like every word, is a social construct, but it is not analogous to a football supporter. A football supporter chooses to be a fan, whereas women do not choose to be women, it's a social role imposed on female humans, and that is why some women do not conform to some of the stereotypes associated with the female sex (also a social construct). Unless you are trans and choose to be subordinated as a woman, women don't choose to be subordinated generally. For example, in some cultures, women are sometimes forced to wear certain clothes, like a bikini top (unless she has had her mammary glands removed), and they cannot choose otherwise. 'Woman' as a social construct refers to every adult human female in all cultures because it is a word in the English language that refers to an adult human female. 'Woman' is not an identity that people other than females can choose to identify as; woman is not what one wears or their mannerisms, and make-up but is a (socially constructed) term that refers to adult human females, defined by biology. Trans-women are a class of their own and ought not be conflated with adult human females, because trans-women are not female. Trans-woman like men are not Adam, they do not get to decide what is included within the term 'woman'. Only females ought to be those who describe themselves as women because adult human female is the definition of 'woman'. *a cis woman growing a philosopher's beard MichelleGDyason 02:01, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
There is already a draft article for Female gender though.... Draft:Female (gender) why does this article need to be edited. Kuia34 (talk) 05:43, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
@Kuia34 That draft has already been brought up, see the addressing of it there. A Socialist Trans Girl 08:25, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

(again, plz remember to occasionally outdent conversation because otherwise it becomes unreadable on mobile). I am opposed to any splits here. A female human is a woman, since female can refer to sex or gender. Our world is sometimes imprecise with its words and definitions, and so we explain those rather than pretend they aren't there. I think if we split off female human, with a view towards making it an article on sex, we'd only end up entrenching a transphobic sex essentialist view. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 17:29, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Usage of the word female to refer to gender is not the common understanding/meaning of the word, female is used to refer to sex. Do you have an academic RS citation for female refering to sex or gender? Additionally, it is a valid concern of the female human article being subject to a WP:NPOV violation, however, I don't think that's a reason not to make the article. We can absolutely remove POVs from the article, and if it's persitant then we can protect the article, like is the case for all articles. Also if you're saying that doing so is promoting/of a transphobic sex essentialist view (I'm not sure if you are), then that's not the case, as the sex-gender distinction is contrary to it. A Socialist Trans Girl 02:24, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the "outdent". I'm happy to have this discussion continue here, but for the sake of some (in)convenient formatting, I'm also going to start a new ==section== below, to outline what one possible split-or-not RFC could look like (not the only option, just one option). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Detailed definitional discussions

@CaptainEek @WhatamIdoing @Lukewarmbeer So, do we have consensus on the definition (not the article split/fork)? Like on my proposal to "State in the lede sentence that the definition of woman is subject to dispute and there is no universally agreed upon definition. (this is objectively correct, and even is demonstated in this talk page discussion.) Then, we can say either in the lede as well or in a section of the article, that most of academia and IOs consider gender and sex to be different, though there is still some who consider them the same, and there are some societies which consider the roles and charectaristics to be the determining factor." (That's just a paraphrase of what we'd write in the article, not the specific wording). A Socialist Trans Girl 02:24, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not seeing that there is a genuine academic dispute as to what a woman is. I just perused the first half dozen dictionary definitions that come up for woman, and all say adult female human/person. The lead is not the place to hash out an WP:UNDUE non-academic dispute. I'm not opposed to discussing the intricacies of definition in the body though. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 02:51, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
@CaptainEek Dictionaries are not academic at all, and academic sources are far, far preferred and more reliable than dictionaries, and "most contemporary social scientists, behavioral scientists and biologists, many legal systems and government bodies, and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO make a distinction between gender and sex.". Both the sex-based definition and the identification based definitions are significant, and we must make sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered and follow WP:NPOV. A Socialist Trans Girl 06:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
@A Socialist Trans Girl You seem to be the only one pushing for this, so I'm not sure this discussion has much more life in it. I agree that we could do a better job in the body. But I am hard pressed to see how changing the lead reflects the DUE weight of sources. Just because there is some disagreement does not mean there is no generally agreed upon definition. To claim otherwise would be WP:FALSEBALANCE. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 06:40, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
@CaptainEek well it's absolutely not UNDUE weight, considering that "most contemporary social scientists, behavioral scientists and biologists, many legal systems and government bodies, and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO make a distinction between gender and sex." (citations are at the bottom of this section) and also If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources on topics such as history, medicine, and science so dictionaries are not really proper sources for the definition, but rather peer reviewed academic sources, to which gender and sex being different is very widespread among academic sources. It cannot be reasonably concluded to be giving it UNDUE weight. (also FYI, "The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered.") Just because there is some disagreement does not mean there is no generally agreed upon definition. Do you have any academic peer-reviewed citations for adult human female to be the generally agreed upon definition? A Socialist Trans Girl 07:09, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm sorry not to be more constructive here but I have totally lost the plot with this. I'm not sure what anyone is thinking is the right way to go.
Where I am:
I can see the difference between gender and sex - but they are so closely related that one article should cover both 'aspects' of Woman.
We need some objective criteria to use in order to differentiate what subset of humans fit into the category Woman.
The criteria don't need to be a dictionary definition but should be more discursive.
I don't think we should 'discuss' and issues in the lead.
I think the current lead is pretty good.
I think that the overwhelming majority of Women have a sex, gender and birth assignment that is consistent with that lead.
I think it's reasonable to mention in the lead that that isn't always the case.
I think it's reasonable to outline or describe when and why that isn't always the case. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:54, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
@Lukewarmbeer I'll address each point;
Human female is definitely enough of it's own thing and worthy of a WP:SPINOFF, as it just being a section in this article does not give the subject justice.
What that criteria is is HEAVILY disputed, and there's no one correct answer, and siding with one would be against WP:NPOV, as we need to make sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered.
I'm not sure what you mean by "I don't think we should 'discuss' and issues in the lead."
That being the case a majority of the time doesn't mean anything if it's not all, and there's other definitions which that would apply to (a majority being the case that [definition]).
It is reasonable to mention in the lead that it's not always the case and when and why, however phrasing of the initial thing should reflect that (i.e, for example, usage of the word typically.) or rather do my proposal of making sure all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered.
So do you have any issue with the proposal of covering all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources? Because it's just unencyclopedic for Wikipedia to take a side on what the definition is when it's not at all giving DUE weight to "most contemporary social scientists, behavioral scientists and biologists, many legal systems and government bodies, and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO" who says that gender and sex are different. A Socialist Trans Girl 08:42, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
I could be persuaded on a spinoff but I just can't really envisage what it would say. Are you happy do do a draft (not the full blown thing) of how you would see it? It would have to provide something that all of our other articles don't provide. I can't see how that can be done. You might show me, I don't know.
Yes we do need to "make sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered." Although coverage should not be undue and I'd say they are covered elsewhere so if anything we just need a mention / flag to them here.
I have to disagree that "a majority of the time doesn't mean anything if it's not all".
I agree "It is reasonable to mention in the lead that it's not always the case and (point to the articles that) say when and why" but this would need to be succinct.
I don't "have any issue with the proposal of covering all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources?" in the article - but I would want to see what that might say and how much weight it would have in the article and I would want to see it brief and to the point in the lead - as with everything else. I wouldn't want to see anything "covered" that is properly dealt with in our other articles.
Where I think we part company is that we already have articles on Trans Women, non binary, female etc. This article is about "Typically, women inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and are capable of pregnancy and giving birth from puberty until menopause.".
Anything other than flagging of our other articles is simply not required here. You may find a home for what you are after in your split? As I say - let's see what it looks like.
I hope that gives you something to work with. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 09:54, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
@Lukewarmbeer Well a spinnoff doesn't neccesarily require having more than the articles currently say, it can be just moving a section of another article that's gotten too large into it's own article that it's worthy of, but it would also allow for a more in depth coverage than a summary on another article.
I think we could do a draft, it'd take quite some work to make the article, but I'm up for it.
I definitely wouldn't say that the coverage of the view of "most contemporary social scientists, behavioral scientists and biologists, many legal systems and government bodies, and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO" would be undue, rather the opposite.
By that I mean the definition, with the distinguishing of gender and sex, which in my previous proposal I said we could either have it in the lede, or in a seperate section, I think we could do either, and we could have in the lede "the definition of woman is disputed" (im paraphrasing ofc, we shouldnt phrase it like that) and in perhaps the 1st section, say what the different definitions are and what the support for them is among sources, or alternatively we could have the different definitions and what sources support them in the lede.
It should be kept in mind that the female article is not about humans, but rather all animals. Also that's not really what this article is about. And yes, there is the article for trans women, while this is the article for all women, both trans and cis. A Socialist Trans Girl 08:29, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
Ok. Well I'd say if you are up for it can you flesh out a brief outline of your ideas for it without spending toooo much time? Lukewarmbeer (talk) 08:45, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
I'd say we just folow the WP:SPINOFF guidelines, and create the article and we'd move over the parts in question from this article to there, exluding like a brief summary, like the one in the lede. Also we should probably do some rephrasing and restructuring, and it will also allow for a more in depth covering of the subject. A Socialist Trans Girl 06:01, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
To be clear…. I’m not unhappy with the status quo.
I’m always open to ideas that can lead to improvement but I would need to see something of how your improvement would look
I have suggested a couple of times that you draft something we can look at so “ I'd say we just folow the WP:SPINOFF guidelines, and create the article” sounds great please draft away and then we can get to grips with it
I haven’t anything to add until then Lukewarmbeer (talk) 11:41, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Lukewarmbeer Alright, I'll go ahead and create the draft. A Socialist Trans Girl 06:15, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
@Lukewarmbeer I've created the draft here Draft:Human Female. A Socialist Trans Girl 09:32, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that.
I’m away for a few days so limited in screen size to compare - but your draft looks at first glance like our woman article rebadged.
What would we then be left with for the Woman article? Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:13, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
@Lukewarmbeer It's a very rough draft, it might be enough as it is, though if needed we could add more, or just add more to make it better, either once the article is published or before.
In terms of what would be left for this article, it'd be most of it, really; over 80% of it will still be there, and I've been planning to massively expand this article once we've finished this, as many sections need expanding and improvement. A Socialist Trans Girl 07:27, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm back and can compare your draft Female article and our Woman article now.
I know it's a draft and I thank you for taking the trouble but initially I have one key question.
What would our 'new, Woman article say? Could you just give an outline of the Lead and a bit of the Biology? Lukewarmbeer (talk) 16:28, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Rather than leave it all to you I have been looking for an answer to this myself and I can't fine one. There is much verbiage out there on the subject(s) but non that answers the question - what is the difference. I think I have been as fair as a can be with this but if you can't develop some sort of outline that would show us (very broadly) what the difference between the two articles would be - and get some consensus on them - I think we will have to stick with what we have. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 13:28, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
@Lukewarmbeer Apologies for the late response Sure, for the lede, there's a section here for the discussion of the lede paragraph. For the difference of the main thing, the biology section would be moved to the Female Human article (I think we could keep the Intersex women sub-section). For the summary, I believe the summary of the biology in the lede is good, (with some minor rephrasing) or we could move that to a new biology section, and have a link to the main article of Female Human. I believe this is the outline you were looking for. What do you think? A Socialist Trans Girl 02:33, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
No, this is not a sub-topic as that guideline requires. Also note that it says that Article splits...must not be an attempt to evade the consensus process at another article. As has been made very clear, consensus here at this time is that the article should not be split. Please also see WP:POVFORK. Women's health also already exists. Crossroads -talk- 18:10, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
@Crossroads No, there is no current consensus on the issue on splitting the article, and Consensus involve[s] an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, and we have not arrived at consensus yet. You have already brought up WP:POVFORK twice, which I have addressed both times, to no response from you, and you can read those explanations of how it's not a POVFORK. I have additionally addressed your mentioning of Women's health 3 times already, and I believe you don't understand what the spinoff/split proposal is for; it's over the Biology section of the article, not the Health section of the article (I have no fundamental issue with the Women's Health summary portion of the article.) Please do not repeat points which you have already made, which I have already addressed, to no response; I do not wish for this discussion to devolve into repeating the same arguments over and over. A Socialist Trans Girl 06:10, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
No, basically everyone else has not been for splitting the article, many of whom have stopped repeating themselves while you continue to persist in advocating for it. Whether something is "legitimate concerns" is determined by other editors and reliable sources on the topic of the article. Crossroads -talk- 19:31, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
@Crossroads Of repeating a point, there can be a distinction made between two main types of it for this context. The first type is repeating it after it has already been addressed (with no meaningful addressing of the original addressing of the first time the point was made), and the second type is repeating an addressing of a point, in response to the first. I believe I have not done any of the first type (If that's wrong, then please point out where it is the case.), though the first kind has occurred in this discussion, for examples, (original point, original response, repeat repeat, response to repeat (included because it's a complete takedown of the point) as the first set of examples.) and (original original response, repeat repeat repeat repeat as the second set of examples.). The second type is completely fine as it is the appropriate response to a repeating of point which you already addressed to no meaningful address of your addressing, however the first type is the one which there is an issue with, and is REALLY bad for the health of the discussion, as it results in it going in circles, and we absolutely want to avoid it, and we should all try our best to not do so, and agknowledge . With the "everyone else has not been for it", once again, Polling is not a substitute for discussion, a point is not weakened by how many people agree with it, and this should not be categorized as a simple "agree" or "disagree" as people's opinions on this are not that black and white, and WP:PNSD really ought to be understood as it is an essential policy for discussions, and really I wish that I hadn't need to bring up the fact that Consensus is not the result of an opinion count this many times in this discussion. As for "Whether something is 'legitimate concerns' is determined by other editors and reliable sources on the topic of the article" it's determined through Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, as well as consensus. There is no consensus yet; discussion is ongoing. So how about we stop squabbling over whether or not we have consensus when we don't as discussion is ongoing, and instead try to arrive at consensus, so, what are your not yet properly addressed concerns with splitting the article?
Also, there's been about 6 times where I've addressed a point you've made an you didn't respond, what is the reason for this? like should I interpret it as you conceding on that point? or did you simply not see my response? or something else? A Socialist Trans Girl 08:16, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
should I interpret it as you conceding on that point? Definitely not. I usually stop responding if I have nothing further to add and I have made my case. If I change my mind, I say so. Crossroads -talk- 22:48, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
@Crossroads Well I'd say that simply not responding despite an extensive addressing of one's point would likely function as conceding one's point in terms of consensus. I don't think that one can cease discussion of one's point and have thy point be still counted as a 'legitimate concern' for the purpose of consensus due to it having been addressed, as WP:CON states [Consensus] is marked by addressing editors' legitimate concerns..., and unless legitimate concern is raised with the addressing, and I dont think that repeating one's point following it having been addressed is very proper, no? A Socialist Trans Girl 09:02, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
Sometimes, it's legitimate to repeat your concerns, even after someone has attempted to address them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:55, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Agreed Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:59, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
So, do we have consensus on the definition...? Definitely not. All editors involved with the page get a say, and I do not agree that there is a problem with the text. And I don't see that many others do either. Crossroads -talk- 21:08, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
@Crossroads what is your disagreement with my proposal? (also read my response above). A Socialist Trans Girl 06:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)


@CaptainEek @WhatamIdoing @Lukewarmbeer So currently we lack consensus, and Reaching consensus involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines., so what are the concerns with my proposal of "representing all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources", as should be done according to the lede of WP:NPOV? A Socialist Trans Girl 06:03, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I don’t think we have a problem with that do we?
Isn’t the lack of consensus about how much of a mention we give those ‘significant views’ - I.e. how significant do we think they are and how much significance we give them here? Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:41, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
I believe it's with the inclusion of the views; The position that gender and sex are distinct is that which is held by Most contemporary social scientists,[8][9][10] behavioral scientists and biologists,[11][12] many legal systems and government bodies,[13] and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO[14] and therefore can absolutely not be reasonably concluded to be UNDUE weight, while that of them being the same is held by a mere minority of those in the present day, the view's inclusion with attribution of being historically accepted by academia (up until a few decades ago) can be included, while not giving it UNDUE weight. (keep in mind The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered.) I think we should, rather than having a definitive definition portraying it as universally accepted and giving it UNDUE weight, we should rather state the different things of it (i.e, sex and gender being different, and them being the same), and attibute sources of where it's considered to be the case. Let me know thy thoughts. A Socialist Trans Girl 08:44, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Hmm, by "distinct", perhaps some people mean "separate and only coincidentally aligned in most cases, like the Super Bowl indicator", but other people might mean "separate but deeply intertwined, like people with green eyes and red hair being prone to skin cancer".
I'm not aware of anyone thinking that gender (e.g., choosing a particular hairstyle) is actually the same as sex (e.g., which gamete the person produces). I thought that the modern dispute was over which of those two distinct things makes a person be properly labeled as a woman. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:35, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing apologies for not replying earlier, I didn't see it in my watchlist. Well the sex gender distinction is that of that gender (i.e, woman) and sex (i.e, female) are distinct concepts which are not inherently deterministic of eachother, while being typically associated with eachother. The position that they are not distinct may agknowledge that things like 'choosing a particular hairstyle' and 'which gamete a person produces' are in the different purview of the categories of sex and gender, but sex and gender are not distinct, i.e, are intrinsically conected to eachother, and one is not seperate to the other. I think to give DUE weight to both, while not being POV, we should state by whom each is held by (including over time, i.e the position of sex and gender not being distinct was far more prevelent in academia in the past than now). I don't see how doing so would be unreasonable at all. Thoughts? A Socialist Trans Girl 05:33, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Rather than discrete camps, I think there might be a spectrum, that runs something like:
fundamentally unrelated – separate but intertwined – intrinsically connected
Does that sound possible to you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:09, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing Well, I don't really think that the 'completely unrelated' one is really a significant view that has been published by reliable sources, so it's moreso just that of 'the view that they're seperate while typically associated', and the view that 'they're intrinsically connected'. And we also don't really have any sources for sex-gender distinction spectrum. So, I have drafted a thing for the lede paragraph:
  • Definitions of woman vary over time, between cultures, and within cultures.[9][10] The variance of the definition is mostly over the Sex–gender distinction, and specifically if Gender (i.e Woman) is intrinsically connected to Sex (i.e Female). Most contemporary social scientists,[11][8][4] behavioral scientists and biologists,[12] many legal systems and government bodies,[13] and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO[14] make a distinction between gender and sex, with the distinction first being introduced in 1955.[15] Whereas prior to this, the two terms have historically been used synonymously.[16] A viewpoint that does not distinguish between sex and gender continues to exist as a minority perspective today.[citation needed]
That is just a draft, and I am completely open to suggestions and such. What do you think? A Socialist Trans Girl 09:49, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
No, this is WP:SYNTH. As has been repeatedly emphasized on this page, the sex and gender distinction is itself distinct from the topic of "woman". You appear to be trying to foreground that topic as all about how gender is different from sex when this is a tangential matter at best, and most sources on the topic discuss aspects of both as they align for the vast majority. Crossroads -talk- 19:27, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
@Crossroads It is to be noted that the Sex-Gender distinction is not unrelated to the topic; it is directly related, as the view in opposition to the Sex-Gender distinction is Gender determinism, which is the view that one's gender (such as Woman) is inherently determined by one's sex (such as Female), an inherently definional view. So as such, an inherently definitional distinction (or viewpoint of a lack thereof) in relation to the definition of genders (such as woman) cannot be reasonably concluded to be unrelated. I have made some changes and made a new draft of it;
  • Definitions of woman vary over time, between cultures, and within cultures,[17][18] mostly stemming from whether or not Sex (Such as Female) and Gender (such as Woman) are distinct (i.e, inherently deterministic of gender). Most contemporary social scientists,[19][8][4] behavioral scientists and biologists,[20] many legal systems and government bodies,[21] and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO[22] make a distinction between gender and sex, the distinction first being introduced in 1955.[23] Prior to this, the two terms have historically been used synonymously.[24] A viewpoint that does not distinguish between sex and gender and holds sex as inherently deterministic of gender continues to exist as a minority perspective today.[citation needed]
I believe that this contains no WP:SYNTH, as I am not aware of how any of the sources are being synthesized together for a conclusion not supported by any of the sources. If you believe my assessment of it not containing any SYNTH to be innacurrate, you may explain how and where it contains synthesis, past the notion of a distinction which's presence or viewpoint in opposition to the distinction is inherently definitional in that it is in relation to if the definition is determined by another condition. A Socialist Trans Girl 05:50, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't think this is SYNTH, assuming that we are working with the standard definitions that OR is a claim that can't be found in any reliable source anywhere in the world (including sources that aren't cited), and that SYNTH is a claim that not only can't be found in any reliable source anywhere in the world, but additionally is derived from two or more sources. This is all verifiable, and therefore not any form of OR, including not SYNTH.
I would, however, change that last sentence. It is possible to find reliable sources that say this viewpoint is a minority. However, those sources usually mean (even if they don't explicitly say this) that it is a minority within a certain population (e.g., professors of gender studies). This view is probably the majority among lay people worldwide (e.g., perhaps as many as 60% of Americans[6]). Thus the sentence might need to be re-cast as saying that view exists as "a minority among relevant scholars", or something like that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing I believe your assessment of whether the content is OR is accurate and valuable, and I believe we have consensus on it not being OR, as it appears that Crossroads hasn't provided any explanation based in the policy as to how it is OR, as of now at least. Would you agree that we have consensus on it not being OR?
Well WP:UNDUE says "The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered.", so I believe that the phrasing of whom it's held by probably should reflect this, as what a minority holding a position means in the context of Wikipedia is among RS (Academia in this case). Let me know what you think. Are there any further improvements you think should be made to the paragraph? A Socialist Trans Girl 09:09, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
It is WP:SYNTH because you are taking sources on one matter (the sex-gender distinction) and using them as the fundamental framing of a different topic (woman). And it's WP:UNDUE because you are making an article about half the human population be about an academic conceptual/level of analysis distinction. We are supposed to base this article on sources on the topic of women. Crossroads -talk- 22:46, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
@Crossroads I dont think it can be concluded that it is WP:SYNTH until you specify what phrasing is sourced by combining parts of multiple sources to arrive at a conclusion not stated by the sources, and an assessment of the reasoning for the specific phrasing being evaluated being SYNTH/OR, before that, discussing whether or not it is OR would not be contributing to the improvement of the paragraph proposed, nor can it be reasonably classified as a 'legitimate concern', due to it lacking specific issue with it. I think WhatamIdoing's assessment of if it is OR (including SYNTH) is accurate and valuable. (btw, just a tip, it's better to try to avoid making definitive statements such as "It is WP:SYNTH" in favour of phrasing such as "I believe it is WP:SYNTH", regardless of how sure you are, as the latter phrasing is more receptive to being demonstated incorrect. This isn't required, but it's good practice & procedure.)
Wikipedia is sourced by RS, which in contexts such as these are almost entirely Academic/IO, and it's not UNDUE as it is directly related to the definition, as I explained It is to be noted that the Sex-Gender distinction is not unrelated to the topic; it is directly related, as the view in opposition to the Sex-Gender distinction is Gender determinism, which is the view that one's gender (such as Woman) is inherently determined by one's sex (such as Female), an inherently definional view. So as such, an inherently definitional distinction (or viewpoint of a lack thereof) in relation to the definition of genders (such as woman) cannot be reasonably concluded to be unrelated.. Sources being from the general public of that half of the population would be a violation of policy, as WP:UNDUE states that "The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered.", which applies here. Sources/content related to the definition of the term is not at all UNDUE weight, nor off topic.
We are supposed to base this article on sources on the topic of women Statements are supposed to be based on sources which support them, we don't source the article as a whole. Statements are supposed to be on topic, and (a) statement(s) relating to the very definition of the term are not off topic. A Socialist Trans Girl 08:13, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
Hmm, "fundamentally" unrelated is not quite the same as "completely" unrelated. The former is more about origins or causality, and the latter would include statistical correlation. Things that are "typically associated" could be "fundamentally" unrelated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing True, that's a mistake on my part, though I'm still not sure in what was "seperate, but intertwined" is a separate one, as I believe that it either could be interpreted to mean that it's distinct categories, but still intertwined and inseperable, which I believe would be the "Intrinsically connected" one, or it could be interpreted to mean that it's seperate categories, though typically associated with eachother due to sex assignment and other factors. Regardless, I don't think there's really any RS supporting this framing, regardless of how much utility it serves. So I believe we should go with the current framing, as that's what RS support. Thoughts? A Socialist Trans Girl 08:41, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
Can you imagine the views about sex and gender as being something that exists on a spectrum? If it's possible for someone's sexual orientation to be a 2 or 5 or 9 on the Kinsey scale, could there be something in between the most extreme positions of "Seriously, it's just not related. Your gender identity has nothing to do with your sex assignment. It may not be 50–50 odds, but it is essentially random who's going to be cis and who's going to be trans" and "If you're AFAB, then you're a woman no matter what, even if you feel like a man, dress like a man, act like a man, and are treated like a man by everyone"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:25, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing I mean, not really? The former position includes "it may not be 50-50 odds", so the position that one can have a GI different from that typically associated with their AS can be that AS usually correlates with GI, but not always, with correlation likely due to factors such as Default bias, socialization, social stigma, and other factors, and that position would fit into the former category. However, I really ought to stress this, I dont think this is that relevant, as I dont think there's any RS for the spectrum view of the SGD, so I dont think there's a point to discussing it, per WP:NOTFORUM; I dont think you've really done anything wrong in discussing it, but I dont think it's relevant. So are you okay with the gist of the paragraph? Are there any improvements you think should be made to the paragraph? If so please let me know. Cheers! (=^ ◡ ^=) A Socialist Trans Girl 02:56, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
It's not about "the SGD" being a spectrum. It's about people's conceptions of "how sex and gender do (or don't) relate" being a spectrum. It would be rather extraordinary to claim that all of the 8.1 billion humans on Earth hold exactly one of two discrete, completely non-overlapping positions about, well, anything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:11, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing Is that not what the SGD is already about? I do see your point with the 8.1 billion people fitting into 2 things, but remember The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered.. Regardless of whether it could be a spectrum or more than those 2 positions, we'd need to have WP:RS supporting it to add it to the paragraph, which unless/until we have that, I dont see what the point of discussing it is. Are you okay with the gist of the paragraph, though? A Socialist Trans Girl 05:17, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
I'll put a detailed analysis in a new section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:05, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
This is an extremely difficult conversation to follow. I've tried like three times. As a note, the Kinsey Scale only goes to six. So a nine would be "even more gay than completely gay," and the Kinsey Scale doesn't have anything to do with gender identity; it's to do with sexuality and attraction.
The suggestion that we POVFORK an article for "Female human" is silly at best. We already have an article for Female...and...what else would we be talking about? Is there some sense where "woman" could refer to a panda or a plant?
I would suggest that if this is in any way going to be productive, there should just be a clean restart in a new section that follows the Golfball rule, and proposes a particular edit that cites particular sources. This meandering debate confuses and crosses a number of terms, and probably branches more into original philosophy than anything else. And for goodness sake, keep things in chronological order. GMGtalk 12:23, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
@GreenMeansGo It's not silly, there's plenty of information about Human females that does not apply to all female lifeforms; it's a more specific sub-category, with plenty of reliable sources covering it. I have no clue what is meant by "Is there some sense where "woman" could refer to a panda or a plant?"; Woman refers to a gender, not sure what is being talked about here.
Additionally, it's definitely not a POVFORK, I have addressed concerns over it being a POVFORK several times. Also, with the edit summary This doesn't seem to be going anywhere and is barely intelligible; I don't think that's accurate, it is absolutely going somewhere, recently we've created a draft for the WP:SPINOFF article, and the lede, and begun discussing improvements to them; that can't be reasonably considered to be "not going anywhere". A Socialist Trans Girl 05:32, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
The dominant framing of this topic among sources (at least the dictionaries and MEDRS used in the article) is that adult female human and woman are simply the exact same topic, which is not trans-exclusionary because female can refer to either sex or gender or both depending on context. Any split (both your current draft, and the more trans-exclusionary one proposed at Talk:Woman § Possible split discussion) encodes a POV that the adjective female in this context means something besides either "being a woman or girl" or "belonging to the typically ovum-producing sex" (Wikipedia has separate articles for each sense). It is therefore a WP:POVFORK.
In particular I take issue with the draft's framing of female, which seems confused and poorly scoped. As solely inclusive of transsexual women, which strikes me as transmedicalist (also WP:SYNTHesized and unsourced). If we apply that definition transitively (the root of all evil in this topic area) it would imply that adult female human (and thus, woman) only includes "true transsexuals", and misgenders non-binary transmascs/trans men who don't medically transition. For the record, I don't think defining female in this context to mean AFAB would be an improvement; I don't think the fork should exist.
We don't need a spin-off of Woman § Biology because the section is already a summary of Sex differences in humans (an article which could use attention from editors with boundless passion and energy for this topic area). I don't see this solving any of the perennial discussed issues (or non-issues) with this article's trans content, and instead creating a host of new ones. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 19:41, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly with Roxy. I'm surprised this discussion is still going. @A Socialist Trans Girl I think it is time for you to WP:DROPTHESTICK. There is not consensus for your proposed POVFORK, and I do not see it developing. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 21:09, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
@RoxySaunders I'll start of with saying that I do understand your persepctive, and do see where you're coming from, however there's several issues/inconsistencies.
  • The dominant framing of this topic among sources (at least the dictionaries and MEDRS used in the article) is that adult female human and woman are simply the exact same topic, which is not trans-exclusionary because female can refer to either sex or gender or both depending on context. This is actually quite a unique perspective that I don't think I have heard before. However, there are some issues with this; first, dictionaries are not WP:RS in this context, and especially not for WP:MEDRS or gender studies, so that is not really relevant. Additionally, there'd need to be a very extensive systematic review to conclude that it is the dominant framing, or at least some VERY big/reliable sources on it, such as the APA or WHO, for example, however, common usage of the terms Female and Woman in academia is that "Gender can be broadly defined as a multidimensional construct that encompasses gender identity (e.g., woman, man, trans man, gender-diverse, nonbinary) and expression, as well as social and cultural expectations about status, characteristics, and behavior as they are associated with certain sex traits."[25], and "Sex refers to the biological, genetic and physiological processes that generally distinguish females from males."[26], with the sex gender distinction being largely academic consensus, the predominant position is also that "Gender refers to social categories such as woman, man, non-binary, etc[par]"[27], and is therefore different from sex, i.e, male and female.[28] And while 'female' may occasionally be used to refer to gender (i.e, woman), this usage is mostly in colloquial/informal speech, and is generally considered incorrect in technical contexts.[a] Additionally, it doesnt make much sense[b] for 'there to be a sex-gender distinction, but for the sex to 'female', and the gender to be 'woman', but for 'female' to also be able to refer to the gender or the sex depending on the context, or even both, in a way which conflates the two terms definitionally'. It is also important to note that the definition "adult human female" is often used in trans-exclusionary contexts/trans-exclusionary way.[29][c] Also, you said that 'female' "can refer to either sex or gender or both depending on context", however which is the common interpretation of which it is referring to in the context of 'Adult female human'?
  • Any split (both your current draft, and the more trans-exclusionary one proposed at Talk:Woman § Possible split discussion) encodes a POV that the adjective female in this context means something besides either "being a woman or girl" or "belonging to the typically ovum-producing sex" (Wikipedia has separate articles for each sense). It is therefore a WP:POVFORK. Currently, I haven't added any definition to the draft, a main reason is because, sex categorization is really complicated! I don't believe that a simple definition such as "ovum producing" is an accurate definition, and it lacks nuance; there are people such as those who are post-menopause, who would still be categorized as female, and several other exceptions. And sex isn't binary; it's bimodal.[30] The modern understanding of sex is far more intricate and nuanced than a simple definition such as those, a diagram of the modern intricate and nuanced understanding of sex looks like this. [31]. I am planning on adding an actually nuanced, intricate meaning of it (with citations), though I haven't gotten to it yet. If you think that there's any issues with the POV of the draft, i.e, that it doesn't "[]fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, [represent] all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic", then you can add those viewpoint's with attribution! Wikipedia drafts can be edited by anyone, so if you feel there's a missing significant view with RS attribution that should be added, you're free to do so! You could also let me know either here or on the draft's talk page of any significant viewpoints that are missing and feel should be added, and I'll be happy to add them to the draft with attribution to a RS. Keep in mind, I do accept that in some contexts female is sometimes used to refer to gender,[d] however I think that those contexts are mostly informal, and I think that this is definitely not one of those contexts, and in technical/academic contexts is generally considered to be improper.
  • In particular I take issue with the draft's framing of female, which seems confused and poorly scoped. As solely inclusive of transsexual women, which strikes me as transmedicalist (also WP:SYNTHesized and unsourced). I'm not a transmedicalist, and I don't think that medically transitioning has anything to do with the validity of one's gender identity or anything like that. If the article comes off as transmedicalist (which we don't want), then please let me know where it does and in what way, so I can fix it so that it doesn't come off that way.
  • If we apply that definition transitively (the root of all evil in this topic area) it would imply that adult female human (and thus, woman) only includes "true transsexuals", and misgenders non-binary transmascs/trans men who don't medically transition. For the record, I don't think defining female in this context to mean AFAB would be an improvement; I don't think the fork should exist. That's a product of the definition of 'adult female human', which as previously mentioned, is often used in said harmful way. However, I am also proposing to change the lede to have no definitive prescriptive definition, and rather follow NPOV by having "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.", with attribution, which addresses that concern of the UNDUE position by implication. Additionally, you stated that you "don't think defining female in this context to mean AFAB would be an improvement", to which I agree completely, however it should be noted that it currently defines woman in that way in this article, as current is 'Adult female human' and the female article defines itself as 'an ovum producing organism[par]', which more or less means AFAB, so that's another reason we shouldn't have a definitive, prescriptive definition in the lede, that does not represent all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.[32]
  • We don't need a spin-off of Woman § Biology because the section is already a summary of Sex differences in humans (an article which could use attention from editors with boundless passion and energy for this topic area). I don't believe that it is the case that the biology section is really a summary of Sex differences in humans, the content and scope are almost completely different, and the biology section of this article is also completely different from all the articles Sex differences in humans is summarizing. I do agree that the current state of the article Sex differences in humans is abhorrent, and needs a lot of work.
  • I don't see this solving any of the perennial discussed issues (or non-issues) with this article's trans content, and instead creating a host of new ones. What issues will doing the WP:SPINOFF create with this article's trans content? And what issues existing issues with this article's trans content are you referring to?
I believe it is absolutely possible to address all the concerns and issues with Draft:Female human through good faith discussion. A Socialist Trans Girl 03:45, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
@A Socialist Trans Girl: I am not able or willing to respond to such a paralyzing quantity of simultaneous points and subpoints. Intentionally or not, your penchant for twelve-pronged 8 kilobyte point-by-point rebuttals feels like sealioning or WP:BADGERing, and counter to consensus-building. At the very least, it has discouraged me from attempting to contribute to this thread on multiple occasions. I'm skeptical that my attempting to do so will meaningfully advance new consensus. This, and the split proposal below, demonstrate clear consensus against splitting the article.
In spite of myself, here are some non-exhaustive elaborations on my previous message which I hope improve clarity.
  • with respect to bullet 1: In Standard Written English, female (adj) is used interchangeably with woman (n) to describe someone's gender (as in "female guitarist") rather than to comment on her sexual characteristics; this fact is WP:BLUESKY but verified by authoritative dictionaries which are an RS for this purpose.
    • Also, "woman = gender; female = sex" is a fundamental misunderstanding of the SGD (both by TERFs and by well-meaning TRAs) and one which invariably leads to trans women being misgendered as "biological males". Wikipedia content stemming from this misunderstanding is likely to be problematic.
  • wrt 3: I'm referring to the graf beginning Most female humans are [AFAB], however this is not always the case when the individual is transsexual... which implies that being a female human hinges on having medically transitioned or intending to (WP:OR).
  • wrt 5: Oops you're right. I meant Sex differences in human physiology. In my view this should be the primary article discussing the typical development of AFAB and AMAB bodies.
  • wrt 6: A host of new [issues] refers to the POV issues I described in my first paragraph.
–RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 06:44, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Apologies if my response came of that way as it was not my intention. I'll try to shorten my response and condense my future responses.
The summary of a lot of it is that if there's any issue with the article not having represented all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic, then you're free to add those significant views with RS, or let me know either here on the article's talk page, and I can add them.
The reason for there not yet being a definition of female is because it's really complicated
The usage of 'Female' to refer to gender is mainly informal, and often considered incorrect in formal/technical contexts, and Wikipedia is one of those contexts it is considered incorrect in.
And I also don't really think that the biology section of this article is a summary of Sex differences in human physiology either, as the scope and content of it is completely different. A Socialist Trans Girl 07:44, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
About it doesnt make much sense[b] for 'there to be a sex-gender distinction, but for the sex to 'female', and the gender to be 'woman', but for 'female' to also be able to refer to the gender or the sex depending on the context, or even both, in a way which conflates the two terms definitionally', perhaps this will help:
  • Modern English has been around for about five centuries.
  • The sex–gender distinction has been around for about five decades.
  • Despite the obvious advantages, English has not (yet) changed its centuries-old definitions of words just to make it easier for people to indicate whether they are discussing sex or gender.
This means that it's still true that the English word female means "the she in mankind, or other feminine creatures" (1604 definition). Communication would be easier if each word had only one meaning, but that is not the world we live in. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:06, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
True Lukewarmbeer (talk) 09:06, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing Well, Language is descriptive, and definition are made by humans to serve human need, i.e, based on Utility; if it serves more Utility then that is the definition.
However, Wikipedia is not based on the general population, but rather is based on reliable sources, in this context mainly academic sources, and in which the two words are not used interchangeably nor synonymously, and in rare cases when they are, it is generally considered incorrect.
Also words can change meaning rather quickly. (fyi, the sex gender distinction has been around about 7 decades, not 5). A Socialist Trans Girl 04:44, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
When common, everyday words (e.g., woman) have different meanings in everyday speech and academic jargon, and we follow the academic definitions, we tend to run into problems with reader comprehension. As an example of this, Teenage pregnancy has had a history of problems because US high school students have struggled to believe that even a married woman who has a planned pregnancy and gives birth the day before her 20th birthday is technically a "teenage mother". Legally, 19 year olds are "adults", and medically (at least in the narrower, biological sense), 19 year olds are indistinguishable from 25 year olds, but the readers are often surprised and confused, because socially, the readers, especially our younger readers, think that 19 year olds aren't really teenagers. Good editors account for predictable points of confusion and minimize confusing MOS:JARGON. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:19, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
Have to agree here Lukewarmbeer (talk) 13:22, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing A few things with that; using the general population as a source for definitions is against policy, so it shouldn't be done. With the example you provided, Teenage pregnancy, the thing with that is that the article still defines it as less than 20 years old, regardless of that, because of Wikipedia policy. And I don't think the academic meaning of it isn't at all difficult to understand or comprehend for readers. So I don't think this is an issue, no? A Socialist Trans Girl 02:52, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
We're not using the general population as a source. (How would you cite that, anyway? "I talked to three people on the sidewalk, and they all said..."?)
We're using our knowledge of the English language to try to make the article comprehensible to the general population. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:27, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing I don't get what the issue with it is that makes it hard to understand for readers, could you explain? A Socialist Trans Girl 13:19, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
I used the Kinsey Scale as an example of something that is a spectrum, even though many people interact with "straight" and "gay" as discrete and non-overlapping categories. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:12, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
A Socialist Trans Girl, other editors have rejected your claims that it isn't a POVFORK. We are not obligated to WP:SATISFY you as you seem to think here. Crossroads -talk- 17:27, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
See above response to POVFORK (the TLDR is that you're free to fix any issues with "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic" not being represented, and can also inform me of any issues with it either here or on the draft's talk page, and I'll be happy to fix it)
While you aren't obligated to respond, and Wikipedia is not compulsory, a violation of WP:SATISFY is not what I was communicating, but rather the opposite; excerpt from said section: "Offering a rebuttal to a comment is also fine, although arguing repetitively is not.", with 'Proof by assertion' which it linked being "an informal fallacy in which a proposition is repeatedly restated regardless of contradiction and refutation." which is exactly what I was criticizing; repeating a proposition regardless of refutation. Doing Proof by assertion is contradictory to healthy discussion, which is why I was criticizing it; to maintain healthy discussion. The point being made was not over not responding, but rather repeating one's point despite refutation. A Socialist Trans Girl 04:20, 30 August 2023 (UTC)


Old discussion

Realized there is it's own article, Sex differences in humans and Sexual differentiation in humans. The biology section has no place on this article, as sex and gender are separate things, and content should be moved to their own articles. Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 04:46, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't think your edits reflect the previous agreements about what to include in this article.
Specifically, even if we stipulate that it is indisputably true that sex and gender are separate things (in some models, which are well accepted among modern Western academics, but which are not accepted in every culture, or in any culture less than a century ago), it does not follow that we cannot have both women-as-biological-organisms and also women-as-social-creatures in the same article. Wikipedia has many articles that combine related but distinct concepts in a single article (e.g., Tomato, which covers the tomato plant and the tomato fruit; Bonnie and Clyde, which covers two people). The discussions above on this page suggest that a "both/and" approach is wanted by most editors, rather than the "either/or" approach that you are advocating for. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:18, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
Ignoring biology in Wikipedia’s ‘Woman’ article would be beyond absurd Blocky1OOO (talk) 04:08, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

There is no "women-as-biological-organisms", I believe you are referring to "Female", which is not woman/not synonymous with women, as per the 8 citations I provided here. Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 05:22, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, the "both/and" approach is typical on Wikipedia, and helpful for an article like this. This article also shows a classic Wiki example of an article type I envision as "Rule and exceptions". We state what the majority of a thing has, and then go through exceptions. For example, most birds fly, but penguins are of course a notable exception. That doesn't mean that the bird article can't talk about flight, it just means the situation is clarified. Just because woman can refer to sex or gender doesn't mean we can't cover both, or that we can't deal with exceptions to the general rule. Women, like birds, are not some monolith. The challenge of the article is how to incorporate that range of diversity. I agree that this article could use considerable improvement on the sociological aspects, and encourage thought about that. But just wholesale removing most of the article is not the solution. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 05:28, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
About "the 8 citations": I'm seeing sources among those eight that say things like It was functional for women—more limited by pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing—to be assigned domestic roles, but I'm not seeing anything in them that says anything even vaguely like "The One True™ Definition of the Word Woman is Gender Identity, and There is No Other". For example, one of the books says "biological sex is separate and distinct from gender", but it doesn't follow that with "and you're a bad person if you use the word woman instead of female when talking about people who can get pregnant". In fact, that particular paragraph goes on to say that some "gendered" traits are biologically influenced: "and thus inseparable from biology, according to many scholars". (That book also mentions "biological gender" on page 155.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:04, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

First of all, it's not really "rule and exceptions", as exceptions define the rule. Next, we can state that the majority of women are AFAB, but content that belongs on the page for female should not be present on this article, as it's not relevant to women, but rather the female sex. And it especially shouldn't make up the majority of the article, when it belongs in it's own article.

Next, woman can't and doesn't refer to sex and or gender. It refers to gender. The sex typically associated with the gender of woman is female, and is not synonymous.

And with removing of most of the article, the content should be moved to it's own article, and we should remove the majority of the article if that majority of the article isn't relevant. Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 05:36, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

There's certainly been some discussion about creating a split article, but its never gotten consensus because it presents a number of practical and sourcing challenges. The concern is that a split would just become a WP:POVFORK. As you'll see, I also undid your lead edit, as the current version reflects consensus, and is in line with the definition at Man, which has also been extensively discussed. The point is that the underlying definition is correct: a woman is an adult female human, and female may refer to sex or gender. Thus the article addresses both. While I agree that the article may focus more heavily on biology, the solution is to fill out the rest of the article, not cut down the other parts. This page is quite small as far as pages usually go, only 32 kb of prose. We could easily push that to 60 or 70 and still be fine. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 06:09, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
See WP:CCC and WP:WHATISCONSENSUS § Not permanent. If you or another edit have a disagreement with my specific reasons/sourcing in this instance, then it is under dispute, however previous consensus cannot be differed to. Additionally, you can't merely dismiss it through saying "The point is that the underlying definition is correct", when I provided 8 reliable sources saying otherwise. Additionally, female does not, and can not refer to gender. Female is one side of the bimodal distribution of humans known as sex. Woman is a person who identifies with the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex. They are not the same thing. And disagreeing with that goes against the academic consensus, and for it to be valid to implement in an article, you have to a) explain why the 8 sources I provided are incorrect, and or b) Provide a modern/recent source more reputable on the subject than the World Health Organization and the Office of Research on Women's Health, which says otherwise. Previous consensus cannot be differed to, but rather discussion of the specific points, reasoning, and justifications which I have provided. There is no current consensus, as as per WP:CONSENSUS; "Decision making and reaching consensus involve an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines." Which has not happened yet, as the specific reasons and justifications I have provided have not been addressed. Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 06:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
Furthermore, the two topics of the female sex and the gender of woman should absolutely not be merged into a single article, doing so makes no sense, as they are separate topics entirely, and not even in the same field (one is biology one is sociology), and merging them into the same article not only makes no sense, but also causes confusion for the reader, and why should two unrelated topic be on the same article? Additionally, with the size of the article, we should remove the irrelevant biology section and put it in another article, but also greatly expand the relevant aspects of this article. Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 07:22, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
Moreover, with the byte size, we shouldn't try to inflate the byte size if doing so makes the article worse.
Additionally, with your analogy of talking about flight on the article for birds, yes, flight can be talked about, however, it is limited to
"Most birds can fly, which distinguishes them from almost all other vertebrate classes. Flight is the primary means of locomotion for most bird species and is used for searching for food and for escaping from predators. Birds have various adaptations for flight, including a lightweight skeleton, two large flight muscles, the pectoralis (which accounts for 15% of the total mass of the bird) and the supracoracoideus, as well as a modified forelimb (wing) that serves as an aerofoil.[75]
Wing shape and size generally determine a bird's flight style and performance; many birds combine powered, flapping flight with less energy-intensive soaring flight. About 60 extant bird species are flightless, as were many extinct birds.[138] Flightlessness often arises in birds on isolated islands, most likely due to limited resources and the absence of mammalian land predators.[139] Flightlessness is almost exclusively correlated with gigantism due to an island's inherent condition of isolation.[140] Although flightless, penguins use similar musculature and movements to "fly" through the water, as do some flight-capable birds such as auks, shearwaters and dippers."
However, what is present in this article, can be equated to the bird article being 4/6ths about flight in Archaeopteryx, not to simply mentioning it, and allowing someone to click the blue link if they want to learn more, and not merging it into the same article. Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 08:22, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
Without a 'foundation' in the sex of the person the word Woman ceases to have any real meaning unless there are some other criteria. There may (will) be exceptions but, as said elsewhere, it is the core definition of a woman that gives the exceptions context and meaning - which is why there is so much extended discussion about it.
I think helper1 was correct (above) with their reference to Sex–gender distinction
A woman cannot, in gender terms, be defined by sex BUT the other extreme is The European Institute for Gender Equality definition of a woman as a "Female human being; a person assigned a female sex at birth, or a person who defines herself as a woman".
If we accept that then the word 'Woman' ceases to have any meaning and It would be quite a short article as the EIGE definition above is all we need say - with the possible addition of "you would need to ask each individual"
There must be more criteria than self definition and that is the nub of this. We need to develop what characteristics or criteria a person must meet in order for others to reliably identify them as a 'woman'. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 09:38, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
BTW I think we have had a pretty good go at that with what we already have. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 09:40, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
Words can have multiple meanings. Force doesn't cease to have any meaning just because there are many other things that are also called by that name. The word woman can also be understood to refer to a biological situation, or to a gender identity, or to a social role, or to any number of other things without that word ceasing to have meaning. The both/and approach that you describe as "the other extreme" is the approach that this article has taken for years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
That is true - but all revolve around the 'core' meaning of what we understand by force.... "strength or energy exerted or brought to bear : cause of motion or change : active power"
That's what we need. A 'core' meaning.
There are lots of types and uses of words like trees, trunks, branches, roots etc. but they all need the fundamental concept of a 'tree' to give them meaning.
That we have been doing something for years is often a good sign.
I can't really conceive of another meaningful way of doing it, which may be my lack of understanding or imagination.
Can you lay out how you would , if it were just for you to do, see the Lead?
Or is the article itself so insufficient no Lead would work with it as it is now. If so what would be some heads of change?
I appreciate the constructive replys so thanks for taking the time. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 08:27, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
I sometimes think that what appeals to some editors about the first sentence ("A woman is an adult female human") is that it is ambiguous. Someone who understands female to refer strictly to biology, and who believes that trans women aren't "real" women, can read this and be satisfied because "Wikipedia supports my POV". And someone who understands female as referring to non-biological situations (e.g., the 19th century politician who told Parliament that bonnet making was particularly "suitable for females", and the 19th-century education report trying to determine whether the public schools were managing to teach girls enough skills that they could produce "clothing suitable for females of the humbler classes") can read the same sentence and be satisfied because "Wikipedia includes my POV". The objections come from people who both believe that female is exclusively biological, and also believe that this article should be exclusively non-biological.
I think it would be cleaner to own the approach taken in this article, which would mean that we state that the word woman is used in multiple ways, and all of them are covered here. Some of the government agencies that were named things like "Office of Women's Health" back when the sex–gender distinction was barely known outside of the then-rare Queer studies university program now describe their remit as "all women and all people assigned female at birth". We are basically taking the same approach, but we have been reluctant to admit it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:23, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
Agreed, and quietly excluding mainstream usage of woman as applying to both cis women and trans women, is not following WP:DUE. There should be room to accommodate modern usage in a way that includes cis and trans people, rather than weirdly and silently adopting a narrow and largely trans-exclusionary stance. Hist9600 (talk) 18:57, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
Sources that may help expand this article are discussed at Talk:Woman/Archive_24#WP:NPOV_and_MOS:LEAD, which also includes some discussion of the lead. Beccaynr (talk) 19:44, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
Trans women are in this article, including in the lead. Crossroads -talk- 03:35, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
It's pretty much whatever 'one' wants it to be then? Lukewarmbeer (talk) 21:07, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
Obviously it's the article - not the Lead - we need to worry about (as has been said elsewhere) as that must follow the article.
Our article Transgender covers Transgender#:~:text=Transgender identity is generally found,<0.1% to 0.6%.
So we need to account for the other 99.4%-99.9% of people who might fall into that category of people we call women?
How do we split that other group up AND define how they fall into the larger set of 'Woman"?
This is the heavy lifting of any rewrite. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 21:15, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by this, can you explain? Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 05:57, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I mean that: The Lead follows the article so if there is a rewrite to do there is no point in looking at the Lead yet. There are editors calling for a much 'wider' article - suggesting it is to narrow, I'm saying that the article needs to say what are the characteristics that would allow the inclusion of an individual in the set of human beings we use the term women to describe. If we don't have that the term becomes meaningless. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 06:12, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Said characteristic is just "Identifies with the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk • contribs) 06:23, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Words often have multiple meanings, or a semantic range, and are not rigidly tied to one single characteristic. That is normal. That is how language works. Merriam Webster has one definition of woman as an "adult female person." But one definition of female is, "having a gender identity that is the opposite of male." These are not difficult concepts, and language evolves over time. Hist9600 (talk) 21:22, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes I'm happy with the multiple meaning thing - which isn't a difficult concept.
I'm not happy with a definition that relies on something being the opposite of something else. For me that a difficult concept. We are more positive and direct elsewhere when we say that Trans women have a female gender identity. That's how we know what a Trans Woman is. Positive is the way to go surely?
In any event, were we looking for an opposite to define something (I hope we don't go down that rabbit hole), surely Male would be the opposite of Female and Man would be the opposite of Woman.
Have a read of the discussion at Male, Female and Man and you will find this discussion replicated there. The article won't have the essential firm foundation if we fudge the whole thing by piling one fudge upon another.
Talking around the issue isn't going to cut it.
At the moment we have Woman as principally a sex based definition. We also have acknowledged an additional meaning which is Trans Women.There may be arguments (see some editors above) to say this should not be here or be dealt with simply by linking to that article but as I said above, although a tiny minority, the current reliable sources justify inclusion here.
So far so good.?
The next step seems to me to decide if re there any other 'meanings' that we need to acknowledge?
Any offers on that.
After that we could discuss any changes to structure and content - but let's sort out what we are actually talking about first. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 08:58, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
The sex based definition is contraricted by the 8 reliable academic and IO sources which I cited, and are at the bottom of this talk page section, and includes the World Health Organization, which is the most reputable medical source, and multiple other sources which are far more reputable/reliable/verifiable than the current sources proven. Additionally, dictionary definitions are not really usable here part in due to the VERIFIABILITY of Wikipedia, as if Dictionary A says X, and Dictionary B says Y, then there’s no real solution if using dictionaries, but if Academic Sources and the Most Reputable IO on the topic say that Dictionary A’s definition is incorrect and outdated, and the definition is really [definition], then applying using Wikipedia’s source/reference/citation polices and guidelines says we should use the definition of reliable Academic sources and the IO that’s the most reputable source on the topic. Additionally, the citations in the article for the definition of “adult human female” are dictionaries, and not academic or IO. In short, the World Health Organization and Acadamia is more reliable than “(2009) Mosby's Pocket Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing & Health Professions”.A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 04:13, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Additionally, as per WP:CONFLICTING, we should prefer newer sources, i.e not one from 14 years ago. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 04:20, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for that.
You have described the method we use - which is reliable sources - but not the results you think they produce. That, in the broadest terms, is what we need now before moving on.
Please don't misunderstand me. I am not simply seeking a dictionary definition here. I am trying to assess the parameters or scope of the subject of this article so we can do with it what our own article on encyclopaedia says an encyclopaedia should.
"In addition to defining and listing synonymous terms for the topic, the article is able to treat the topic's more extensive meaning in more depth and convey the most relevant accumulated knowledge on that subject". Lukewarmbeer (talk) 08:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
A good example of trying to achieve this in another (totally different) area can be found on Talk:COVID-19 lockdowns Lukewarmbeer (talk) 08:19, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, I just believe that we should a) fix the definition, b) move the part of the article about sex to it's own article and c) massively expand the sociology and social part of the article, as that's what the article is about. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 03:39, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
It seems we completely agree that we need to deal with the definition first.
That will inform us when we look at the article itself.
What's your view on what the definition should be (please note my comments above re definition). Lukewarmbeer (talk) 06:59, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I'd go with the definition that "A woman is an adult human who identifies with the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex.". Though, it absolutely should not be a sex based definitions, for the previously specified reason(s), as well as the many reliable sources saying so. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 08:12, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Please feel free to start an RFC if you are so inclined. Just note that POVPushers on both sides have been TBanned regarding this topic, e.g., User:CycoMa, and User:Newimpartial. The next RFC *will* get bloody if opened in bad faith. Theheezy (talk) 08:59, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I don't think we have got close to being ready for an RfC yet have we? If we get down to two or three definitions then yes.
To address your point User:A Socialist Trans Girl I think womanly and feminine work together and so I see where you are coming from with that.... but you still have the word sex in there and if it 'should absolutely not be sex baed' then that word should go.
My problem with this is that these terms will be self referring. A woman is a female and a female is a woman. We have to say what at least one (but surely both) are.
Many (very many) women wouldn't be at all happy with "who identifies with the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex".
The 'definition' we have still works for me.
We could RfC on the existing and your definition if you feel that you have pretty much nailed it - but I'm not sure you have. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 11:36, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Apologies, I should be more cool headed in long protracted debates. Theheezy (talk) 13:04, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Well with the sex based, the definition stated isn't necessarily a sex based one, as it's identified with the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex, and not necessarily synonymous with one's sex, though I have some alternative definitions: "A woman is an adult feminine identifying person." and "A woman is an adult which identifies as a woman.". The circular definition here is not an issue, as definitions can be circular, and for example, there is no way to define what it means for a person to be "cool" without using synonyms for cool, so the circularity of the definition is not an issue. I think the most important thing though is to not use the definition of "Adult human female", as female and woman are not the same concept. [33][34][35][4][36][37][38][8] And as such, the terms should not be conflated. I'd say that "Adult who identifies as a woman" is correct, though "Adult who identifies with the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex" is quite a bit better than the former, as it narrows down specifically what it refers to; that being; social roles and characteristics; which; are typically associated with the female sex. The latter definition is less ambiguous, and communicates what exactly is being referred to, communicating the typical association with the female sex, and communicates that it is a category of social roles and characteristics, and additionally with you saying that many women wouldn't be happy with the definition that "[my definition]", however, the definition does not communicate nor imply that the social roles and characteristics must be followed or abided by, merely that one identifies with the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex, with the social roles and characteristics typically associated with the female sex being the gender of girl/woman, and while some woman may not be happy with such definition, such is irrelevant, as some people will always be unhappy with any definition of woman, but what is about this definition is that no woman are excluded by the definition.
As for the RfC, I don't think we should do an RfC, not yet at least. I think we're on a good track at the moment, and an RfC is not needed. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 14:05, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I've added an archive link at the top banner of round in circles as to why I think the the current definition is scientifically accurate. Please take a look. I explained this to MGA73, so I will requote my explanation:
So I think there is a bit of a balancing act between absolute correctness and understandability for a reader. From what I understand, there is actually quite a bit of jargon here that is subtly hidden. This is what I understand from what I've read, however maybe I am not fully correct and more experienced editors can correct me. Sex, female, and male are highly specific technical terms in Evolutionary Biology. You can read a bit more about this under anisogamy. First, we have to read sex as a model of reality, just like for example Physics. Thus, male and female are reproductive functions, not designations of organisms. However, the map is not the territory. Where "male human" or "female human" gets into it is in the process of sexing where it is determined through some criteria whether this organism has the reproductive function of a male or female. So again, male human, or female human means an organism that was sexed to have male reproductive function, or female reproductive function respectively. These criteria may not be always correct, however for most intents and purposes they work. The take away being, that the current verbiage is not incorrect. They're simply very subtle to grasp the full scope of. Now should we intersperse this highly technical information on the page for Woman? Again this feels like we should respect WP:Due and WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. From what I understand typically WP:RS do conflate these highly technical terms, but the understanding conferred to the typical reader by conflating them is more beneficial than the alternative. I think that when the WP:RS start moving is when we will see a better alternative to the current wording.
Ultimately, the word woman used on this page means something completely different (I think) than the word woman on the page of Trans woman. I think trying to go against this editorial consensus that has been established and kept for many years is like trying to fool nature. No matter what the business, law, humanities, or sociology majors may tell you, Nature Cannot Be Fooled. Theheezy (talk) 13:42, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Theheezy Thank you for the ping. I still think this is hard to understand. Perhaps because in Danish there are no seperate words for sex and gender. There is only one word (sex=køn). So the Sex–gender distinction makes no sense for me. --MGA73 (talk) 14:34, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
FYI, Gender and Sex refers to different things, gender refers to the social roles and characteristics which are typically associated with sex, and is administered by sociology, sex refers to a bimodal classification of organisms based on physical characteristics, and is administered by biology. Hope this helps! A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 14:41, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

I think that is *one* definition of sex, which I would call sex expression. That is to say how sex expresses itself in biological organisms. Typically, without any additional qualifiers, the more common usage of sex is of a Trait from evolutionary biology. Again there is more subtle jargon here which is a topic of research among evolutionary biologists today. See, e.g., Systematics. I'll be stepping away from this discussion as to avoid any behavior tendencies of WP:OWN. Theheezy (talk) 00:56, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

It makes absolutely no sense for woman on this page and woman on Trans woman to be referring to different concepts, and just appears to be a POVFORK attempt. There is no two different concepts both called woman, there is merely a disagreement over what the one concept encompasses. Additionally, sex and "nature" are irrelevant and humanities and sociology are the most important, as woman is a gender, and gender is part of humanities and sociology, and gender studies is one of the major fields of sociology. I'm not sure what the point of discussing sex and "nature" here is, as we're discussing gender, not sex. It just appears that the page of Trans woman just got what woman refers to more correct than this article, to which I'm attempting to fix. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 14:30, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
> I'm not sure what the point of discussing sex and "nature" here is, as we're discussing gender, not sex.
I don't think that's true. I think this article covers gender and sex. You seem to want it to cover gender only, but I don't see much support for that view. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I don't see why we should have 2 separate topics on which are part of 2 different subjects in the same article, and it makes complete sense to have one article of the social role and characteristics, and another article for the biological category, no? Separating them into separate article also improves readability, as someone wanting to read about the gender of woman wouldn't have to skip off topic sections of the article. Reminder, support in number of people is irrelevant to Wikipedia discussions. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 05:34, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Support in number of people can be relevant, especially whenever the count is approximately one editor versus everyone else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:53, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
An argument is not weakened by how many people agree with it, it’s about the ability to make a justification and provide reasoning for things. Wikipedia consensus involves a legitimate effort to incorporate/address all editors legitimate concerns. Additionally, this discussion is not a binary partisan discussion, it involves many different viewpoints. One of the reasons why sock puppets for the purpose of agreeing with yourself in a wikipedia dispute make no sense, because it’s about the ability to communicate reasoning and provide justifications for why something should be, which having 2 accounts doing so doesn’t do so anymore than with one. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 05:20, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Are you suggesting we have a sock puppet here? Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:57, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
nope, just using the concept of sock puppets to explain it. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 03:32, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Right. More generally regarding the above: Not only does this article cover both, but so does the definition. The other definition(s) offered, by contrast, have little or no support in reliable sources as definitions of this topic. It does not follow from sources about the sex and gender distinction that the current definition is bad. The current definition is not only strongly supported by very reliable sources; it is also not solely dependent on the exact ones cited, which were chosen out of alternatives merely as examples and because they were easy to access. Also, minor point regarding CycoMa mentioned above - that topic ban is on 'medical topics', not gender-related ones. Crossroads -talk- 23:57, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

The notion that sex and gender are separate concepts is an almost unanimously accepted fact within reputable academia, and I doubt that whatever supposedly reliable up to date sources are more reliable and take priority over the World Health Organization. Additionally, when choosing from multiple options of citations, citations should be of the most reliable source(s), not the most easy to access. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 05:39, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
I think I agree but I am getting lost in this now.
Are you saying leave as it is? Lukewarmbeer (talk) 15:52, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

I've refactored this for readability. Please remember that once replies stretch on too long, it becomes legit impossible to read on mobile, so make sure to occasionally restart the indentation and use Template:od. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 01:58, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

More heat than light here

Additionally, with the birds and flight analogy you pointed out, yeah, the page for birds should include flight, but to the extent of saying that some birds fly, and some don't, and should not talk about flight in general, and the evolution of dragonfly flight. Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 06:05, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

please take the time to read the top of the page before speaking your mind. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to explain. Theheezy (talk) 06:30, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Done. Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 07:01, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your bold edits are welcome here, just as they were at Sex assignment. But there are also numerous other editors who have an interest in this article, many who still watch, and there's a long history behind it with the contributions of eighteen hundred unique editors; and that's not counting the very significant amount of discussion on the Talk page. I'd recommend starting out by reading some of the 24 Talk archive pages, especially the more recent ones, to get a feeling for what's been discussed here before, and how that's gone. Which isn't to say that things must stay the way they are now or that there is no room for improvement, only that there is quite a bit of history among many hundreds of editors at this article, and your comments will be better informed and probably be better received if you become familiar with some of that history. It may also explain why making an edit which cuts 30% of the article on your first day here meets with resistance, but hopefully your concerns can be addressed with collegial discussion. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 07:18, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I've read the one of conversation of woman at archive 16. I'll look at some other archive discussions. Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 07:57, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps you should also learn to not flash your cash, noob. Theheezy (talk) 08:16, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
Hello Theheezy. The user has been here since early November 2021 so not really a nooby. Maybe striking your comment or at least that part of it (noob) may be civil, thanks. I'm not getting what you mean by "flash your cash", so confusing as well unless it has a particular Wikipedia meaning (there are so many wikiwords it's hard to keep up with the newest). Randy Kryn (talk) 14:53, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
Yep, ofcourse. Let me figure out how :). Theheezy (talk) 15:03, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Please see WP:NPA. Further violations of WP:NPA will result in a report to Administrator Noticeboard. Cheers. Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 08:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Yep. It happens too often and it's never good. Let's keep it all positive and assume good faith. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 14:12, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

To add to what WhatamIdoing and CaptainEek said, just because sex and gender are distinct concepts doesn't mean they are totally disconnected or unrelated. Per the total sum of reliable sources, female biology is highly relevant to the topic of "woman" overall; or to put it another way, very many sources exist that are on the topic of "woman" and that discuss female biology in some form or other. To divide that off would be POV and out of line with how sources actually treat this topic. Crossroads -talk- 03:35, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm curious because of the intense focus people have - why isn't a term like "trans woman" or "trans man" (or whatever can be agreed upon to be the best term(s)) elevated instead focusing on changing or expanding upon prior notions of terms like "man" and "woman"? Reader1011 (talk) 05:41, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Although woman and female are related and connected, it doesn't make sense for the majority of the article to be about a related concept and not the concept itself. Germany FranceUK Australia Russia Latvia (talk) 06:01, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

You are spot on here. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 06:13, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Could you explain a bit as to how this article is about female instead of Woman? Theheezy (talk) 08:42, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
The Biology and Health sections of the article make up a lot of it. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 09:43, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
With good reason, at least, I hope you think so. We can revisit this with actual proposed changes and references in accordance with Wikipedia policy, if you’d like. Theheezy (talk) 13:52, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
I'm not exactly sure what you mean, are we not already discussing proposed changes with references? A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 08:02, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Please start an RFC if you'd like to continue this discussion further. Theheezy (talk) 09:02, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
If the goal is to end up with two articles:
then Wikipedia:Proposed article splits is probably the more relevant process. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:17, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Agreed, an article split is needed and should be proposed. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 05:56, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
I can emphasize from experience that such a proposal is very likely to fail, however, because that article would be a WP:POVFORK. Regarding the above more generally, women-as-gender and women-as-sex are not separate groups of people, they are in the vast majority of cases the exact same people, and most importantly, sources do not divide the topic in this way. There are many sources about women which discuss both gender and biology (namely, women's health), and even the ones only about one or the other are both about 'women'. Crossroads -talk- 00:01, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Agreed Lukewarmbeer (talk) 06:29, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Actually we have Trans woman as an article. Best left there then. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 06:35, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
I don't see how having two articles, one covering biology, and another article covering sociology, would be a POVFORK. Additionally, a very significant number of people fall into the category of woman, but not female, and negligence of that fact is unencyclopedic. Furthermore, within academia, woman and female are mostly discussed separately, due to the fact that sociology and biology are completely different fields. Additionally, misuse of the term woman to be synonymous with woman (a practice which has fallen out of fashion in recent years), does not mean they are the same concept. Furthermore, it appears you are neglecting the MANY sources which discuss woman in sociology, and female in biology; separately. Additionally, it should be noted that Women's Health encompasses mental health, which is affected by societal roles and such. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 05:53, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Additionally, a very significant number of people fall into the category of woman, but not female, and negligence of that fact is unencyclopedic.
If RS support that I would agree. Can you give RS that directly support that assertion? If so can we have a look please. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 10:00, 7 July 2023 (UTC)Lukewarmbeer (talk) 10:04, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
To split them (or to merge them) is to express a POV on whether biology and behavior are intertwined.
BTW, this textbook:
Hornstein, Theresa; Schwerin, Jeri Lynn (2012-01-01). Biology of Women. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1-285-40102-7.
might be handy for the sex-related content. It is entirely about biology, barely mentions gender or trans people at all, and calls its subject area women. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:57, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but are you saying that it’s a POV expression to say that social roles and charectaristics of gender are biological? If so, that is not at all the case, as gender roles have been different in different places and different time periods, for example, having long hair, wearing jewlery, the colours light blue and pink, fedoras, the associated gender of all of these have been different in different points in time and in different places, and is absolutely not biological changes/differences that lead to the different associated gender, but rather, social ones; This is an empirical fact, and not a POV/NPOV violation. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 03:05, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
It is a POV to say that social roles and other characteristics of gender are based in biology; it is a POV to say that social roles and other characteristics of gender are not based in biology.
Some of these POVs are more likely to be correct than others. For example, "this gender has long hair" or "this gender wears blue" is unlikely to be based in biology, even though the internet is a big place, so you can probably find people who will claim these POV as biological attributes. But "this gender's role is to spend lots of time with babies" is intertwined with biology, because breastfeeding (absent rare diseases or significant technological interventions) is a sex-based biological activity, and breastfeeding takes time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:05, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
"This gender has long hair because of biologically" and "This gender wears light blue because of biology" is not "unlikely to be based in biology", nor is it a POV, it's just objectively wrong. There's no evidence to suggest these are true, and the POV of an opinion does not really apply to objective empirical things. There is full evidence that shows that there is no biological difference between the hair of different sexes, and that the "boys wear light blue" comes from a non-biological, societal change in the 20th century.
And "this gender's role is to spend lots of time with babies" is a PRESCRIPTIVE statement, and not really accurate, an accurate descriptive statement would be "the time in which each gender which is typically associated with sex spends around infants is contributed to by a multitude of factors, one of said factors being that within the nuclear family structure, the parent which produces the hormones resulting in lactation, unless the milk is bottled and fed indirectly, would spend an increased time with the baby, though this is not a determinative factor, as due to the previously aformentioned bottling, non-nuclear family structures, and in addition to those, the time spend feeding "t h e i n f a n t" is not but a small portion of total time spend with "t h e i n f a n t", which the remain portion of time is undetermined by breastfeeding." THAT is an full, descriptive, objective, non-dishonest framing of it. And is not a POV.
It seems you may be making the assumption that everything is a POV, which is not the case. Gender roles and expectations are not biological. That's an objective fact, and is backed by the fact that Biology and Gender studies are completely different fields. A Socialist Trans Girl 07:55, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Viewpoints can be wrong, but being wrong doesn't make them non-existent.
I've seen estimates that breastfeeding during the first year ("the infant") takes approximately the same number of hours as a full-time job (~40 hours per week, when you average it across the first year). That is 24% of the hours in a week, and 35% of an adult's typical waking hours. I don't think I'd describe six hours per day, every day, as "[naught] but a small portion of total time". I think I'd describe that as "lots of time".
Sure, infant formula and breast pumps are an option...for the fraction of families that can afford it. Most of the world's babies are poor, not living in wealthy countries, and may not even have clean water to wash the bottles in, though. Most of the world's babies are directly breastfed for longer than a year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:07, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
Regardless of what the amount is (estimates to vary), I'd say rather just "only some of the total time" (i.e; not all) is more accurate, and the point still stands about it only being some of the time. And yes, the socioeconomic situation would affect the avalability of the indirect methods, though that doesn't affect the factuality of the point. A Socialist Trans Girl 03:31, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
@Crossroads Precisely. If we are to change this article in a way that focuses on the non-biological definition of woman, then many other articles, such as the one you mentioned about women's health, would have to be changed as well. "Female human's health" would have to be the new article name. That is simply not a good solution. Though my opinion weighs little, I think it is best to keep this article as it is now. Dopeliciouss (talk) 11:52, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes. Minor mods maybe but the more I read here the more I think the fundamental basis of this article is sound. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 20:12, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
That is not the case. Women’s Health includes mental health, (a major part of it which is also massively affected by social things), and includes trans women. There is no reason at all to rename Women’s Health. A Socialist Trans Girl (talk) 05:26, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
FYI, there is already Draft:Female (gender). The article was originally in main space and nominated for deletion, leading to one of the longest AfDs in wikipedia history and resulting in a draftify decision. The draft has made some progress, but hasn't gotten much attention. Your help in developing the draft is more than welcome. I will qualify by saying that I've personally found it challenging to develop a WP:NEUTRAL article on the gender of women. The void century 03:38, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
I'd say that the name of the article doesn't really make sense, as female refers to sex, and woman refers to gender. I'd say we should have this article (woman) about gender, and another about human female, as it doesn't make sense for there to be an article about the gender with the title being that of the sex, and about the sex with the title of that of the gender. Should I put this on the draft's talk page? A Socialist Trans Girl 02:28, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Others have proposed similar moves, such as Gender of women. That might be better than the current title. We landed on Female (gender) partly because the discussion for creating it began at Talk:Female, but also to be inclusive of both women and girls. I'll add that there is a little more support in sources for Female (gender) as a title, because multiple dictionaries include gender identity in Female but not in the Woman definition. Dictionary definitions were an important component in deciding whether the article was a WP:POVFORK. The void century 12:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
The idea that female refers to sex, and woman refers to gender is one common approach (a "POV", in Wikipedia's jargon), but it is not the only understanding of these words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:26, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
Well the NW definition has female having a definition referring to sex first, and the GI definition not even having an example, and I don't see any other dictionaries with such a definition, but even so, within academic definitions, said definition is non-existant. Addtionally, having the page "Gender of woman" is like having "Fruit of apple" or "Animal of horse", it doesn't make sense because woman already is a gender, and there is no "Sex of woman", that's just female, which what I am proposing is for there to be an article for Human Female, which we move and rephrase the relevant parts in this article to there. A Socialist Trans Girl 08:22, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
Fruit of apple, tree of apple, food of apple – what's the problem with that? Our naming convention tends to run "apple (tree)" instead of "tree of apple", but they mean the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:04, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
Apple was a bad example, the broader point still stands. A Socialist Trans Girl 03:57, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Explanatory notes

  1. ^ Said usage is also often frowned upon in afformentioned colloquial/informal contexts.
  2. ^ for me at least
  3. ^ Alternative URL provided due to paywall, full article unfortunately unavailable due to the paywall of The Times.
  4. ^ though I don't think such usage in said contexts really serves any utility to not just use woman instead

references

  1. ^ "Sex & Gender". Office of Research on Women's Health. Archived from the original on 2020-07-23. Retrieved 2020-07-31.
  2. ^ Kimmel, Michael S. (2017). The gendered society (Sixth ed.). New York. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-19-026031-6. OCLC 949553050.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ^ "Gender and Genetics". WHO. Archived from the original on November 11, 2012. Retrieved 2020-07-31.
  4. ^ a b c d Lindsey, Linda L. (2010). "Ch. 1. The Sociology of gender" (PDF). Gender Roles: A Sociological Perspective. Pearson. ISBN 978-0-13-244830-7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 April 2015.
  5. ^ Paludi, Michele Antoinette (2008). The Psychology of Women at Work: Challenges and Solutions for Our Female Workforce. ABC-CLIO. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-275-99677-2. Archived from the original on 2021-10-20. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
  6. ^ O'Halloran, Kerry (2020). Sexual orientation, gender identity and international human rights law: common law perspectives. London. pp. 22–28, 328–329. ISBN 978-0-429-44265-0. OCLC 1110674742.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. ^ "Gender: definitions". www.euro.who.int. Archived from the original on 2021-09-25. Retrieved 2021-08-22.
  8. ^ a b c d "GENDER". Social Science Dictionary. Archived from the original on 2 February 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2015.
  9. ^ "Gender in culture". European Institute for Gender Equality. 26 January 2017. Archived from the original on 15 June 2023. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
  10. ^ "Gender". United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Archived from the original on 11 March 2023. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
  11. ^ Kimmel, Michael S. (2017). The gendered society (Sixth ed.). New York. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-19-026031-6. OCLC 949553050.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  12. ^ Paludi, Michele Antoinette (2008). The Psychology of Women at Work: Challenges and Solutions for Our Female Workforce. ABC-CLIO. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-275-99677-2. Archived from the original on 2021-10-20. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
  13. ^ O'Halloran, Kerry (2020). Sexual orientation, gender identity and international human rights law: common law perspectives. London. pp. 22–28, 328–329. ISBN 978-0-429-44265-0. OCLC 1110674742.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  14. ^ "Gender: definitions". www.euro.who.int. Archived from the original on 2021-09-25. Retrieved 2021-08-22.
  15. ^ MONEY J. Hermaphroditism, gender and precocity in hyperadrenocorticism: psychologic findings. Bull Johns Hopkins Hosp. 1955 Jun;96(6):253-64. PMID 14378807.
  16. ^ Haig, David (2000). "Of sex and gender". Nature Genetics. 25 (4): 373. doi:10.1038/78033. PMID 10932174. S2CID 5127617. Retrieved 2022-11-26.
  17. ^ "Gender in culture". European Institute for Gender Equality. 26 January 2017. Archived from the original on 15 June 2023. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
  18. ^ "Gender". United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Archived from the original on 11 March 2023. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
  19. ^ Kimmel, Michael S. (2017). The gendered society (Sixth ed.). New York. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-19-026031-6. OCLC 949553050.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  20. ^ Paludi, Michele Antoinette (2008). The Psychology of Women at Work: Challenges and Solutions for Our Female Workforce. ABC-CLIO. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-275-99677-2. Archived from the original on 2021-10-20. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
  21. ^ O'Halloran, Kerry (2020). Sexual orientation, gender identity and international human rights law: common law perspectives. London. pp. 22–28, 328–329. ISBN 978-0-429-44265-0. OCLC 1110674742.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  22. ^ "Gender: definitions". www.euro.who.int. Archived from the original on 2021-09-25. Retrieved 2021-08-22.
  23. ^ MONEY J. Hermaphroditism, gender and precocity in hyperadrenocorticism: psychologic findings. Bull Johns Hopkins Hosp. 1955 Jun;96(6):253-64. PMID 14378807.
  24. ^ Haig, David (2000). "Of sex and gender". Nature Genetics. 25 (4): 373. doi:10.1038/78033. PMID 10932174. S2CID 5127617. Retrieved 2022-11-26.
  25. ^ "What are Sex & Gender?". Office for Research on Women's Health. Archived from the original on 4 August 2023. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
  26. ^ Petkovic, Jennifer; Trawin, Jessica; Dewidar, Omar; Yoganathan, Manosila; Tugwell, Peter; Welch, Vivian (2 August 2018). "Sex/gender reporting and analysis in Campbell and Cochrane systematic reviews: a cross-sectional methods study" (PDF). Systematic Reviews. 7: 113. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-018-0778-6. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 October 2022. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
  27. ^ "What are Sex & Gender?". Office for Research on Women's Health. Archived from the original on 4 August 2023. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
  28. ^ Petkovic, Jennifer; Trawin, Jessica; Dewidar, Omar; Yoganathan, Manosila; Tugwell, Peter; Welch, Vivian (2 August 2018). "Sex/gender reporting and analysis in Campbell and Cochrane systematic reviews: a cross-sectional methods study" (PDF). Systematic Reviews. 7: 113. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-018-0778-6. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 October 2022. Retrieved 30 August 2023. Sex refers to the biological attributes, such as physio-logical characteristics, that generally distinguish males and females.
  29. ^ "Official video says you can't define 'woman'". The Times. 4 June 2022. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
  30. ^ "The Science of Biological Sex". Science-Based Medicine. 13 July 2022. Archived from the original on 7 August 2023. Retrieved 30 August 2023. The notion that sex is not strictly binary is not even scientifically controversial. Among experts it is a given, an unavoidable conclusion derived from actually understanding the biology of sex. It is more accurate to describe biological sex in humans as bimodal, but not strictly binary.
  31. ^ Montañez, Amanda (29 August 2017). "Visualizing Sex as a Spectrum". Scientific American. Archived from the original on 11 August 2023. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
  32. ^ "Wikipedia:Neutral point of view". Wikipedia. Archived from the original on 28 August 2023. Retrieved 30 August 2023. All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.
  33. ^ "Sex & Gender". Office of Research on Women's Health. Archived from the original on 2020-07-23. Retrieved 2020-07-31.
  34. ^ Kimmel, Michael S. (2017). The gendered society (Sixth ed.). New York. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-19-026031-6. OCLC 949553050.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  35. ^ "Gender and Genetics". WHO. Archived from the original on November 11, 2012. Retrieved 2020-07-31.
  36. ^ Paludi, Michele Antoinette (2008). The Psychology of Women at Work: Challenges and Solutions for Our Female Workforce. ABC-CLIO. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-275-99677-2. Archived from the original on 2021-10-20. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
  37. ^ O'Halloran, Kerry (2020). Sexual orientation, gender identity and international human rights law: common law perspectives. London. pp. 22–28, 328–329. ISBN 978-0-429-44265-0. OCLC 1110674742.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  38. ^ "Gender: definitions". www.euro.who.int. Archived from the original on 2021-09-25. Retrieved 2021-08-22.

Lead image

I think the picture should be changed to one of a biological female for the following reasons:

  1. Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral. Many people think that trans women aren't real women, but everyone agrees that biological females who identify as women are.
  2. While this article does acknowledge the existence of trans women, it also talks about biological females. Because of that, I think the picture should represent both.

I also think we should use a full-body picture to represent a woman in full. -- YavBav09 (talk) 17:40, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

YavBav09, you're an experienced user here. What is going on on the internet today to bring so many misguided people here? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:44, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Clearly it is being coordinated from somewhere. The weird thing is that the picture hasn't changed for ages so there does not seem to be any actual trigger for this outburst of idiocy. I don't even know who the woman in the current image is or whether she is even trans. Am I failing to recognise somebody famous or is this all just supposition? Anyway, my view is that no one woman can represent the topic of Woman/Women as a whole. An image consisting of a small but diverse group of women, of various ages and ethnicities, would be better. DanielRigal (talk) 17:54, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
If we are going to discuss the image it must be done respectfully. Dog-whistle terms like "biological females" must not be used. We are not idiots. We know far-right trolling when we see it. DanielRigal (talk) 17:49, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't know what dog whistles and trolling you're talking about. I just used it to refer to people born as female. -- YavBav09 (talk) 17:54, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Please don't pretend not to know what is going on. I reiterate that we are not idiots. DanielRigal (talk) 18:00, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Why do you think that I think of you as idiots?
I just presented arguments against the use of a trans person as the lead image that I think everyone can agree on. -- YavBav09 (talk) 18:04, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Please don't try to change the subject. You used the dog-whistle phrase "biological females". If you actually want to discuss the image then you can do so civilly by using the correct term "cisgender women". I think you already know this. DanielRigal (talk) 18:14, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
The term "biological female" is not a dog whistle. And you are failing to WP:assume good faith. Rreagan007 (talk) 04:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
That's just the term I thought of. I didn't know it was a dog-whistle. -- YavBav09 (talk) 18:17, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Don't be ridiculous. Casint (talk) 23:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
What's ridiculous? Isn't the phrase used to intentionally disparage trans people? 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 01:05, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
I see nothing to suggest that the woman in the current photo (a Malaysian woman named Agnes who is presumably the photographer's spouse) is transgender. The apparent assumption that she is is... deeply questionable to say the least.
Proposals for a MOS:PEOPLEGALLERY were discussed in the prior RfC but generally opposed. I don't personally see a single photo of a group of women to be a substantial improvement unless a very good one exists. @DanielRigal if that is an proposal you want to advance further, it should probably begin as a new thread, and collapse this one, so that discussion doesn't begin on such a sour note. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 18:17, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Ah, fair enough. My thought was that a group would show the diversity of women and get away from normative ideas that there is one "correct" way for a woman to be. If that has been discussed and rejected before then I'm not going to push to reopen it. We have had quite enough drama for one day already. ;-) DanielRigal (talk) 18:21, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
There's no reason the photo shouldn't be changed. It can be replaced by a full-body photo of a woman to show a woman in full and it won't cause controversy that wastes people's lives anymore. A collage of women would be good, too. -- YavBav09 (talk) 18:39, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm not seeing any compelling reason to do so except your personal biases. The RfC (Talk:Woman/Archive 19 § RfC: Lead image) reflects that (at least as of the time of that discussion) the community is basically happy with the current image. I don't understand what the article would gain from switching to a full-body portrait rather than the well-framed bust currently being used. It's a perfectly serviceable closeup and reads well on devices of various sizes. All candidates discussed in the RfC were framed from the torso-up or waist-up, simply due to the fact this is a common and visually appealing way to frame the human body in a portrait photo. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 19:07, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
It's controversial. If you look at the edit history, there has been controversy before this.
And some people think that transgender women aren't real women, so if the person in the picture is trans, than that would violate WP:NPOV, no? -- YavBav09 (talk) 19:11, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
For the encyclopedia's purposes, the only "controversy" that matters are disagreements among reliable sources, which we describe in due weight. Wikipedia has lots of articles about controversial subjects, such as Homeopathy, Flat earth, and 2020 US Presidential Election, which various people have strong feelings about and are willing to spill megabytes of digital ink on. We do not, as a rule, change content because simply it may provoke disagreement among editors or readers. Instead we rely on WP:policies and guidelines to determine the best article content, and WP:consensus mechanisms such as WP:RfC to determine when an issue like this is "settled" and encourage people to move on, like I'm doing right now.
Whether the photo subject is cisgender (I am personally rather confident that she is) is basically irrelevant. We only care that this photo of her is representative of the article's topic (MOS:LEADIMAGE). It is not possible to determine someone's assigned sex based on their physical appearance. Attempting to do so reveals various racial and misogynistic biases. I strongly encourage you to stop speculating about this. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 19:34, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
I would guess that the articles you gave as controversial had people actually change the information to present something as fact and make them suit to their biases. Changing the picture would not change any of the information of the article and won't make the article biased. There's no good reason not to change it, as it creates needless controversy. -- YavBav09 (talk) 19:40, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Who is to say that any other image we might choose might not also be objected to by somebody? Changing the image will not avoid needless controversy because needless controversy is what a lot of people come here for. We need to be able to deal with it. The best way to deal with it is to accept valid suggestions and rebuff invalid ones. I am not seeing a valid reason to change it. If we change it once for spurious or marginal reasons then we may well find ourselves changing it over and over forever. If the "controversy" is indeed needless then, by definition, we don't need it. Let's just drop it. DanielRigal (talk) 20:26, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
  • User:YavBav09, if you are unhappy about the lead pic, I suggest you bring forth a bunch of alternatives that are better than the current picture. Get some discussion going. I for one wouldn't be opposed to a picture change so as long as it is better than the current one. And collages are out of the question—I think you'll find a lot of opposition there. It seems busts are the best way to go. Masterhatch (talk) 20:29, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
    A woman
    I think they attempted to put this image as the lead image?
    Another user previously also kept edit warring to make it a picture of Rachel Levine. Zenomonoz (talk) 00:47, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
  • I will say that I don't think the current lead image is a great lead image. A collage of several different types of women would probably be better. Rreagan007 (talk) 04:57, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
    @Rreagan007 MOS:PEOPLEGALLERY is the reason we don't do that, and stick to one image. The last image has long enjoyed consensus, and I'm not seeing a compelling reason to open the giant can of worms of choosing a new picture. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 06:29, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
It's possible for articles to have multiple lead images, such as in the football article. And the reason to reopen the question is because the current lead image just isn't a very good image. Rreagan007 (talk) 06:32, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm assuming CaptainEek is referring to Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations should not be illustrated by a photomontage or gallery of images of group members in their link. What would be a better image? It doesn't seem right when you are saying that the image isn't good while not comparing it to alternatives. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 07:43, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
When I say that it isn't very good, I mean that it would never pass at WP:Featured pictures. We can definitely do better than the current lead image. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:02, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
Sure, I suppose we can always do better when it comes to subjective judgement. Looking at the criteria: It is a photograph, diagram, image or animation which is among the best examples of a given subject that the encyclopedia has to offer. It sounds like no image will be able to satisfy being the "best example" of a woman. Again, if you have any alternatives that you believe is better than the current image, feel free to bring them up so we can discuss them. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 23:56, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
To be fair, there's only one way we can use a lead image that represents every woman, and obviously that's Chaka Khan. GMGtalk 10:28, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
Citation needed for the person in the photo being transgender. And whether or not they are is irrelevant; and the same argument applies to the 2020 US election; "Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral. Many people think that Joe Biden isn't real president, but everyone agrees that Donald Trump was President." is the same logic as this. And I really don't think that suspecting (without basis) the person in the photo to be transgender is really grounds to change it, or has any basis in Wikipedia Policy. A Socialist Trans Girl 10:33, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm also confused by this. Setting aside the issue of whether it matters in the first place, we seem to be doing the incel thing where everyone is trans other than people who look like Jessica Rabbit. I would maybe prefer an image that has lasting historical significance, but generally to OP, go like...book some plane tickets to somewhere. You've had too much internet. GMGtalk 12:30, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
""Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral. Many people think that Joe Biden isn't real president, but everyone agrees that Donald Trump was President.""
If Biden being president is so controversial, why not put a picture of Trump as the president or someone else, then?
"And I really don't think that suspecting (without basis) the person in the photo to be transgender is really grounds to change it, or has any basis in Wikipedia Policy."
I've seen controversy around it before this section in the page. If it's changed then nothing would happen to waste people's time. -- YavBav09 (talk) 20:30, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
I think you are mistaking kvetching for actual controversy. A real controversy is about something substantive and I don't see any substantial reason why this picture is any worse than any other picture of any other individual woman. I also think that it is a mistake to believe that a sort of false compromise, just to appease the noisy, makes problems like this go away. If we accept that a woman vaguely looking like she might be trans (whatever the hell that means) makes for a bad picture of a woman then we are accepting a whole lot of implicit anti-feminist bullshit along with the obvious transphobia. The next demand will be made almost immediately and then the demands will come in thick and fast. Not white enough! Not blonde enough! Not dressed "traditionally" enough! Not pretty enough! Not smiling enough! And even then, after a thousand and one "compromises", somebody will come back and insist that the woman in the new picture "looks trans". There is a weird cult of "transvestigators" who loudly insist that anybody depicted in any type of media is secretly trans. (Yes, this is a real thing and it is every bit as stupid as it sounds! I have seen them posting pictures of Marilyn Monroe with a big arrow pointing to her allegedly "male spine".) There is no way to "compromise" with such insanity! The problem here is that the current image does not match the Platonic ideal form of a woman that exists in some people's heads. Of course it doesn't. No image of any one woman can match all the widely divergent archetypal women in everybody's heads. That's not something we can do anything about and not something we should waste another moment worrying about. Please can we just stop this. --DanielRigal (talk) 21:39, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
I suspect that the underlying problem is that a couple of men haven't noticed that women don't all have "oval" faces. There are plenty of cis women with "square" jaws (e.g., Sandra Bullock, Angelina Jolie, Demi Moore).
Of much more relevance to this article, I have suggested an approach to changing the lead image in the future at Talk:Woman/sandbox#Principles for future lead images. Note that I don't think there's anything wrong with this photo; I merely suggest that having a variety of images over the course of years might also be desirable. If you are interested in possibly changing the image in the future, please see my suggested process. (NB: process, not photo.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:25, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
All the WP:RS supports Biden being the incumbent president, and there is no WP:RS supporting Trump being incumbent president.
I've seen controversy around it before this section in the page. If it's changed then nothing would happen to waste people's time. Your reason for proposing that we change the image is seriously "to stop people's time being wasted by people wanting to change the image"??!?!!??!
Please tell; is there any actual Wikipedia policy basis for this proposed change, or is it just based in transphobia against someone which there is no evidence of them being transgender? A Socialist Trans Girl 04:28, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
This is going in circles; ironic given the insistent and flimsy "avoid wasting editor time" justification. Any good-faith attempt to improve on the RfC result should include plausible candidates and a compelling policy-based justification, rather than vague grumblings about "controversy" (and worse, WP:BLPVIOs). Can an uninvolved editor please collapse the mess? –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 14:22, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
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