hudebnik

A lot of controversy stirred up by a Times op-ed about the word “woman”. Many LGBTQ+ people apparently find it “disgustingly trans-phobic”, but I’ve read it twice and don’t see that. Of course, right-wingers and politicians who cater to them routinely exaggerate the phenomenon of “left-wing politically-correct language police”, but I still think there’s some substance here to be addressed.

At Ketanji Brown Jackson's SCOTUS confirmation hearing, Senator Marsha Blackburn famously asked her to "define 'woman'". As others have pointed out, there is no one right definition of “woman”. There are lots of different definitions, overlapping but not entirely coinciding, and which one you use depends on why you’re asking.

If I need to define “woman” to study genetic inheritance, it makes sense to define “woman” and “man” in terms of XX or XY chromosomes (although there are fuzzy cases like mosaicism and XXY trisomy).

If I’m looking for a sex partner, it makes sense to define “woman” and “man” based on current possession of vagina or penis (although there are fuzzy cases like hermaphrodites and ambiguous genitalia).

If I’m trying to produce children, the relevant characteristic is the ability to get pregnant, which leaves out pre-pubescent and post-menopausal people, people who (congenitally or due to surgery) have no uterus, etc.

If I’m studying how early upbringing and socialization affect people, a “woman” is somebody who was raised as a girl.

At various times in the past, there were other reasons to ask -- and therefore to define -- whether someone was a "woman": to decide what clothes she could wear, what education and professions she could pursue, whom she could have sex with, whether she could vote, whether she could own property or sign contracts, etc. Fortunately, we no longer need define gender for those purposes because our society has decided that gender doesn’t matter for these things (although you never know what the next SCOTUS term will bring).

If I’m interacting socially and professionally with other adults, or if I’m studying how adults treat one another socially and professionally, a “woman” is someone who currently identifies as a woman in social and professional settings. (In my ideal world, I wouldn’t need to define “woman” for professional and social-but-not-sexual purposes, because gender shouldn’t matter there.)

It seems to me that many social conservatives are offended that all these definitions don’t all coincide exactly. They would rather have only one definition, so they legislate that all these definitions must coincide, and the fuzzy cases simply don’t exist.

The op-ed asserts (if I may re-cast it in these terms) that a substantial faction on the left likewise want there to be only one definition: “currently identifies” is the only legitimate definition of “woman”, and using that word for any of the others is oppression.

I’m sure we haven’t actually gone as far in that direction as the op-ed claims, but if we do, we’ll need to come up with other words for “person with vagina”, “person with XX chromosomes”, “person capable of getting pregnant”, “person raised as a girl”, and so on. Do we really want to do that? Or does it make more sense to allow some ambiguity, to use the word "woman" differently depending on context? Can we reasonably use "woman" to mean "person capable of getting pregnant" in an article about abortion or childbirth, while using the same word to mean "person who self-identifies as female" in an article about professional mentors and role models?

Of course, as others have pointed out, arguing over who qualifies as a “woman” is something of a distraction when all kinds of women are under attack from the far right.

Back in the news after Robert Foster, a Republican state representative in Mississippi who is running for governor, refused to accept a ride-along from a female reporter, but would be fine with a ride-along from a male reporter, on grounds that Foster never goes anywhere alone with a woman who isn't his wife. (NY Times story here) This is because he values his relationship with his wife and doesn't want to be accused of having an extramarital affaire. V.P. Mike Pence had previously said he followed the same rule, attributed originally to Billy Graham.

I don't know whether Foster (or Pence) is in the habit of asking his male colleagues whether they're gay before agreeing to be alone with them. I imagine not, and that he might be a little creeped out by knowing that he was alone in the presence of a gay guy, but not actually worried because he knows he's not gay, so he knows nothing sexual is going to happen, and he doesn't expect anybody to accuse him of being gay because that's just so implausible.

Which implies that somebody accusing him of cheating on his wife is less implausible. Which doesn't speak well for his marriage.

But never mind that. It's particularly ironic because the particular female reporter who requested a ride-along was herself happily married to another woman. So nothing sexual is going to happen unless either (a) the reporter is actually bi and OK with cheating on her wife and sufficiently seductive or dominant to overcome Foster's defenses, or (b) Foster initiates it against the reporter's wishes. The former implies that somebody accusing him of being seducible or rapeable is less implausible than somebody accusing him of being gay; the latter implies that somebody accusing him of rape is less implausible than somebody accusing him of being gay. Neither of which speaks well for him or his marriage.

On the other hand...

When I was a postdoc teaching a beginning programming class (c. 25 years ago), I had a very distraught student come to my office hours, worried that she couldn't do the work and on the verge of tears. There were a few of her classmates outside in the hall, so to save her embarrassment I closed the office door. The next day my mentor told me never to do that, as it would open me up to charges of sexually harassing my students, particularly if the student in question is looking for an extension or grade change or something and is miffed at not getting it. I don't think my mentor explicitly said it, but there was a clearly implied "especially if the student is female".

There was good reason for the warning: the professor-student relationship involves a power imbalance, in which just about the only power the student has over the professor is the power to charge some kind of misconduct that could ruin the professor's career. The same warning might reasonably have been given to a male supervisor in any job about his female supervisees, for the same reason. And it's not primarily because anybody claimed women were more likely than men to make false accusations (although that's historically been a thing too), but simply because people's minds don't jump as readily to the possibility of sex when the superior and inferior in the imbalanced power relationship are of the same gender, or when the superior is female and the inferior male. Powerful men having sex with less-powerful women is a familiar trope in our society; the reverse scenario and same-sex scenarios are less familiar and spring to mind less readily.

Hence the "Billy Graham rule", which was considered justifiable because if a man was alone with a woman, people would naturally suspect them of having sex, and which didn't pose a practical problem because almost all the people a guy needed to do business with one-on-one were male anyway.

The latter hasn't been true for decades, which makes the "Billy Graham rule" a serious impediment for professional women, depriving them of the opportunity to go for a ride in the car, or to the bar, or meet one-on-one in a closed-door office, with the boss or the Governor or some man in a position of power, all networking opportunities that they would have if only their anatomy were different. The rule is clearly indefensible and sexist. And yet, many powerful men will say in the #MeToo era, more necessary than ever to avoid accusations of sexual harassment.

Fortunately, society is providing a remedy by making homosexuality more normal and less unthinkable, so the former should become no longer true either: if you would be worried about how it looks to be alone with a woman who isn't your wife, you should be equally worried about how it looks to be alone with a man who isn't your husband. If that means people in positions of power don't go anywhere alone with any of their inferiors, at least it's fair. If it means, instead, that people in positions of power develop and guard reputations for not sexually harassing their inferiors even when alone with them, and for not cheating on their spouses, that's a win too.

Let's take the "pro-lifers" at their word and assume they (or a significant fraction of them) honestly believe that full human life begins at the moment an egg is fertilized. What happens if we insert that axiom into the rest of an ethical and legal system?


[Note: for purposes of this thought exercise, "woman" is defined in terms not of birth certificate or appearance or self-identification, but of the physical ability to get pregnant.]

A fetus, embryo, blastula, zygote, or fertilized egg is a full human being with the same rights as one who's already been born. Any intentional termination of the pregnancy, even days or hours after conception, is therefore murder. No "exceptions for rape or incest", because we wouldn't consider a child fair game for murder just because of its parentage or the circumstances of its conception. Likewise, no exceptions for crippling or life-threatening genetic defects, unless we as a society would be willing to actively kill a born child for having those defects. Even an "exception to save the life of the mother" is dubious: it amounts to choosing which of two human beings to kill. Terminating a pregnancy to save the life of the mother would be permissible only if the alternative was both mother and child dying; in that circumstance you're choosing to kill one person rather than two. In all these cases, it seems clear that both the mother and any medical personnel involved would be criminally liable.

What about unintentional termination or harm? It could be argued that conduct (e.g. strenuous exercise) that accidentally leads to the termination of a pregnancy is manslaughter or negligent homicide -- which typically get a lighter sentence but are still felonies. Conduct that leads, or could reasonably be expected to lead, to harm to the fetus, such as drinking alcohol while pregnant, is reckless endangerment of a minor, and could again be punished under the criminal code. Even allowing a spontaneous miscarriage without taking heroic measures to prevent it could be considered criminal medical malpractice -- negligently allowing a human to die who could have been saved.

Once you're pregnant, you no longer have full jurisdiction over your own body, because you share it with another human being who has the same rights as you, but no decision-making power. Indeed, if there's a realistic chance you might be pregnant, you should probably (to stay on the safe side) assume you are. In short, if you're a sexually active female of reproductive age, you have less autonomy than a sexually active male of the same age. Unfair, yes, but that's just the way the world is -- like menstruation.

A woman who has sex is giving up part of her autonomy for at least a few months until she's sure she isn't pregnant, and possibly for years to come. A man who has sex is not giving up anything unless it turns out she is pregnant and he's the father. So having sex is a much bigger decision for a woman than for a man. A woman who has sex "lightly" is therefore irresponsible and morally suspect, while a man who has sex "lightly" is normal.

If you're female and want to retain independence and autonomy, you need to avoid sex, at least any form of sex that could lead to pregnancy. Males, of course, don't face this dilemma -- indeed, they can express independence and autonomy through sex. Again, it's unfair, but it's just the way God made us: women have to choose between (hetero) sex and autonomy, while men get both at once. If you've chosen (or been forced) to live on the "sex" side of the divide rather than the "autonomy" side, your every action henceforth has to be assessed from your perspective as a growth medium.

If a woman is going to willingly risk her autonomy in order to have sex, she'd better get something in return, like financial security, so it is appropriate to consider most (hetero-)sexually active women as prostitutes, although the "respectable" ones get to call it "an advantageous marriage".

Which implies that in the natural order of things, there are two kinds of women: autonomous but (heterosexually) celibate ones, and sexually active ones financially supported by their male sex partner(s). Men can be autonomous, sexual, and financially independent, in any combination they wish, because these are orthogonal questions for them. If they don't want to take on the long-term financial responsibility for a wife and children (or if they get bored with their long-term partner), they can get their sex a la carte from short-term prostitutes and mistresses instead. Again: unfair, but that's just the way things are.

For women on the "sex" track, their main saleable assets (to be exchanged for financial security) are sex and physical attractiveness; a man's main saleable asset (to be exchanged for reliable access to sex) is his money-making ability. So it is entirely appropriate for women to be extremely concerned with physical appearance, and to spend whatever money (or eyelash-batting) they have on clothes, makeup, cosmetic surgery, etc, while it is entirely appropriate for men to concentrate their energy on their careers. Men earn money, men give it to women in exchange for sex, and women spend it on their appearance so they can keep getting paid for sex. That's the natural order of things; objecting to this model makes as much sense as objecting to the law of gravity.

And it's understandable that employers would be reluctant to hire women, or to promote women, or to pay them as much as a man: this particular woman might be on the "autonomy" track now, but both she and her employer know that she has another option, and could switch to the "sex" track at any time. Since she doesn't really depend on her job, you can expect her to take it less seriously than a man would, and her employer will accordingly take her less seriously.



In short, we can live in a society in which women have roughly the same rights and freedoms as men, or we can live in a society in which zygotes have roughly the same rights and freedoms as born children. We cannot have both.

Our new President and Vice President, in their different ways, have both made clear that they prefer the latter. The President has had three wives, whom he married at the fertile ages of 28, 30, and 35 respectively, and (I think) cheated publicly and repeatedly on all three of them, because he is just that oversexed. Their role was to be beautiful and fashionable and sexy and spend the money he made, as a sort of scoreboard to show off his supreme manliness (including, but not limited to, earning capacity). He's made abundantly clear that he values women primarily for physical attractiveness; the worst cut-down he can think of for a woman is to insult her appearance. Grown women are unimportant except as sex objects. Meanwhile, the Vice President has taken every opportunity in his career to assert the importance of unborn children from the moment of conception on, and to keep women in their rightful places as sex partners, housekeepers, and child-rearers. In short, zygotes are more important and have more rights than grown women.

Most of the conclusions I've drawn above aren't really about abortion: they're really about the equation of sex with pregnancy. Anything that breaks the "God-given" connection between sex and pregnancy -- whether abortion, contraception, or even homosexuality -- is a threat to an equally "God-given" social model built on the assumption that women can't have sex without risking their autonomy for months or years to come, and men can.

So "bathroom laws" are in the news again, with the Obama administration's announcement that what it's been telling North Carolina to do also applies to public schools everywhere in the country.

We all grew up with a simple rule for bathrooms: in public places, you use the bathroom corresponding to the sex you look like when fully clothed. And even if North Carolina's HB2 went fully into effect, that would still be the rule in practice: nobody's going to hassle you for going into a women's room if you "look" female when fully clothed.

For most people, most of the time, the sex you "look like" (not only physiognomy but clothing and hairstyle) corresponded to your chromosomes which corresponded to your physical sex organs which corresponded to the sex written on your birth certificate which corresponded to what kinds of toys you liked to play with which corresponded with your occupation, so the choice of criterion didn't matter for most people. But if you looked male and walked into a women's bathroom, you would get funny looks, at the very least.

North Carolina's HB2 changes this century-or-two-old practice: they no longer care what sex you "look like", but rather what sex is written on your birth certificate. It wouldn't be a significant change if we lived in a world in which those two criteria always matched, but we don't and it is. The law is a toddler's tantrum of protest against the world's unfairness by closing our eyes and resolutely pretending we do live in such a world.

Whenever you pass a law, you have to think about how you'll enforce it, and whether in fact you can enforce it at all. If not, passing the law is a political exercise, not a good use of taxpayer money.

NC-HB2 is unenforceable. Most people view me as male, so if I walked into a women's bathroom in North Carolina, a police officer could reasonably stop me for violating HB2. At that point, however, they know only that I look male when fully dressed; if in fact my birth certificate says I'm female, I am doing not only what the law allows but what the law requires. The burden of proof is on the police officer to show probable cause, and on the state to show guilt, not on me to show the reverse. The officer could ask to see my birth certificate, but I don't routinely carry it with me, and surely the North Carolina legislature didn't intend to require me to do so. The officer could, with sufficient probable cause, conduct a strip search, but that shows only whether I have a penis, not whether my birth certificate says I'm male. The state could subpoena my birth certificate, but if I honestly don't know where it is, I cannot comply with that subpoena; surely the state didn't intend that people without birth certificates can't use public bathrooms.

In practice, the law will inevitably (as it was intended to) be applied discriminatorily -- not only by law enforcement but by vigilante justice. If you look male but your birth certificate says you're female, you have a choice between breaking the law every time you use a public bathroom, and being accused of breaking the law every time you use a public bathroom. If your fully-dressed appearance matches your birth certificate, on the other hand, you can cheerfully obey the law without being hassled. If your fully-dressed appearance is sexually ambiguous (by local community standards -- it could include a man in a kilt or a woman with a shaven head), you don't even have a choice: you're likely to be accused of breaking the law no matter what you do. The real effect of the law (aside from whipping up "the base" in an election year) is to officially authorize harassment of sexually-ambiguous-looking people: they need to be punished for causing us cognitive dissonance, because their existence demonstrates that we don't live in a neat and tidy world.

You've received a great deal of attention, both positive and negative, for applying your faith-based conscience to your job. There's nothing wrong with applying your conscience, and all the experiences that have made you who you are, to every part of your life, including your job. Indeed, that's an admirable quality, and probably part of what got you elected to your office in the first place.

But you've been confused by a homonym -- two different concepts that happen to share the same spelling and pronunciation, like the noun "dog"[1] meaning a four-legged animal and the verb "dog"[2] meaning pester or bother. As County Clerk, you're probably called upon to issue dog licenses; when you do so, are you authorizing the licensee to pester and bother people, or to own and keep a four-legged animal?

In this case, the confusion is between "marriage"[1] in the eyes of God and "marriage"[2] in the eyes of the State. These two concepts have seldom been identical, but they overlap enough to be confusing. A couple married by a priest/minister/rabbi/imam/whatever who hasn't been empowered by the State to conduct marriages are married[1] but not married[2]. A couple married by a justice of the peace are married[2] but perhaps not married[1].

Members of minority religions have had to accept this fact for centuries. The Catholic Church says (said?) that a person who has been married and divorced cannot be married again; the U.S. Government and most or all of its States disagree. Islam and the Church of Latter-Day Saints, from their founding, allowed and even encouraged polygamy; the U.S. Government and most or all of its States disagree. You've been fortunate, most of your life, that as a member of the local-majority religion, your religious notion of marriage matched the legal one pretty closely, but now that's no longer true.

Fortunately, nobody is asking you to state that a couple can be married[1] in the eyes of God, which is a matter of faith-based conscience; you're being asked, as part of your job, to certify that they can be married[2] in the eyes of the State, which is a simple, objective, legal question.

If you insist that legal marriage[2] in your county must conform to your religious/conscientious notion of marriage[1], you are also fighting for the right of a Catholic clerk to refuse marriage licenses to people either of whom has been married before, and the right of a Mormon clerk to issue marriage licenses to people who are still married to someone else, and the right of a racist judge to refuse to marry people of different races, and the right of a Dexterian judge to refuse to marry left-handed people (remember, the courts have long held themselves incompetent to second-guess whether someone's claimed religious views really are religious views, so anything goes here). You are saying that the State and Federal governments have no place defining marriage at all, and everything depends on whoever happens to hold a local office this month. Are you sure you want to go there?

My State Senator, along with two other Democrats and one Republican, has switched sides and has promised to vote for same-sex marriage. I don't know whether the two letters I wrote him on the subject made a difference....

... just failed to pass a same-sex marriage bill. The Governor had promised to sign it, and the vote-counters figured they had most of the Democrats and at least four Republicans. It was going to be close... but several of the Democrats chickened out at the last minute, and without them for cover, all the Republicans chickened out too. It wasn't close.

Of course, last year when the Democrats took over the State Senate, one or two of them threatened to switch parties and give it back to the Republicans unless they got a promise that same-sex marriage wouldn't come to the floor this term. In fact, one or two of them did switch parties, then switch back again a few days later, causing a months-long court battle over which party should get to choose the committee chairs. Molly Ivins, where are you?

(ETA: The State Assembly has passed same-sex marriage several times, most recently two days ago, but I think this is the first time it has even reached the floor of the State Senate, which dropped the ball.]

[ETA: I looked up the vote tally. My newly-elected State Senator voted against. He's getting an angry letter.]

A few minutes ago I was listening to an NPR story on the Democratic Presidential candidates at an LGBT issues forum. Apparently Richardson answered wrong to the question "Do you believe homosexuality is a choice or biologically determined?", and his campaign promptly issued a "clarification" which flatly contradicted what he had actually said.

( rant and political/logical analysis )