If you’d have told us some people wouldn’t be able to (or willing to) define what a woman is even a few years back we’d have thought you were completely insane. But here we are, with gender experts claiming women can have a penis …
Yeah, we’re not even making that up.
Oh, and if you disagree you’re some hateful white nationalist or something.
This thread from Wokal Distance about their efforts to avoid defining a woman, how they get there, and how sane people can push back is one for the ages. Yes, it’s long so grab a snack … totally worth your time.
1/
What is a woman?In the @MattWalshBlog documentary "What is a Woman?" woke gender experts say:
-No one thing makes someone a woman
-Woman can mean many things to many people
-Some Women have penisesLet's explain what's happening here, and how to push back.
A thread🧵 pic.twitter.com/bWmZLDpTBJ
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Gender experts. Woke ones. *sigh*
2/
The first thing we need to do is get clear about why they say Women can have penises, there's no one thing that defines "woman", and woman can mean many things to many people.Why do they think this?
We need to understand WHY they believe these things before we can push back
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
3/
To understand this we need to unpack a point about language and especially "categories." This is the hardest part of this thread, but once we have this point nailed down the rest is easy.Wokeness thinks that all categories are "socially constructed." What that means is…
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
So being a man or a woman is simply a ‘social construct.’
Keep going.
4/
We use categories to carve up the world and organize our understanding of reality. We use names, labels, descriptions, and other linguistic tools to break apart to world, to divide it and draw lines so we can understand itThis is hard, so here's an example:
Think of a forest— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
5/
The forest contains many objects. Suppose you're the first person to discover a forest and you want to study it. What you might do is try and figure what is in the forest.So you go walking and see a lot of really tall things with a brown trunk and green leafy things on top.
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
6/
You decide that all the things that are tall with brown trunks are categorized as "trees." You see things running about roaring and growling. You categorize them as "animals." You see things fly and chirp and make nests, so you categorize those as "birds."See how it works?
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Recommended
Yup.
7/
We put things in categories to intellectually organize them so we can makes sense of the world.We also categorize at different levels.
Look at trees. The top level is the category "tree." The next level what makes up the tree: "leaves," "branches," "bark," and "roots"
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
8/
See how it works?We start at the highest level with the category "forest," move down a level to"trees," move down to "leaves" we can even categorize the parts of leaves: pic.twitter.com/5vQE0GkzLW
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Mind blown.
Keep going.
9/
Now in wokeness, the idea is that we can construct any category we want, and we can organize things however we want.Lets use books as an example.
You can organize you books in order of author, genre, length, publisher, fiction/non-fiction, or by the colour of the cover… pic.twitter.com/1rpnoFh1OR
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
10/
The woke think we can organize the world using whatever categories we want to invent. It's up to us. There is no objectively right way to do it.Trees are only categorized as "trees" because we put them in that category.
Now, this next bit is the key to the whole thing…
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Trees are trees because we call them trees.
K.
11/
The woke don't think our categories are made to help us get an objectively TRUE picture of the world. They think we invent categories ACCORDING TO OUR OWN INTERESTS. We categorize things according to what we care about and what matters to usWe can categorize however we want
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Our own interests.
That is key.
12/
Now, the same process we use to categorize the physical world is the process we use the categorize society. Our social categories, the categories we use to organize how society works are also "socially constructed."That includes the terms "man" and "woman…."
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Ding ding ding.
13/
Now here is the point:The woke think that the categories "man" and "woman" are arbitrary categories. They are not accurate reflections of the world as it is, they are categories invented by people who wanted to divide society into the groups "men" and "women"
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Awww, that’s right.
Evil people.
Heh.
14/
The woke think these categories were arbitrarily constructed by the dominant group in society (straight white men) in order to set up society in the way that makes everyone conform to the straight white male ideal of how things should be.The woke things we could have…
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
It’s always straight white men.
*shakes fist*
15/
used any categories at all. We could divided people up by eye color, shoe size, or hair lengthThey woke don't think "man" and "woman" describe any objective fact about the world: They are made up to force people to fit into categories created by straight white men…
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
16/
The woke think putting someone into an arbitrary category that they don't want to be in is an act of oppression.They want people to join whatever category they want. This is why they say "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman," and this is where the trouble starts: pic.twitter.com/mO4TPV15Ye
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Yup.
17/
To attack the categories "man" and "woman", they usually do 2 things:1. Say "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman,"
2. Nitpick the definition of "man" and "woman" to make it look like we can't give a biological definition of "woman"
Let's show how to deal with both
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
The same people who claim to follow the science …
18/
Let's start with:1."a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman"
The problem here is two fold.
First, the definition is circular: it uses the term being defined (woman) as a part of the definition. This assumes we already know what a woman is!
Let's make that more clear:
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
19/
Suppose I invent the word "ZORP" and I define ZORP as "anyone who identifies as a ZORP.Do you know what ZORP means?
Given my definition, how would you know if you want to identify as a ZORP? On what Basis would anyone identify as a ZORP?
And here is the key…
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
20/
"a ZORP is anyone who identifies as a ZORP" **doesn't give us any new information** about what ZORP means, what the Criteria are for identifying as a ZORP, what feeling like a ZORP means, or anything else.Same thing goes for "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman"
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
21/
That definition of woman does not tell us what it means when someone says they identify as a woman.A person could say "I identify as a woman because I had eggs this morning" and no one could argue. It leaves the term without a proper definition and renders it meaningless.
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Renders. It. Meaningless.
22/
If you can identify as a woman for any reason at all, because a woman is whoever identifies as a woman I could say "I am participating in the women's 100M dash because I identify as a woman because I had eggs for breakfast," and no one could argue with me.This is absurd…
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Absurd is putting it nicely.
23/
Let's now turn to the second move they do to attack biological categories.2. Nitpick the definition of "man" and "woman" to make it look like we can't give a biological definition of "woman"
This one is harder to beat, but analytic philosophy gives us tools to defeat it.
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
24/
A nice example of this strategy come to us from @VaushVHere, he shows us an example of attacking the definition of "woman" by attempting to show that there are border line cases that we can't account for.
Here is his argument: pic.twitter.com/veWjCRjG5t
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Hysterectomies.
Really?
25/
The way this argument works is to find cases where there is a person who is missing some feature of female biology that we think women have, or who have biological features men usually have.The goal is to show that there are women who do not fit our definition of woman…
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
26/
Another way this argument is used is to present a chart like the one below, and then argue that the everyday definition of women that people use does not account for every single one of the various exceptions, anomalies, and variations that exist in the world… pic.twitter.com/yKS2LwVufd— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Sort of like when they use miscarriages to defend abortion on demand.
Right?
27/
Both of these types of arguments make use of the same rhetorical and argumentative strategy:Appealing to borderline cases and anomalies to argue that the lines our definition draw are inadaquate.
Let's use another example examine this strategy, then show why it fails.
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
28/
Suppose I ask you "what is a 'stack, of books?"Is one book a stack? what about 2 books? Or 3 books? Or 4 books?
So you say 4 books, and I ask "why not 3?"
You can't think of a reason and agree to 3 books. So I say "why not 2?" You again agree, so I say "why not 1?"
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
29/
So you say "well that isn't a stack?"And I say, why not? Is five books 10 pages long a stack? Is one 50,000 page book a stack? What counts as a stack?
You, not knowing analytic philosophy, are stumped.
This move is called "the fallacy of the beard"
I'll explain…
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
30/
The beard fallacy is named for the example of a beard. One hair on the chin is not a beard, nor is two, nor is 3, and we can add one hair at a time, and at some point the person has a beard. But drawing the line is hard. It seems odd to say 299 hairs is not a beard but 300 is— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
31/
But that doesn't mean there is no difference between having a beard and not having a beard. There is, it is just hard to pinpoint and justify drawing a precise line at the exact number of hairs. The same is true with determining the exact number of books required for a stack.— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
32/
This logic can be used with other things as well.Think of a table and chair. We can blur those lines. Is a chair I set my drink on a table? Is a table I sit on a chair?
What about k-12 desks? Does this mean we don't know the difference between tables and chairs?👇👇👇 pic.twitter.com/CzMivovMLp
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Abnormalities! OH DEAR!
33/
Of course not.All these examples us the same bad reasoning: they claim the existence of unclear cases implies there are no clear lines, or that the existence of borderline cases means that we don't actually know where the lines are drawn.
Let's show why this is wrong…
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
34/
The beard fallacy relies on a wrong assumption pointed out by John Searle in his essay "Literary Theory and it's Discontents."
That assumption is (quoting Searle): "unless a distinction can be made rigorous and precise, WITH NO MARGINAL CASES, it is not a distinction at all."— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
35/
Searle points out that all concepts are rough around the edges. He gives a technical argument for why it is a fact about humans and the way we use language and communicate that our concepts will always have edge cases.Think of it this way: pic.twitter.com/3Rgfus9Srj
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
36/
We all have different networks of beliefs, experiences, ideas, and we have a background of capacities, abilities, and presuppositions we use when communicating. This fact makes it impossible develop any concept that are so clear nobody can misinterpret it.That means…
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
37/
Someone somewhere will always be able to come up with some edge case which doesn't fit perfectly.There is one more point…ALMOST DONE
We can apply the beard fallacy to everything that exists, cars, lakes, mountains, the earth, sausages, and anything else and do this…
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
38/
We can take your car and say "I will remove one atom, or molecule, from your car at a time…how many atoms EXACTLY can I remove before your car ceases to be a car. At some point the whole car will be gone. how many atoms can I take and still have your car be a car?Now…
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
39/
Using beard fallacy logic we have to conclude if you can't draw an exact line for how many atoms your car has to have to be a car you don't know what a car is. I can do this with anything.I can say "how many atoms must a sausage have?
what about a goat? or a hat?"— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
40/
You see how that works?No woke person would let you steal there money and then blur the definition of dollar bill by saying "how many atoms of this bill can I take before you accuse me of theft?"
"But wokal, how do I explain that, it's so complex"
It's very simple….
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
41/
When someone brings up borderline examples or edge cases and says "This example proves we don't know where the lines are"…the correct response is:"THE ONLY REASON YOU CAN THINK UP CASES THAT BLUR THE LINE IS THAT YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHERE THE LINE IS "
See how it works?
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
B-B-B-BINGO.
42/
They can only blur the lines with cases that fall on or close to the line because they know where the line is. When they bring up edge cases, they only know those are on the edge because the edge is clear enough for them to find…and they know EXACTLY what we mean by "woman"— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
43/
Ok, we're done! I know that was long but I hope nowyou now have the tools and needed to push back when woke gender theorists say "a woman is whoever identifies as a woman," or when they try to blur the lines of your definition of what a woman is.So, let's define woman:
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
44/
This definition comes to use from the wonderful @HeatherEHeying:Women are adult human females….Females are individuals who do or did or will or would, but for developmental or genetic anomalies, produce eggs.https://t.co/QdzSMnr06h
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
Simple.
Women are adult females. Period. The end.
Sorry, not sorry woke gender experts.
45/
And when the woke gender theorists try to attack your that definition by blurring lines or using circular definitions you now know exactly how to respond.Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it. 😀😀😀😀
/fin
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 3, 2022
GREAT thread.
Told you guys.
***
Related:
Join the conversation as a VIP Member