Whether or not the statement is recursive, it is a basis. I see no valid reason to define it more rigorously. I identify as a woman, therefore I am. I identify as bisexual, therefore I am. Those are labels for nebulous social constructs, and don’t need to be rigorous definitions. Any basis beyond “because I say so” would be inherently exclusionary. The entire debate over what defines a woman or a man is a pointless affair which harms transgender people and gender nonconforming cisgender people alike. I believe we should be abolishing gender, not trying to establish a basis for what makes someone woman or man enough. It’s all made up.
My main point being: Gender is a social construct, and doesn’t fit the complex reality of lived human experience. Let people define their gender in their own terms, for those that desire a label, and otherwise abolish it.
You’ve said a lot which I’m already on board with, and mostly besides the point.
People can define their genders however they want, but a person who identifies as a woman without doing anything else to project that identity is virtually nobody’s conception of a woman is.
That’s not true, what you’re advocating for is gender gatekeeping and it’s the same forced gender performance Republicans demand or else they’ll examine your genitals before you use the bathroom.
At the end of the day, it isn’t up to us to define or understand gender for anyone else. It’s up to us to know and respect their pronouns. We don’t get to define what being a woman is for everyone.
It’s like the myth of sisyphus - what we bring to the journey is what defines that journey, and maybe defines us to some extent. Whether that’s joy, singing, boredom, anger, all of the above, etc. What we bring to womanhood, whether thats traditional or not, is up to us and how we interpret it.
I’m not being hyperbolic, frankly that’s not what hyperbole means. I’m saying that as far as it concerns you, as an individual, how someone else defines woman is largely irrelevant, or whether they define themselves as woman is irrelevant. From an outsider’s perspective on another person’s gender, the only thing necessary to know is their pronouns.
Maybe it would help to think of gender as a type of artistic expression. Certainly we use fashion and makeup artistically to express gender. And just like we might say “that’s not goth,” and then end up with pastel goths as a whole vibe, we also get femboy transmen and dyke/butch transwomen and a bunch of other variations that are possible. We can no more define what a woman or gender is to an individual experiencing it, than we can define what is art to someone experiencing it.
what you’re advocating for is gender gatekeeping and it’s the same forced gender performance Republicans demand or else they’ll examine your genitals before you use the bathroom.
I am not advocating for is not part of the same performance of examining peoples genitals. You are just being hyperbolic.
No, I’m not. Saying gender must be perfomed to the traditional binary in order to be recognized as the gender you state is exactly what Republicans are arguing with their genital inspections.
They look at a woman or man and say “that’s not woman or man enough!” This thinking is inappropriate and leads to abuse like genital inspections. We are not entitled to placing gender onto someone else. We accept it from the other person as they define it.
Sure, we might project our experience of gender onto someone and assume their gender. But that doesn’t mean our projection is the reality of what gender must be for that person.
I don’t think you mean it’s a recursive statement, are you trying to say it’s a circular definition? If we instead changed the statement to “A woman is any person who identifies as such,” thus only using the word ‘woman’ once, does this fix your criticism of this definition? Does this mean you no longer need an arbitrary basis to define women?
It’s an acceptable definition. A circular definition would be “A woman is a woman.” Instead, she’s defining a woman as someone who identifies as a woman. That’s not circular. You just don’t like it for whatever reason (you have yet to define what a woman is yourself despite thinking a different basis can be established).
If we change the definition to “a woman is any person who identifies as such”, nothing changes for me.
A circular argument involves multiple steps and loops back to the start. For example “God is infallible > the Bible says so > the bible is written by God > God is infallible”
What I believe is this:
If the definition of a woman is “a person who identifies as a woman”, then what that means is "a woman who is a person who identifies as a woman (a person who identifies as a woman (a person who identifies as a woman …)))
So I feel right to call it a recursive linguistic issue.
It’s not recursive, did you read the example I linked? It’s more like this:
A person has gone bankrupt when they declare bankruptcy.
This definition is specifically highlighting the condition of declaration being necessary to achieve the word being defined, and who is doing it. The declaration is what makes it existant.
Or
Miss USA is the person who is awarded the Miss USA title by judges.
Again here hilighting that it’s an awarded position and who is awarding it.
If you think it can be more specific, go ahead, but you have been unable to give me any kind of satisfactory definition for woman yourself.
A doctor is anyone who is declared a doctor by an educational institution.
Hilights declaration and who is doing it.
A woman is anyone who identifies themselves as a woman.
Hilighting that identifying yourself is the key piece of this definition. A doctor isn’t anyone who calls themselves a doctor, right? Not just anyone can be a doctor just because they declare it. But indeed anyone can become a woman and that the entire point of the emphasis of this definition.
Okay, so then why do we have a word for woman? What is the intention of that category? Is it really necessary to define anyway? If not, why does it matter what a woman is except its what she calls herself?
We have a word for woman because it is a useful descriptor. The intention of the category is to presuppose useful information about a person. In some situations it is necessary to define. No need to answer the if not question.
Well if someone says to me “that woman is suspicious” and there are two people who present as men, and one who presents as a woman, then I’m going to keep my eye on the woman.
I mean, are you worried about definitions that are circular because A depends on B depends on C depends on A? No, you’re not. No one has ever complained about this.
People are complaining about it, it’s the whole point of this post. If saying “a woman is someone who identifies as a woman” was a sufficient, then we wouldn’t be talking about this.
I don’t accept the assertion that your definition isn’t recursive.
This is like someone who says they believe in God, because their definition of God is ‘The Universe’
That’s cool, define God however you want. But it’s not a very helpful definition when the majority of people are using that word in a very different way.
Remember, language is descriptive, not prescriptive.
What are you trying to communicate or understand about someone when they say they are a woman? Will your answer change if you remember that your mom is included in that definition?
If it’s the former, then you should know I don’t use that definition.
“Remember, language is descriptive.” You only need to know how I’m using it.
So, using my “recursive” definition, is it correct or not correct to call me a woman. Is it possible to derive an answer from the information given to you.
Assuming the word “good” actually means “bad”, then the statement is correct.
But I’m sure you still disagree that “good” actually means “bad”, because it isn’t helpful for describing what either of those words mean.
I believe you are prescribing a word, rather than letting it be descriptive. Furthermore, even if it was descriptive, I am not convinced it describes anything accurately, and is functionally useless because of its recursive nature.
In any case, can we say that your experiment wasn’t very good because we have failed to discern anything? Have you got any other experiments lined up for me?
There’s no real issue with recursive (self referential) arguments in philosophy or math. An example being the Fibonacci Sequence. I’m going to assume your criticism for this is that you, like many conservatives, think this definition is circular.
The following definition is not circular:
A woman is somebody who says they are a woman.
This definition proposes a test, “do they say they are a woman?”, to determine if somebody is a woman (according to the given definition). This test can be performed without needing to circularly apply the definition of the term “woman” ─ because we don’t need a definition of “woman” to know whether or not somebody says they are a woman.
You may argue it is not a useful definition, because it does not depend on what the person who says “I am a woman” means by the word “woman”, only that they use that word to describe themselves. Others will disagree. But the definition itself is not circular.
Perhaps it will help to make an analogy with a similar non-circular definition which was used historically, though is no longer used in modern times, but the definition was not contentious and I am not aware of anybody seriously arguing that the definition was invalid due to circularity.
Before marriages had legal status in modern law, it used to be that a husband and wife became married in a ceremony, in which a religious leader declared “I now pronounce you husband and wife”. This pronouncement itself used to be what made two people husband and wife, so if two people had not been married in such a ceremony where such a pronouncement was made, they would not be husband and wife.
So the definition of “husband” and “wife” included that the husband and wife had been pronounced as such, by the power vested in whoever officiated wedding ceremonies. (There were other aspects to the definition as well, but this criterion was required.) Does this mean that until modern times, marriages were meaningless, because being a “husband” or “wife” depended on a pronouncement being made, where the pronouncement itself necessarily included those terms which were defined by the pronouncement?
Of course not. This definition is likewise not circular, because we can apply the definition to determine if two people are husband and wife ─ i.e. has such a pronouncement been made by someone qualified to make it? ─ without having to more deeply investigate the meaning of the words in that pronouncement. The fact of the pronouncement being made, regardless of its meaning, is enough to satisfy the definition.
That’s fine, if you can’t keep up with the few paragraphs I will accept your resignation and defeat. It’s cool I won here and we can agree “a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman,” is a good enough definition for women.
This is a recursive statement which gets us nowhere. We need to establish that there is some kind of basis, which is the previous definition.
Whether or not the statement is recursive, it is a basis. I see no valid reason to define it more rigorously. I identify as a woman, therefore I am. I identify as bisexual, therefore I am. Those are labels for nebulous social constructs, and don’t need to be rigorous definitions. Any basis beyond “because I say so” would be inherently exclusionary. The entire debate over what defines a woman or a man is a pointless affair which harms transgender people and gender nonconforming cisgender people alike. I believe we should be abolishing gender, not trying to establish a basis for what makes someone woman or man enough. It’s all made up.
My main point being: Gender is a social construct, and doesn’t fit the complex reality of lived human experience. Let people define their gender in their own terms, for those that desire a label, and otherwise abolish it.
You’ve said a lot which I’m already on board with, and mostly besides the point.
People can define their genders however they want, but a person who identifies as a woman without doing anything else to project that identity is virtually nobody’s conception of a woman is.
That’s not true, what you’re advocating for is gender gatekeeping and it’s the same forced gender performance Republicans demand or else they’ll examine your genitals before you use the bathroom.
At the end of the day, it isn’t up to us to define or understand gender for anyone else. It’s up to us to know and respect their pronouns. We don’t get to define what being a woman is for everyone.
It’s like the myth of sisyphus - what we bring to the journey is what defines that journey, and maybe defines us to some extent. Whether that’s joy, singing, boredom, anger, all of the above, etc. What we bring to womanhood, whether thats traditional or not, is up to us and how we interpret it.
You’re being hyperbolic. I’m not discussing pronouns, and I’ve stated elsewhere that I have no problems addressing people how they’d like to be.
I’m not being hyperbolic, frankly that’s not what hyperbole means. I’m saying that as far as it concerns you, as an individual, how someone else defines woman is largely irrelevant, or whether they define themselves as woman is irrelevant. From an outsider’s perspective on another person’s gender, the only thing necessary to know is their pronouns.
Maybe it would help to think of gender as a type of artistic expression. Certainly we use fashion and makeup artistically to express gender. And just like we might say “that’s not goth,” and then end up with pastel goths as a whole vibe, we also get femboy transmen and dyke/butch transwomen and a bunch of other variations that are possible. We can no more define what a woman or gender is to an individual experiencing it, than we can define what is art to someone experiencing it.
I am not advocating for is not part of the same performance of examining peoples genitals. You are just being hyperbolic.
No, I’m not. Saying gender must be perfomed to the traditional binary in order to be recognized as the gender you state is exactly what Republicans are arguing with their genital inspections.
They look at a woman or man and say “that’s not woman or man enough!” This thinking is inappropriate and leads to abuse like genital inspections. We are not entitled to placing gender onto someone else. We accept it from the other person as they define it.
Sure, we might project our experience of gender onto someone and assume their gender. But that doesn’t mean our projection is the reality of what gender must be for that person.
I don’t think you mean it’s a recursive statement, are you trying to say it’s a circular definition? If we instead changed the statement to “A woman is any person who identifies as such,” thus only using the word ‘woman’ once, does this fix your criticism of this definition? Does this mean you no longer need an arbitrary basis to define women?
It’s an acceptable definition. A circular definition would be “A woman is a woman.” Instead, she’s defining a woman as someone who identifies as a woman. That’s not circular. You just don’t like it for whatever reason (you have yet to define what a woman is yourself despite thinking a different basis can be established).
If we change the definition to “a woman is any person who identifies as such”, nothing changes for me.
A circular argument involves multiple steps and loops back to the start. For example “God is infallible > the Bible says so > the bible is written by God > God is infallible”
What I believe is this:
If the definition of a woman is “a person who identifies as a woman”, then what that means is "a woman who is a person who identifies as a woman (a person who identifies as a woman (a person who identifies as a woman …)))
So I feel right to call it a recursive linguistic issue.
It’s not recursive, did you read the example I linked? It’s more like this:
A person has gone bankrupt when they declare bankruptcy.
This definition is specifically highlighting the condition of declaration being necessary to achieve the word being defined, and who is doing it. The declaration is what makes it existant.
Or
Miss USA is the person who is awarded the Miss USA title by judges.
Again here hilighting that it’s an awarded position and who is awarding it.
If you think it can be more specific, go ahead, but you have been unable to give me any kind of satisfactory definition for woman yourself.
Hilights declaration and who is doing it.
Hilighting that identifying yourself is the key piece of this definition. A doctor isn’t anyone who calls themselves a doctor, right? Not just anyone can be a doctor just because they declare it. But indeed anyone can become a woman and that the entire point of the emphasis of this definition.
Why do we need to establish a basis if it’s all made up anyway? For what purpose?
Because we use words to identify things.
Okay, so then why do we have a word for woman? What is the intention of that category? Is it really necessary to define anyway? If not, why does it matter what a woman is except its what she calls herself?
We have a word for woman because it is a useful descriptor. The intention of the category is to presuppose useful information about a person. In some situations it is necessary to define. No need to answer the if not question.
Yes, and in your opinion, what specifically is that information?
Well if someone says to me “that woman is suspicious” and there are two people who present as men, and one who presents as a woman, then I’m going to keep my eye on the woman.
And how would you know which one was the woman?
The one which presents as a woman. Because me, and virtually everyone else is using a definition which has utility (not yours).
This isn’t a programming class, dude.
I mean, are you worried about definitions that are circular because A depends on B depends on C depends on A? No, you’re not. No one has ever complained about this.
People are complaining about it, it’s the whole point of this post. If saying “a woman is someone who identifies as a woman” was a sufficient, then we wouldn’t be talking about this.
It is sufficient.
It’s not recursive.
No one complains about wider circles: A -> B -> C -> A.
This is a made up problem.
I don’t accept the assertion that your definition isn’t recursive.
This is like someone who says they believe in God, because their definition of God is ‘The Universe’
That’s cool, define God however you want. But it’s not a very helpful definition when the majority of people are using that word in a very different way.
Remember, language is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Let’s try an experiment, hm.
“I am not a woman.”
Using the definition “a woman is someone who identifies as a woman,” would you call me a woman.
When you say “call you a woman”.
Do you mean, “would I personally agree with the definition?”, or “would I refer to you as a woman in public?”.
If it’s the former, then you should know I don’t use that definition.
And if someone asked me to refer to them as a woman, I would, no problems.
What are you trying to communicate or understand about someone when they say they are a woman? Will your answer change if you remember that your mom is included in that definition?
I’m not trying to communicate or understand anything in particular when someone says they’re a woman.
“Remember, language is descriptive.” You only need to know how I’m using it.
So, using my “recursive” definition, is it correct or not correct to call me a woman. Is it possible to derive an answer from the information given to you.
“Beer is good for your health”
Assuming the word “good” actually means “bad”, then the statement is correct.
But I’m sure you still disagree that “good” actually means “bad”, because it isn’t helpful for describing what either of those words mean.
I believe you are prescribing a word, rather than letting it be descriptive. Furthermore, even if it was descriptive, I am not convinced it describes anything accurately, and is functionally useless because of its recursive nature.
In any case, can we say that your experiment wasn’t very good because we have failed to discern anything? Have you got any other experiments lined up for me?
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/98474/is-this-a-fallacy-a-woman-is-an-adult-who-identifies-as-female-in-gender
There’s no real issue with recursive (self referential) arguments in philosophy or math. An example being the Fibonacci Sequence. I’m going to assume your criticism for this is that you, like many conservatives, think this definition is circular.
Oh, I was looking for something like this. The husband and wife example is really good.
Holy gish gallop.
Just engage with me as a person instead of a place to throw text at.
That’s fine, if you can’t keep up with the few paragraphs I will accept your resignation and defeat. It’s cool I won here and we can agree “a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman,” is a good enough definition for women.