When women people identifying with the female persuasion gathered in Washington, D.C. for the 4th annual Women’s March against some guy in the White House, the Colson Center’s Joseph Backholm thought it would be a good idea to ask them how they would define “what a woman is.” These champions of women’s rights proved unable to give a coherent answer. In fact, many of them said a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman. One even said, “I think it’s a choice.”
These activists knew their talking points — the gender pay gap, Trump’s alleged misogyny, his checkered moral history with women, his supposed bigotries against many different kinds of people — but they could not define the very concept supposedly at the center of their cause. If anyone can be a woman, then the oppression of the “Patriarchy” can have no meaning. If there is no real difference between men and women, the gender pay gap cannot even exist.
Many feminists have rightly rejected the transgender identity that so corrodes even the concept of feminism, but these Women’s March protesters seemed oblivious to the threat.
“How would you define what a woman is?” Backholm asked the protesters.
“I think a woman… That’s a trick question,” one of them shot back.
“I think a woman is anything that she wants to be defined as,” said another.
One woman holding an image of President Donald Trump’s face with the words, “racist,” “sexist,” “cruel,” “liar,” and “pathetic” written on it merely said, “She’s an individual.”
“Like, we’re selling uterus pins, but that doesn’t mean that if you have a uterus, you’re a woman, or if you don’t have one, you’re not a woman,” one protester replied.
“I think a woman is someone who chooses to express themselves … can be in the feminine way but also can be in the non-binary way as well,” another said.
“A woman is love and strength and power,” one protester insisted.
Others chimed in, “A woman is anyone that identifies as a woman, simple as that.”
“I think a woman is, like, if you identify as a woman,” another said. “If you want to be a woman, then you’re a woman.”
Backholm went on to ask, “Are there any innate differences between men and women today?”
Many of the protesters struggled to answer that question, as well.
“Do you think that anyone can be a woman?” he further queried.
“Anyone probably could be a physical woman if they would like to,” one protester said.
“Yes, I think it’s a choice,” another insisted.
“Yes, yes because I think it’s a mindset,” the woman with the Trump face sign replied.
One more chimed in, “I think anybody can be a woman.”
These women are confused due to the transgender movement, which teaches that a person’s psychological identity overrides his or her biological sex. Although many people do suffer with gender dysphoria, the condition of identifying with the gender opposite their biological sex, maleness and femaleness are determined down to the level of DNA — and men and women have different physiologies throughout their lives, beginning in the womb.
Yet the transgender movement insists on nonsensical statements like “women with testes” and “men with vulvas.” That’s why the protester who wore a uterus pin couldn’t bring herself to say, “A woman is a person with XX chromosomes and a uterus.” Why even have the uterus as a symbol if men without uteruses can claim to be women?
Women and men are different, and those differences would be vital for any women’s movement worthy of the name.
Better luck next year, ladies! The way things are going now, you’ll get four more chances to get the Women’s March right.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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