For 33 years, I presented a programme called Woman’s Hour. The last words I spoke as I closed my final performance were these: ‘There’s no such thing as a stereotypical woman, but there is one thing we all share — our sex.’
I never doubted for a second that the word woman can only be applied to someone born female, as biologically determined by the XX chromosome.
The biology that runs throughout the system of the girl and the woman cannot be changed, so a woman is an adult human female, a girl is a young human female and that is that.
On International Women’s Day this week, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Women Anneliese Dodds found herself struggling to answer the question ‘What is a woman?’ Its meaning, she said, depends on the context. No, it doesn’t, Anneliese. Its meaning is perfectly clear
Why then do female politicians, who owe their place in the corridors of power thanks to the efforts of thousands of women who campaigned for their rights, appear unable to define what and who they are?
On International Women’s Day this week, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Women Anneliese Dodds found herself struggling to answer the question ‘What is a woman?’ Its meaning, she said, depends on the context.
No, it doesn’t, Anneliese. Its meaning is perfectly clear.
Then there’s Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has declared herself a feminist, but appears to ignore the howls of protest from women at her support of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill.
This Bill would allow a man to change his gender simply by stating that he is a woman, rather than the current rules that require a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
His gender, note, not his sex, enabling him to become not a woman, but a trans woman — two very different things.
Even Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, has dodged the question of her own sex. She doesn’t want to go ‘down the rabbit hole of defining what a woman is’.
Rabbit hole? Who do these women think they are in their powerful political roles? Are they living in a wonderland where women who feel that hard-won rights are being eroded will still vote for them?
Why have so many of the women on Labour’s frontbench made such complete fools of themselves by pretending it’s hard to define a woman? Have they been ordered to deny and insult their own sex in order to avoid being seen as anti-trans? And how do they define themselves? Are they not women? I am honestly at a loss.
All of them are younger than me. Have they not experienced what I and so many others suffered for decades, struggling to make life more equal for women?
Even Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, has dodged the question of her own sex. She doesn’t want to go ‘down the rabbit hole of defining what a woman is’. Rabbit hole? Who do these women think they are in their powerful political roles?
Then there’s Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has declared herself a feminist, but appears to ignore the howls of protest from women at her support of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill
Are they ignorant of the fact that before 1918 none of them would have even had the right to vote? Have they not read the history of the suffrage movement and the cruelty of imprisonment and force-feeding suffered by the women who fought on their behalf?
Are they unaware of their parliamentary predecessors who knew perfectly well what a woman was? Do they not know how the first female MP to take her seat in the house, Nancy Astor, said she knew it was almost as difficult for some male MPs to accept her as it was for her to come into the Chamber?
Do they not think Barbara Castle would be ashamed of them? It was she who worked to introduce the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts. She knew what a woman was and how our sex disadvantaged us.
Do they not know how Labour MP Clare Short was barracked in the House for her objection to women’s bare breasts being shown in a national newspaper, The Sun, or how the men in Parliament rubbished efforts to end rape in marriage or protect women from domestic violence?
What is the point of having women in Parliament if they don’t know what a woman is and what is needed to advance the interests of their own sex?
I can’t believe that they are unaware of the gender pay gap that continues to disadvantage women.
A figure of 40 per cent was quoted in some quarters this week. It’s not a gender pay gap, it’s a sex pay gap. The ones who come off worst are invariably women. It’s your sex, not your gender, that creates the disadvantage.
What about the lowest paid in the hardest and least envied jobs — the carers and the cleaners — nearly all women, living in women’s bodies and undervalued as a result?
Are they ignorant of the fact that before 1918 none of them would have even had the right to vote? Have they not read the history of the suffrage movement and the cruelty of imprisonment and force-feeding suffered by the women who fought on their behalf?
I’ve lived for 72 years as a woman and from the start I’ve known what that meant. A mother disappointed that she’d had a girl, not a boy.
Memories of her telling me how the midwives had said, ‘Ah you’ve got a sweet little girl’ and not the ‘Oh, a big strong boy,’ she had hoped for.
As an only child, having to satisfy her need for a successful and ambitious child (boy) and insistence that a girl should cook, clean, marry, give her grandchildren.
At university, the tutor who never wanted to hear an essay composed by a girl and the older men who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
At work, the married men whose wandering hands were never kept at their sides. Being known as one of the ‘Newsnight wives’ during my two-year stint presenting the news programme. We two female presenters were invariably secondary to the men.
And equal pay! I found one male BBC colleague, performing a similar role to mine, had been paid nearly twice as much as me for years — and on and on.
Politicians, come on! Know your own sex and support the 50 per cent of the world’s population that shares it. Don’t be afraid of who you are, and recognise how many of us depend on you for fair and equal treatment.
Be fair to those with gender dysphoria, but remember if a man or woman has transitioned, they are a trans woman or a trans man.
They will often need medical treatment that suits their sex, not their gender, and must respect single sex spaces in sport, in prisons, in hospital, in toilets and in refuges.
Be clear in your own minds that sex is what you are, gender is how you present yourself. Don’t be afraid to be clear about what a woman is. It’s you, Anneliese, Nicola and Yvette.
And refusing to acknowledge that is a betrayal of the millions who are now in danger of being erased.
…And the other writers NOT afraid to stand up
Sarah Vine
Mail columnist
I am tempted to say that a woman is someone who picks up a lot of wet towels and knows where the sellotape is kept.
A woman is whatever she wants to be — doctor, writer, explorer, mother, war correspondent, politician.
But she is also something else: one half of the biological equation that ensures the survival of the human race and of the vast majority of life forms on this planet.
Whether she chooses to have children or not is entirely down to individual preference; but the fact remains that only a woman can menstruate, only a woman has ovaries and a womb, only a woman can give birth to new life.
This is our one undeniable superpower, the one thing that makes us indispensable — and the one thing they must never take away.
Julie Burchill
Writer
A woman is someone who grew up as a girl. Who was approached by grown men for sex from the age of 12, even (especially) in her school uniform.
A woman cannot opt out or in to being a woman when it suits them. We are the sum of our parts — not just some of our parts.
Liz Jones
Mail columnist
She is someone who talks. Non-stop. We gossip and bitch and dissect. Take a man to see the new Batman, as I’ve just done, and he’ll mumble: ‘Um, I enjoyed it.’ Whereas a woman will analyse everything from the costumes to Robert Pattinson’s eyebrows.
Go for dinner with another woman and we barely come up for air. We giggle, too. We’re funnier than men — and completely and utterly merciless.
ANNE-MARIE TREVELYAN
Secretary of State for International Trade and Conservative MP
This is one of the most enigmatic questions you can ask in the current universe. In my experience we are the ones who get on with it: problem-solvers, listeners, carers, cooks, builders, furniture movers. Oh, and, in our spare time, entrepreneurs, athletes, scientists, MPs and even Secretaries of State!
ALLEGRA McEVEDY
Chef and broadcaster
A woman is the complete circus: juggling, dancing, team-building, putting on an epic show — and all while caring what people think. What she does makes others’ jaws drop, but she doesn’t shout about it, she just gets on with it.
DIANA THOMAS
Writer
There are billions of women and some of us — like me — are trans. We are born this way. We did not choose our identity, only how to express it. We are daughters, sisters, friends, neighbours, workmates, wives — but not threats. And all we ask is to be women, just like you.
AMANDA PLATELL
Mail columnist
A woman is a grown-up girl born from a female’s womb. She enters this world with two X chromosomes. She has a womb and ovaries and develops breasts, designed to succour her own children. She has periods for most of her life, then she has the menopause. She is not born with a penis.
CLAUDIA CONNELL
Mail writer
What defines a woman is our interest in others. Introduce me to a new person and I’ll know quickly how old she is, her marital status and who does her hair. Men are mostly only interested in themselves.
DOROTHY BYRNE
President of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University
A woman is a troublemaker who never does what a man tells her to do. And I believe a woman is a person who self-identifies as a woman.
JULIE BINDEL
Writer and campaigner
She is a human with two X chromosomes and a subordinate position in relation to men. There is nothing natural about our oppression and inequality — which is why some women, like me, are feminists and challenge patriarchy.
Women have female bodies; we menstruate, give birth and go through the menopause. Being female has its consequences, and is often fraught with difficulty. It is neither a costume nor an identity, but a material reality.
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