The Questions Are Simple: What Is A Woman? What Is A Man?

(This blog contains a very sensitive, controversial topic. I will not tolerate any name-calling, blatantly rude, or hateful comments from anybody. I will delete anything I deem out-of-line. You can disagree with me, but be a mature adult about it.)

When I was seventeen, I started dating a guy named Gary. Not long into our relationship, I challenged him to a race down at the high school track. I was feeling cocky, as I was a trained sprinter, an athlete, and a pretty healthy person. Gary, on the other hand, was a big strong guy, but he was not an athlete, he smoked, drank, and had a horrible diet. I was confident that I would beat him with ease in a 100-meter dash. He tried to talk me out of it but I just took that as him not wanting to get beat by a girl. Finally, after tons of nagging on my part, he reluctantly agreed to race me.

We headed down to the track. I was decked out in running gear complete with running shoes. Gary was in jeans, work boots, and a t-shirt. I strutted around like a vain peacock and felt pretty confident that this would be a blow-out. Blow-out it was. Gary beat me and it wasn’t even close. My pride was so wounded I could barely look at him. He didn’t gloat or anything; just quietly grabbed his keys and we walked to his truck.

He dropped me off at my house and then headed back to his home. I walked in the door like a whipped puppy. My dad saw me and asked what was wrong.

I took my chance to vent. “Dad, I took Gary down to the track to race him and he beat me! He’s not a trained sprinter, he’s not an athlete, and he was in workboots and jeans!”

My dad kinda half-smiled and said, “Well, Hon, there are just some physical advantages that guys have starting at this age that girls aren’t going to be able to overcome. It’s not because you are a bad sprinter; it’s that he’s a muscular man with testosterone.”

Sullenly, I replied, “It’s not fair, he was in workboots.”

My dad said, “It’s not about what’s fair, it’s just the way things are.”

I had grown up knowing that, obviously, there are differences between boys and girls. That night was truly the first time I was smacked in the face with it.

Within the past several years, there has been much confusion surrounding the issues of gender and sex. On the one hand, we have people telling us that gender is all a social construct and it isn’t real. Others tell us that there can be more than two genders. We are told gender can be fluid. There are voices shouting from their bullhorns that there are no differences between women and men.

Then, on the other hand, you have people deciding that they “feel like” or “know” that they are a different gender than their biologically assigned one. But, if there is no difference between genders then how can you feel like one or the other? If gender is all a social construct then why do transgender people try to imitate how they believe their new gender looks and acts? Why do they play right into the social constructs? If there is no real difference between the sexes, why do men who think they are women really need to change anything at all? What does it really mean to “feel” like a man or a woman?

I sat down with my husband recently and tried to explain to him what it feels like to be a woman. I really, really struggled which I found odd, at first.

Then, I told him, “Well, I can tell you what a woman is. A woman has XX chromosomes. She has ovaries, a uterus, a vagina, and breasts that are designed to feed babies. Their bodies are specially designed to bear babies. I realize that some women are born with certain parts underdeveloped or that never developed properly, but that’s the exception, not the rule.”

I tried again to tell him what it “feels like” to be a woman and I still struggled. But, then I said, “It’s hard to explain because a woman is just what I am. I don’t really think much about it. But, what makes me “Amy” is who I am. And for that, I can tell you exactly how that feels.”

There is a part of me that is very feminine. I like doing the stereotypical female things: Cooking, decorating, wearing make-up, getting dressed up in a pretty dress, listening to love songs, and watching love stories. I like nurturing and taking care of others. Yet, I also like a ton of stereotypical masculine things: I like lifting weights, I enjoy watching football, playing catch, playing loud, hard-rocking music, and using power tools when I work out in the yard. I prefer listening to podcasts hosted by men, mostly because they tend to talk about subject matter that’s more complex.

The thing is, is that when I’m mowing the lawn in my torn jeans, dirty t-shirt, and a ball cap, I’m just as much of a woman as when I’m dolled up in high heels and a dress with my red lipstick. What I like and what makes me tick are all just me–Amy. I’m a woman because my biology says that I am. To be sure, though, I am a unique person with interests that run the gamut. A lot of that is shaped by the fact that I am a woman, but even if everything I liked or wanted to do was typically masculine, I would still be a woman.

A follower of mine on Facebook said it so succinctly:

Anybody that IS a woman knows what it feels like to be a woman, which can be a billion different feelings. We are ALL different, which is why it is highly presumptuous and absurd for men to claim to be transgender “women” based on FEELINGS.

She’s so right. Women have a billion different feelings and a billion different ways we live out our womanhood. Some women are very, very feminine. Some wanna drive racecars, cut their hair short, and wear pants all the time. Some women only like the social sciences, some like the hard sciences. Some women wear make-up every day and some won’t touch the stuff. Some women are aggressive and some are passive. There is no one way that a woman “feels” or “acts.” We aren’t women because we feel or do a certain thing; we are women because we were born with the identifying marks of a woman according to the sciences of biology and anatomy.

It is the same for a man. I can imagine what it “feels” like to be a man, but I really have no clue. Just as I can’t possibly know what it feels like to be African American or Chinese. I can imagine, but I really don’t know because I’m white and it would be wrong of me to try to identify as such. There is no way for me to ever model manhood for my son. I can tell him what I think makes a good man and it’s important that he hears that from me as his mother. However, he needs more than I can give and his dad is perfectly equipped (quite literally) to model manhood. Likewise, my husband cannot model womanhood for our daughters. He cannot possibly understand or know what it is like to be a woman.

Now, because of common language today, transgender people use the words “feels like” to really mean, “I think I’m a woman/man OR I know I’m a woman/man.” It can also mean, “I feel like what a woman/man feels like OR I identify with what it means to be a woman/man.” Because all these words can have different meanings and different connotations, it’s hard to have a conversation. If a man thinks he feels like a woman, he can’t really know that because he is not biologically a woman. If what they mean by their words is that they think or know that they are actually a woman, biology itself disagrees. Now, I am not a transgender person, so I do not know what it feels like to feel this way. I can imagine that it is a struggle and extraordinarily difficult to think that you are a different gender. I do believe that many are sincere in expressing that this is how they feel or think. The reality of things, though, is that just because we feel or think something doesn’t automatically make it true.

When my 5-year old son was a little younger, he came to me one day and said, ‘Mommy, are you a girl?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Am I a girl?”

“No, you are a boy just like Daddy?” I replied back.

“I’m a boy because I have a penis like Daddy?”

“Yep. That’s what makes you a boy. You have the same parts as your dad. Rhianna and Sydney have the same parts as me and those parts make us girls.”

He then ran off and went to play. You see, what I used to explain to him about being a boy was a biological definition. I didn’t say, “Boys are people who like blue and play with trucks. Girls like pink and play with dolls.” You can be a boy who likes to cook, play with dolls, or wear the color pink. You can be a girl who likes to dig in the dirt and catch frogs.

The facts are that there are real and true differences between boys and girls biologically. My story at the beginning is just one small example. We enter into this world of confusion and illogical arguments when we stray from basic fundamental realities. The only question that really and truly needs to be asked is: What is a woman? Define that for me. If you say that a woman has the XX chromosomes and certain types of reproductive organs, you’d be correct. And if that is the definition of a woman then it is impossible for a man to be one. If you say that a woman is defined by those things OR it’s anyone who thinks that they are one, well, you just made the word meaningless and nobody is a woman or everybody is.

A woman is what I am; Amy is who I am. And years from now, if they were to dig up my body, scientists could conclude based on my bone structure and my DNA that I was a woman. They wouldn’t conclude that I was both sexes, the opposite sex or no sex. My body would tell them what I was, but they wouldn’t know who I was with all my likes, dislikes, quirks, and characteristics.

We must be people willing to tell the truth even if it a highly unpopular truth, Catholic Pilgrims. This takes courage coupled with compassion. If words, definitions, and scientific realities can be changed to whatever is the whim of the day, we fall into confusion, disorder and lies. It makes living together as rational, intelligent human beings very difficult. When there is no consensus on the most basic fundamental realities of life, we teeter on the edge of losing our humanity. As Catholics, clarity and truth are what we must give the world because deep down souls are really and truly hungry for it.

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4 responses to “The Questions Are Simple: What Is A Woman? What Is A Man?”

  1. Great article, Amy. I am God’s child first, a person second, and a woman third. We meet (or should meet) as human beings before our gender is sometimes even apparent.

  2. Thank you for this great article. A simple yet clear way to look at the transgender arguments of the world today. As a mom of 4, ranging from 20 to 10 it’s hard for me to approach this topic with my headstrong 20 year old and yet make it simple enough for the 10 year old boy. I love this wrap up comment…..

    If words, definitions, and scientific realities can be changed to whatever is the whim of the day, we fall into confusion, disorder and lies.

    • It’s trying times, for sure. I was just telling my husband that it is bizarre that I even have to write such an article and defend what is natural and obvious. But, it’s a prevalent thought and we must answer it back. Thank your reading and I hope helps you talk with your children about it.

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