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News Day Tuesday: What Makes a Woman a Woman?
Posted by Kathy
September 29, 2009
Categories:  Discussion, What's Crackin'
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(Photo by Elinor Carucci / Art + Commerce)

Goooood morning GBD!

First let me apologize for spazzing yesterday. I didn’t realize that nothing was scheduled to post. My bad. Anyway, on to the news!

I don’t know if this really qualifies as news, but there was an essay in The New York Times written by Peggy Orenstein asking the question up there: What makes a woman a woman?

She was prompted to write the essay based on her experience with breast cancer and the recent media flurry over Caster Semenya, the 18-year-old South African track star whose gender was called into question when she blew away her competition in the 800-meter world championship. She writes:

I had my own reasons to be fascinated by Semenya’s story: I related to it. Not directly — I mean, no one has ever called my biological sex into question. No one, that is, except for me. After my breast-cancer diagnosis at age 35, I was told I almost certainly had a genetic mutation that predisposed me to reproductive cancers. The way I could best reduce my risk would be to surgically remove both of my breasts and my ovaries. In other words, to amputate healthy body parts. But not just any parts: the ones associated in the most primal way with reproduction, sexuality, with my sense of myself as female. Even without that additional blow, breast cancer can feel like an assault on your femininity. Reconstructing the psyche becomes as much a part of going through treatment as reconstructing the body.

In the weeks that followed my diagnosis, during that heightened, crystalline time of fear and anxiety, I was not, I, admit, at my most rational. So I began to fret: without breasts or hormone-producing ovaries, what would the difference be, say, between myself and a pre-op female-to-male transsexual? Other than that my situation was involuntary? That seemed an awfully thin straw on which to base my entire sense of womanhood. What, precisely, made me a girl anyway? Who got to decide? How much did it matter?

Go ahead and read the rest of her essay. I think it brings up a lot of good questions about women and femininity. Then come on back here and tell us: What do you think makes a woman a woman?

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G

September 29, 2009

Don’t shoot me, but XX chromosomes :P Because when you look at it, even with the breasts and ovaries gone, those chromosomes are still there and DNA doesn’t lie. OK, some say it does, but that’s a different matter :P


Jenipher

September 30, 2009

Traditionally, men and women were classified as either one by our body parts but seeing as there may be situations such as having breast cancer and/or ovarian cancer that may strip our “physical femininity” away, (whatever that may be LOL) our body parts don’t make us women alone, we have a genetic make-up that makes us women (this is where I agree with G on our chromosomes) so even though we may lose our breasts or/and ovaries (through situations that may happen), we have a genetic make-up that speaks loudly! Don’t ya think?

Our walk, our talk, our sense of style, our hair, the way we think…so many things! Right?

In my extended family there have been women who have had their breasts surgically removed but they make the best of it and express their femininity in all sorts of ways. (Like the ones I mentioned above).

Does this even make sense? My mind keeps wondering!


emhelpsgbd

October 1, 2009

@Kathy
Hello!! Long time, no comment (me I mean, :P )
Well thanks for choosing this article Kathy, I’m glad you did. Caster hails from my country, so I wanted to add something here. This brave 18 year old girl has actually remained pretty quiet, hasn’t really commented on how she’s coping with the media scrutiny. It’s currently a huge political debate in SA, and will be for some time. Some meanies in political circles have used the situation to play the blame game; of who was dishonest and who knew this would happen, but didn’t settle it with the board before she took part etc. And now the satirists, naturally, cartooning away. All the while, this girl has to just go on with her life. Life is hard enough…

Also absolutely true G, about the chromosomes to determine your ’scientific’ gender. But then after reading the nytimes article, I fully second the argument that thinking, feeling, acting like a woman or a man is something that goes beyond our nature and nurture surroundings. It’s an innate sense, comfort or something that makes you feel like you belong to a specific gender more than the other…perhaps.
anyway Ladies, good to back on the blog.. later xx
Emma-Lu