What is a woman? That’s a tricky one, say Labour frontbenchers
SENIOR Labour figures are unable to define what a woman is, with one calling the issue a “rabbit hole”.
Yvette Cooper yesterday became the second shadow cabinet minister to refuse to offer a definition.
The shadow home secretary told Times Radio: “I just think people get into rabbit holes on this, why are we all getting ourselves tangled up?”
When told it was “straightforward” to explain what a woman is, she replied: “As you can see, I am avoiding going down a rabbit hole, it’s pointless.”
Her remarks came after Anneliese Dodds, the shadow minister for women and equalities, struggled to spell out the definition of a woman when asked on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.
She said: “Well, I have to say that there are different definitions legally around what a woman actually is. I mean obviously, that’s when you’ve got the biological definition, legal definition, all kinds of things.”
Asked what Labour’s definition was, the MP for Oxford East replied: “I think it does depend what the context is. You know, there are people who have decided they have to make that transition … because they live as a woman they want to be defined as a woman.”
Following the exchange, J K Rowling tweeted: “Someone please send the shadow minister for equalities a dictionary and a backbone.” The Harry Potter author – in reference to her character Lord Voldemort – quipped that under a Labour government, International Women’s Day would become “We Who Must Not Be Named Day” .
Asked whether the Labour Party has a definition for women, a spokesman said: “A woman is a woman.”
The spokesman denied that Ms Dodds struggled to answer, saying: “The law quite clearly states two things … that is a woman who is an adult female and it allows for trans women to be legally recognised as women, those are the two positions in law. Those are not new positions. The Gender Recognition Act has been with us since 2004, the Equality Act has been around since 2010. That is the position in law.”
SPOKESPERSON FOR THE WOMEN’S EQUALITY PARTY
“That people continue to treat this question as a ‘gotcha!’ moment speaks to how debased this whole conversation has become. The dictionary definition – ‘adult human female’ – means different things to different people. So too would ‘adult human male’, if it had been similarly and deliberately politicised. The questioner is rarely looking for an answer, but to place the person on one side or another of a supposed ideological gulf. Everyone is losing as a result of those fractures, because feminism has never been more needed.”
DEBBIE HAYTON Science teacher and transgender rights campaigner
“A woman is an adult human female, where female is characterised by genitals and gonads. That means that transwomen like me are not women – but that’s OK. We do not need to pretend to be something we are not, and we do not need Anneliese Dodds to pretend, either.”
RABBI LAURA JANNER-KLAUSNER Inclusion and development coach
“Being a woman enables us to celebrate our bodies, ourselves, our mixture of nature and nurture that means we have extreme stamina, profound emotional capacity and the blessing of being able to generate humans who come out of our bodies and who, when they do, can be nourished by our bodies. All the questions about gender have enabled trans people, non-binary people and cis-gendered people to enjoy our gender and we mustn’t flip over gender oppression to stop women from cheering about being women.”
RICHARD MADELEY Telegraph agony uncle
“The definition of a woman in 2022 is much broader than it was in, say, 1882, when Flemming discovered chromosomes. Then, it would fundamentally have been held to be someone carrying the XX chromosome. Today, someone with the XY chromosome can legally, socially and sexually identify as a woman – and why shouldn’t she? If you feel you’re a woman, then as far as I’m concerned, you’re a woman. People who might agree with that aren’t being ‘woke’. They’re simply being inclusive, non-judgemental and, at bottom, kind.”