Are Women Finished?

Back in the day, Woman typically meant someone with a womb and softer mannerisms who was mostly domestic.

Thanks to tremendous progress, we have pretty much cleansed our culture of the notion that men and women are very different. We are equals.

I’m scared, though, that ditching the old definitions may have made the situation worse for women, at least the way we handled it.

In our well-intended efforts at equality, we chose sameness over diversity. Instead of, “Woman means this, Man means that, and the diversity is beautiful!” we made women and men interchangeable. Instead of upgrading the bad definitions, we deleted them, left a blank space, and called it equality.

So what?

If Woman doesn’t mean anything different from Man, it seems we also deleted the reason to celebrate Women’s History Month. It would just be History Month.

It’s challenging to protest men oppressing women when Man and Woman mean the same thing.

Woman doesn’t mean a uterus and hips, because some people with those identify as men, of course.

It would be sexist to say that motherhood, wearing a pretty dress, or being more emotional are essential parts of womanhood.

If someone identifies as a woman, what do they mean?

It can’t be rearing children, being the weaker sex, or being more relational and intuitive. That’s way outdated.

If we say Woman means Whatever She Wants It To Mean, that is legit. The only thing is it doesn’t help us differentiate woman from man, which is sort of important if we want a woman in the White House.

What does Woman mean?