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This was published 7 years ago
Let's stop arguing over what makes a 'real' woman, and embrace our differences instead
By Naomi Chainey
Be trans, be proud – but don't call yourself a 'real woman'. Dame Jenni Murray, the presenter of BBC Radio 4's legendary 'Women's Hour' program, kicked the proverbial hornet's nest of controversy this week with her latest article.
The audacious headline precedes some impressive mental gymnastics attempting to justify the exclusion of transgender women from an apparent clique of "real women" – albeit for a different reason than your usual trans-exclusionary feminist.
Although Murray openly deplores Germaine Greer's unpopular take on the matter, she applies an equally rigid and logically-flawed definition of what makes one a "real woman". Bizarrely, she cites transgender women apparently prioritising fashion, lacking knowledge of sexual politics, supporting gendered dress codes and displaying dominant personalities as "evidence" that missing out on being "socialised female" makes you unsuitable for entry into the program.
Let's leave Murray's convenient sidestepping of the existence of transgender children aside (which in itself negates her point). Were these exclusionary criteria to be applied to all women before we were considered "real", I fear the majority of us would also turn out to be fictional.
The question of what defines womanhood has become increasingly fraught, but it needn't be, writes Naomi Chainey.Credit: Stocksy
Those girls who made the "I don't need feminism because …" signs would be out. Female CEOs would no doubt be considered too dominant. The Kardashians would be rejected, since they are far too distracted with frivolous pursuits to engage in hard feminist politics. We could kick Miranda Devine out of the club (advising us not to let our careers make us bad mothers surely disqualifies her) – and that might be fun, but we are still on very shaky ground here if these are the qualities against which we wish to define womanhood.
But if we are not, as a gender, defined by our bodies, preferences, personalities, or politics, what exactly is it that unites us? It's a question that has become increasingly fraught, but it needn't be.
Let's start with the assumption that all women – black, white, queer, trans, disabled, rich, poor, butch, femme, thin, fat, old, young, whatever – are in fact "real". We're in the world. We exist. Our combined experiences of womanhood make a big colourful tapestry and we can and should embrace the complexity of that.
In her article, Murray refers to the famous quote by Simone de Beauvoir: "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" – the idea being that "woman" is merely a concept, constructed through the male gaze, that we are conditioned by a patriarchal society to adhere to.
Jenni MurrayCredit: Marco Secchi/Getty Images
We are shown the clothes "women" wear, the beauty routines "women" follow, the work "women" are expected to do. If your body conforms to the expectation of "woman" you will be limited in accordance with these rules. You now live in a box called "woman" which, in this context, is not a fancy club with special membership requirements, as Murray seems to be saying, but a cage to be escaped.
But if being politically and socially restricted because we have vulvas and breasts is all that defines us as women, what would we be if we flew the coop? In an egalitarian (or indeed, matriarchal) society, would we cease to be women? If we define ourselves solely by our oppression, how do we escape it?
And if the political violence perpetrated against us differs according to our class, race, culture, sexuality, religious affiliation, appearance and physical ability (which, as an intersectional feminist, I believe it clearly does), how can this be considered a universal and thus uniting experience?
As a woman, I refuse to be defined by this. Not that I disagree with de Beauvoir exactly. She is describing prescriptive constructions of gender that do exist and must be challenged for all our sakes. But she is also missing a piece of the puzzle. Something innate, known in our guts. Trans people talk about feeling and knowing their gender, despite conditioning. We all have this, I think: An identity that exists somewhere along the gender spectrum, outside socially-conditioned male-female binary expectations and corresponding performances of gender.
If we define ourselves solely by our oppression, how do we escape it?
We are not pre-destined to wear make-up or floral prints, or to be caregivers and seek out low paying jobs, but we know that we are women, and when we look to our culture for the language to express that womanhood, we are presented with a limited vocabulary.
We talk about the political violence perpetrated against women, and it's important to acknowledge that transgender women experience this too, albeit differently to cisgender women (those born with the traditional genitalia for those new to the lingo).
As women we are all subject to cultural messages about what we are "supposed" to be. Forth Sadler, who transitioned in 2010 and now speaks about transgender issues on community media, explains it this way: "One of the things which surprised me when I transitioned was the number of things I found myself doing or the expectations I applied to myself without thinking. Trans women still grow up in the same community as cis women. We still see the standards."
Transgender women may also enjoy temporary male privilege, but conditioning people into the wrong gender itself is still an act of political violence.
I picture my friend Drew, who is transitioning this year, heroically fighting back against this violence with a flame thrower, screaming cathartically as her symbolic men's business suit is reduced to cinders. I picture this because, come April, it's exactly what Drew plans to do.
"I think I hated that 'disguise' more than I ever realised," she tells me. She's currently happier than I have ever seen her.
It's unfortunate that the only clear path to reducing the violence of being misgendered is for transgender women to embrace de Beauvoir's cage, an act met with suspicion and rage by women such as Murray. The focus of feminists like her on dismantling that cage has made them blind to the conditional safety it represents for transgender women, who without being able to present as feminine will have their womanhood denied by society at large.
Cisgender privilege is knowing that your gender identity will never be up for debate, regardless of how much or how little you've embraced and accepted the cage.
That said, in reality many transgender women have a heightened awareness of the cage and its limitations, due to how their experience changes after transitioning and presenting as female. "Considering what it means to be positioned in the world as a woman is something that we wind up thinking about a lot," says Sadler.
"Everything is gendered in our society. Everything. The way people speak to you, the body language they use, the assumptions about where you want to stand, or sit in a space… just everything. I can't imagine transitioning without being, not only aware of, but completely overwhelmed by, the reality of what existing as a woman in our culture means."
So here we are together in our "woman" cage, arguing over who belongs here. It's past time we embraced our differences and started collaborating on the best way to break the bars.