You Can’t ‘Journey’ To Womanhood
Previous StoryNext Story“‘Womanhood’ is one of their words, I won’t use it. It refers only to identity: Most women don’t have [a womanhood].“
Twitter is only a cesspool if you follow toxic people. I come across gems like this pretty often, sometimes I even learn something.
I always find the best stuff by accident!
Who Can Say What A Woman Is?
The Women’s Movement is finding itself. Trying on different terminology can get confusing, and the term ‘Womanhood’ gets thrown around a lot lately. “Before trans I had no problem with it, but the trans usage is part of the way they have convinced many women to accept ‘womanhood’ as this complex state.“
The Transgender Guidebook: Your Journey to Womanhood exemplifies how being an Adult Human Female has become disconnected from being a Woman: “It takes you through a step-by-step process of exploring and expressing a feminine gender identity for those born male-bodied.” But, the title isn’t Your Journey to a Feminine Gender Expression, is it?
The keyword ‘womanhood’ brings up headlines like, ‘What Does It Mean To Be A Woman? It’s Complicated‘ and ‘Time‘ even suggested that “While we're endlessly talking, cisgender men are getting away with violence,” as if deflecting blame to the victim isn’t the oldest trick in the patriarchal book.
Outside of Trans Rights commentary, there isn’t much being written about womanhood at the moment. So barren is the field, a HuffPost article from 2011 hit my front page.
I had never heard of Dr. Logan Levkoff, who started her career as a sexual educator while still a teenager and recently appeared as an ‘expert’ on the reality show Married at First Sight. She also has a Ph.D. in Human Sexuality from New York University.
I don’t want to write her off but, if she has spent the past 10 years spreading this garbage, it’s no wonder we find ourselves on the brink of legal annihilation.
What Is Woman? …Even We Don’t Know!
Even her hypotheticals in this essay are flashing signs pointing the wrong direction, “But a woman has to be more than her most observable body parts or that which makes her physically able to be a mother, right? …a double mastectomy … without breasts, is she less of a woman? … prophylactic oophorectomy … is she less of a woman?”
I think most of us have moved past this silliness by now, “Is womanhood measured in degrees? Are there some women who are ‘more woman’ than others?
“No, of course not. Instead, I believe that being a woman is a state of mind and a commitment to social action.” Better keep up that charity work, ladies – You might lose your Woman Card. A woman with a Ph.D. in Human Sexuality doesn’t know what a woman is… Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!
Why pretend we don’t see the lady elephant in the room? I think there’s something cathartic about the idea of casting off the cloak of Femininity and just being Human. But until we learn to see – Insist upon – ourselves as both at once, our goals will always be out of reach.
“We act as a moral compass and a sounding board for partners, friends and family. We believe in standing up for what’s right.” As opposed to all those awful, nasty men without a hero complex among them, right fellas? “Why do we do this? Is it simply because we have a vulva and vagina? Nope, I don’t think so.“
Whew, the suspense was killing me!
“I don’t always agree with Bill Maher…” This is for the best, “but I absolutely concur that women are a moral influence on the more base elements of society.” And who might that be? I wonder. “Yet, if women are our moral centers … what does that say about the Bachmanns and Palins of the world?” Careful now, “Perhaps they only further prove my point. They may have all the "right" biological parts, but they have all the wrong sensibilities.” I’m sorry, what does that have to do with reproductive capacity? Is she suggesting some are ‘More Woman’ than others?
“They don't speak up for women. They don't believe that women should have control over their bodies, nor do they support men and women who love their own gender.”
What do you mean, girls can’t be drag queens?
…I need to stop right here and just appreciate this silly, unsupported statement. From ‘An internationally recognized expert on sexuality and relationships.’ How, exactly, does someone act out loving their gender? And who gets to define what that looks like, 10 years later when we’re all still fighting about what ‘gender’ even is??
But let’s let Logan get to her misogynistic point: “Bachmann perpetuates the notion of being submissive to your husband, and her heroine, Phyllis Schlafly, waged a battle against the Equal Rights Amendment. Is this true womanhood?” Excuse you, who the fuck died and made you Queen?!
It seems I misunderstood her opening questions; Logan is trying to tell us that, yes, there are levels to Womanness, and she knows how to get more of it.
The Oxford Dictionary is more helpful, defining Womanhood as ‘the qualities considered to be natural to or characteristic of a woman.‘ Considering how quickly Woman becomes nebulous when separated from the Adult Human Female, I think we can stop there. Anything else is just gravy.
Who Is A Woman? …I Am!
Your Womanhood is whatever you make it. If you’re an adult human female, you can’t do it wrong. Raise your hand and be counted, we have to all scream together!
Any ‘womanhood’ transwomen have is a sham, an imitation of something too basic to quantify. They might as well try to twinkle like the stars. Males can’t do womanhood at all, but they can still have a personality.
And they can’t have my word.
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