What Is a Woman?

What is a Woman? Somehow, in our modern age of chaos and confusion, the most basic things that were generally accepted by the masses for millennia, have now come into question. 

This question was posed to Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Jackson, who could not answer in the Supreme Court Hearing last week, as she denied certain inalienable things about humanity, and indeed, even herself. We need not be biologists to answer this question and teach the answer to our children.

Woman is Biological

There are certain characteristics of a woman’s body that are part of a woman born a woman, that are not included in the body of a man born a man. These basic differences celebrate our biggest gift, the ability to bring forth life. Men cannot create life in and of themselves, we women are the exclusive bearers and the producers of new humans. A woman dressed or otherwise functioning as a man who gives birth, is still a woman giving birth. A man who competes as a female swimmer, is still a lie and a cheat.

Children naturally flock to the types of toys they want to play with, as toy stores had girl and boy sections for decades. Their preferences were not culturally imposed norms, they are biological facts that boys don’t want dolls for Christmas and girls aren’t typically asking for pocket knives. 

Gender-specific behavior studies like one from Stanford show that “…males scored higher in levels of aggressiveness, dominance, self-confidence, and activity level. Females scored higher on verbal ability, compliance, nurturance, and empathy scales.” Personality, interests, mental and verbal processing, diet, exercise, sexual design…all are influenced by gender.

In an interview with Ben Shapiro, renowned personality psychologist Jordan Peterson says of the established psychology studies on personality and gender, the statistics show decades worth of worldwide papers with thousands of citations, showing marked differences between the sexes, not socio-cultural but biological. These alone can stand up against the humanities papers arguing the opposite which have…no citations of sources. As It turns out, feeling can’t trump fact when it comes to body, soul and spirit.

Woman is Spirit

In my years as a woman, I’ve had momentous memories in both masculine and feminine environments.

I was once the only girl on a boy’s baseball team, and let me tell you, everyone noticed. When the ‘cup’ was passed around the dugout before batting, I had no need of it. 

I studied dance at a women’s college for a year and was seeped in more estrogen than I thought imaginable as I was also pressured to look down on men and traditional roles. I have seen both extremes. 

There is an absolute atmosphere of gender in a group of women versus a group of men. The conversations are different, codes and standards of what is accepted and what is not are different, and of course, what is held in high esteem and revered is different. Certain jobs like construction or the Armed Forces statistically have more males performing those roles. Nurses and teachers have more women fulfilling those duties.

Men tend to want to be protectors and providers. Women often want to be nurturers and creators. (Of course there are good and honorable exceptions to the rule, but the general idea has stood the course of time). The spirit of a woman, her desires and ideals, are different from a man. What she brings to the table is different from what a man brings. How she sees the world around her and communicates about it will be different from her father, brother, husband, etc. 

Fairy tales depict standard roles of rescuing knight, or alluring princess because while these actions don’t define our lives, they do describe some of our deepest desires as men and women.

Woman is Soul

When people who have come back from “transitioning” as transgendered, they have often described it as the darkest time of their life. They have attempted to live a life where they totally rejected and denied one of the most fundamental parts of our being. Gender isn’t just skin deep. It’s your soul. 

The God who created each person to know Him, and love him, designed you male or female for a reason and a purpose. C.S. Lewis said of the mystery of masculinity and femininity, that they are “live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control, and largely beyond our direct knowledge.” We embrace what we are, instead of fight against it.

Our society has now brought such a fundamental truth into question and is attacking children, especially, with gender confusion. We have to stand together for common sense, for truth, and for the strength of our culture to continue to stand with the basic family unit under fire, as families are the core of society. 

To paraphrase Elizabeth Elliot, one of last century’s most prolific christian authors, "Our power does not lie in being equal with men, it lies in being a woman.”