The new ‘traditional conservatives’ and trans activists are wrong about women in a very similar way.

I think I’m far from alone in being utterly baffled that the most controversial, divisive and aggressively contested question of our age has become ‘what is a woman?’ This is closely followed by ‘can a woman have a penis?’ The leaders of both main political opposition parties think they can indeed have that particular appendage! The Prime Minister drew both praise and condemnation when a video of him mocking that view surfaced on Twitter. There was also a viral secretly recorded audio clip of a teacher castigating two girls for simply stating ‘if you have a vagina you’re a girl, if you have a penis you’re a boy.’ Of course there is a sizeable group who try and dismiss the heat around this debate by claiming it’s manufactured ‘culture wars’ nonsense. They, (including many MPs), claim the majority of ‘ordinary people’ don’t care how one answers these questions and are focused on the cost of living crisis, failing public services and even the threat of nuclear war. However I think they’re wrong. I believe a growing majority is not just baffled by attempts to rewrite basic biological facts but angry and concerned. The push back is also coming from both the political right and the left, from those of orthodox religious faith and atheists. This should be a positive opportunity to reach across tribal lines for a common cause. Yet I’m increasingly concerned that the tribe to which I instinctively belong, the socially conservative right, are no longer representing my views when it comes to ‘defining’ women. Indeed many who call themselves traditional conservatives seem just as confused about the nature of womanhood as trans activists.

   What does it ‘feel like’ to be a woman and ‘live as a woman’? Trans activists claim some biological men feel and live as women whilst extreme social conservatives are arguing many biological women aren’t being or living true to ‘real’ womanhood. As a child I was what much of society would call the most ‘girly girl’ you could imagine. I was all about pink, fairies and fairy tales, hearts and flowers. I also hated getting dirty and being boisterousness. I’d much rather have a tea party on the lawn than climb a tree. My Dad called me his ‘little princess’ and that’s how I saw myself. However my older sister wasn’t like me at all. She was an amazing brainbox who preferred reading to twirling in front of the mirror. But today the situation has somewhat flipped because by being married and having two beautiful girls my sister has fulfilled the ‘traditional female role’ more than unmarried, childless me. Neither of us chose for our lives to work out as they did. We are simply two women who coped with the cards life dealt us.

   It was in 1949 that iconic feminist Simone de Beauvoir wrote, ‘One is not born but rather becomes a woman.’ From the late 20^th century onwards her words have been used to argue that being a woman is not synonymous with being a biological female. However I agree with Professor Kathleen Stock’s view that Beauvoir never intended her famous words to mean that being female is separate from womanhood. What she does argue is that cultural representations of ‘femininity’, which are largely in the interests of men, are taught and projected onto females as they grow. In this way girls learn to be the women that a male dominated society wants them to be. Whether or not you think society is still patriarchal, trans ideology’s concept of ‘living as a woman’ reinforces the idea that womanhood is a performance or role moulded by social expectations. Likewise any notion of an inner feeling of ‘being a woman’, i.e. a ‘gender identity of woman’, can only be based on what external sources have told you women feel like. After all, how can you know what you are feeling is the same as any other human? If you abandon all sense of an objective reality, feelings become truth and truth becomes subjective. When we look at how men make their claim of being a woman it’s often based on stereotypes women have historically fought to dispel. These include an obsession with hair and makeup, ‘feminine colours’ like pink, sexy garments and high heels, over emoting and ditsy behaviour. No one illustrates that better than Dylan Mulvaney, who made his fame via a video diary of his journey into ‘girlhood’. It’s telling that he speaks of being a ‘girl’, with all the naivety and dependency on others that represents. A recent ITV News piece about water shortages from Thameswater featured a man dressed in a flouncy skirt doing the washing and claiming to be a mother. Whilst there was understandable outcry about him identifying as a mother he also showed how playing the role of housekeeper is linked to ‘living as a woman.’

   The trad right has likewise latched onto the idea that ‘true womanhood’ is basically living out a series of stereotypes centring on the submissive domestic goddess and the mother. This is behind the social media trend of so called ‘trad wives’ posting about their ‘idealised’ lives, baking, cooking and making beautiful homes for their breadwinner husbands. Often there’s a strong link to their Christian faith with soundbites like ‘I’m the woman God meant me to be.’ There’s also an undeniable 1950s vibe with lots of vintage style floral dresses and gingham oven gloves. Indeed many conservative commentators now explicitly yearn for a return to the 50s and the bliss of an apparently family values centred life. But just as the not uncommon appearance in trad wife videos of low cut necklines and slow, suggestive spoon licking hints that all is not piously innocent, so the 1950s family idyll often hid dark depravity. ‘Most husbands nowadays have stopped beating their wives,’ declared a 1950s advert for Heinz tomato soup. It continues, ‘but what can be more agonising to a sensitive soul than a man’s boredom at mealtimes.’ https://www.businessinsider.com/26-sexist-ads-of-the-mad-men-era-2014-5 Perhaps with just over 1% of women back then getting a university education finding intelligent, engaging topics of conversation might have been more difficult. Yet ‘at least’ women could be marginally less afraid than their mothers that not being entertaining enough at mealtimes would lead to physical violence! What a blessing! However the advert notably doesn’t pass judgement on the act of wife beating because in the 1950s, indeed right up to the 1970s, domestic abuse was seen as a domestic matter in which the law would not get involved. It’s not hard to see how confining women to an inherently constrained and less powerful status to men is inextricably linked to the toleration of their abuse. Moreover it of course meant a society in which, whatever their gifts, women could only change the world by producing sons to do it for them.

   Motherhood is something that is often played as a trump card over trans activists because of course ‘trans women’ can never get pregnant and give birth. However by reducing ‘what a woman is’ to being a mother, womanhood itself is reduced to a single biological function. Of course it’s a pretty awesome biological function but it’s also one that many very real women can’t or choose not to fulfil. However for the ‘trad right’ childless women become a kind of inferior class, just as the use of the word ‘cis’ by trans activists makes biological females a sub group of women. We don’t know whether St Mary Magdalene ever had children and yet she was tasked with one of the most important jobs in history, being the first to witness the risen Christ and proclaim his resurrection. The two famous biblical Marys, the mother of Jesus and the socially disgraced woman whose faith in Jesus shaped history while his male disciples hid, shows the glorious fullness of womanhood. Indeed who could name double Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie’s children? Her name adorns one of our foremost cancer charities because due to her scientific research she not only enabled the treatment of cancer but she is defined by what her work not her womb contributed to the world.

   The fight against extreme trans activism by those on the traditional, socially conservative right has been admirable in many ways. The recent documentary ‘What is a woman?’ by political commentator and podcaster Matt Walsh, (available on Rumble), highlights the dangers of children being lead into taking medications to ‘gender transition’ and having ‘gender affirming’ surgeries that have irreversible, devastating consequences. However the whole film firmly puts males and females in ‘traditional’ gender stereotype boxes. The opening sequence shows a birthday party for one of Walsh’s two sets of twins, (he and his wife have six children in total), with boys and girls differentiated by and segregated into shades of blue/grey versus pink/white. Moreover the blue/grey boys have an American football, a skateboard and mention of being given a gun, whilst the pink/white girls have a tea set, tiaras, fairy wands and lots of sparkly fluffiness. The twins’ birthday cake is also split into a blue half featuring planets and stars in outer space and a pink half with flowers and hearts. On the table one can see a ‘boy orientated’ coaster with a spaceman and a ‘girl orientated’ pink plate with a princess on a castle. Boys, for you the world and indeed the universe is yours to explore and conquer. Girls, having been rescued by a prince your world will be the beautiful, loving home you’ll create for him. I’ll always love fairytales and princesses but even this now not so little princess can see the darkness within the superficially idyllic picture Walsh and others are painting. In their attempt to fight trans ideology they themselves are endorsing the same gender stereotypes as those who think a woman can have a penis. Matt sits at the head of his table, carving the meat and describes himself as a ‘thinker’ while his wife Alissa stays in the background and leaves the foreground ‘doing’ and ‘thinking’ to him. Indeed the documentary ends with her defining a woman as an ‘adult human female’ while asking Matt’s help to open the lid on a jar. I’m always in need of assistance to open stuff, (God didn’t bless me with strong arms), but the messaging of more general female dependency is so crude here it’s almost like a parody or spoof.

   It’s easy to dismiss the misogynistic elements amongst conservatives as an unimportant fringe. But Matt Walsh has a massive 2.3 million followers on Twitter and is revered even by many who don’t fully share his views on the role of men and women. Another conservative podcaster Elijah Shaffer, who has sizeable followings across many social media platforms, recently posted a Twitter poll asking ‘how helpful is it having women involved in politics?’ Only one of the 4 options was positive about women in politics and only 9% selected that. 49% selected ‘Repeal the 19^th’ and 29% voted for women being a ‘net negative’ in politics. 13% chose ‘neither good nor bad.’ That’s a 78% vote against women being community and national representatives and leaders. 20,228 people voted. In a similar vein a young, fresh faced ‘trad con’ commentator recently said on GB News that women were irresponsible if they didn’t give up work until their children were in secondary school. After that he allowed them to have some kind of part time work. When the discussion turned to the voting system he proposed that a good change would be one vote per household with the breadwinner getting the final say. It doesn’t take Miss Marple, (not famous for being a housewife or mother!) to work out what their aim is.

   When I was trying to do some basic research on Matt Walsh via trusty Google I stumbled across a Dr Alissa Walsh. However even before I saw that she was UK rather than US based, it took me all of 2 seconds to realise this couldn’t be the right woman. Dr Alissa Walsh (DPhil FRACP) is a Consultant Gastroenterologist and leader in the field of Crohn’s disease. She couldn’t be the same woman who was a stayed at home mum looking after 6 kids full time! I actually enjoyed reading about Dr Walsh because her work was so fascinating, especially to someone like me who has struggled all my life with gastric problems. She works as a consultant in the private Nuffield Health group but is also the founder and director of the medical charity ‘Crohn’s colitis cure.’ I was particularly struck by this part of her bio on her charity’s website: ‘Dr Walsh is renowned for being a leader in her field and is a compassionate doctor who delivers the best quality of care for her patients.’ It’s almost as if the traditionally feminine traits of compassion, nurture and empathy are quite useful in the world of medicine, perhaps especially amongst the leaders and high fliers. I don’t know whether Dr Walsh has children as strangely enough that isn’t deemed relevant on the many professional, hospital and medical websites she is featured on. Yet this woman has undoubtedly changed thousands of lives and saved many. Her research will likely be life changing for countless people. But both she and Matt Walsh’s wife Alissa are two valuable human beings trying to make a positive impact with their lives in their own way. They are both women. That’s all one needs to say.

   As feminist and writer Helen Joyce said when interviewed by Winston Marshall for the Spectator, ‘I don’t play the social role of a woman, I just am a woman and everything I do is a thing that a woman does just by definition.’ Both trans activists and the trad right are trying to make womanhood a narrowly defined role not a state of being. We can’t choose our sex but we can and should be able to choose our role in life in accordance with our gifts. As a Christian I believe the greatest vocation is to tread the path God lays before you with faith and love. As a woman that could be a wonderful journey of motherhood and domesticity or it could be groundbreaking exploration of the cosmos as a NASA scientist. For most women it will be a bit of many things, as it will be for men. Biological sex is unchangeable but it’s not a script for playing the part of a woman, or indeed a man.