>Kelley, these are debater's tricks, IMHO.
yes, in some respects. but that rob didn't have a clue as to what it could posibly mean to say what he said was a problem. it is a problem to say that a person who menstruates and gives birth is NOT a man. notice that rob did not say that a person who menstruates and gives birth is a woman. he could very easily have said that. why not? the language is reflective of a very real problem. and further i have no doubt that it never occured to rob or a lot of other people that there are repercussions to locating woman-ness in menstruation and childbirth--women who don't have children, have hysterectomies, going through menopause come to think of themselves or are thought as not real women. that's very real.
i don't see what it can possibly hurt to have rob and others chew on that for awhile. i had to once. i had to think long and hard about my own assumptions. i *still* have to. i still do things like think that having and taking care of my kid is very important, my job as a woman, what makes me essentially a woman, and will probably freak out if i don't have another one within the next five years because it is so important to my sense of what it means to be woman.
as i demonstrated, but you missed, to understand these important things about how language and how rob positioned himself in this debate, does not mean that i reached the conclusion that i think that there are no physical differences. so why you think that i do is quite beyond me since i have said at least three times in various posts--once in this one--that i disagree. it was, indeed, the grande finale of the post.
kelley
Daniel (?) is trying to say
>that ONLY women menstruate and give birth. He is not saying that one is
>only a woman when in the very act of doing these things. Similarly, he
>is not defining "woman " as "not man." he could just as well have
>written "I do reckon that someone who makes and ejaculates spermatic
>fluid and impregnates another is not a woman."
but he didn't. that he didn't even bother to come up with that one is a problem it seems to me. he could have listed a hosted of things in different kinds of ways demonstrating that he'd thought about it. and it's just as problematic to rest 'man-ness' on the ejacultion of sperm since not all men do that either.
That would not mean one
>is only a man while performing this act, or that sterile impotent men
>are women.
>
>Do you favor medical research that requires women ("women") to be
>included as test subjects? That looks into sex differences in responses
>to treatment for heart disease, stroke, cancer, AIDS, other diseases? If
>so, how do YOU propose to decide who those "women" are who should be
>used as research subjects? If a "man" adopts female gender behavior are
>you willing to accept a course of treatment based on his response to a
>new medication?
>
>Katha
>
>ps.What makes your son your son and not your daughter?
>
>