by Colette Colfer
I am a woman, how do I know?
Because my body tells me so.
I’ve a womb, and ovaries, a breasty chest,
I’ve carried a baby in my belly nest.
I am milk, I am blood,
my diploid cells are double X.
But what is a woman?
Can we illuminate the detail?
Would you agree that it’s a noun
meaning adult human female?
Where female is a basic biological distinction
That’s used in both the plant
and animal kingdoms.
The female produces the larger gamete
But these need the male
to make reproduction complete.
So male and female are a complementarity,
A holy grail of unity, duality.
As day is to night and yin is to yang,
As black is to white, woman is to man.
Oestrogen, testosterone.
X and Y chromosomes.
Every cell of our body
Is stamped with our genome.
These cellular differences
Have a wider significance
Influencing personality traits,
Life experiences, interests.
Less women than men
Are in engineering and mining,
Bin collection, construction,
Fishing, truck driving.
It’s only women who’ve experienced
Down through the centuries
FGM, menstruation huts,
Magdalene Laundries
In countries where fornication
Is still considered a crime
It’s the woman who is punished
Far more of the time
You can never tell by looking
If a man has had sex
But you can with a woman
Because she carries the egg
And pregnancy is a visible sign
That can result in honour killings,
Imprisonment, honour crimes
Meanwhile men have to deal
With paternal uncertainty
So there’s pressure on women
To be virgins, to live chastely
There have been changes
With industrialisation,
Contraceptives, technology,
modernisation
We now have gender quotas,
Women’s toilets, changing rooms,
Women’s sports and awards
And all-girl schools.
At the same time
We have feminisim
And hash tag metoo.
Does it really matter
About the words that we use?
Some say ‘woman’
is not about biology,
That a woman can be a woman
regardless of physiology,
That it’s nothing to do
With the production of eggs,
And it’s completely independent
Of what’s between a person’s legs
That woman is identity
and how a person feels.
That it’s femininity, hair styles,
mascara, high heels,
manicures, blusher,
lipstick and dress.
Can you still be a woman
If you don’t shave your legs?
What’s the point anymore
In sex segregated spaces
If males can now access
women-only places?
This year a male won the woman’s
World championship cycling race.
A female boxer who fought a male woman
Ended up with seven staples in her face.
Males can use women’s shelters,
A male has won ‘Woman of the Year’.
But women are being told
There’s nothing to fear.
Language evolves
and meanings can change
but biological differences
can’t be erased
People will just invent
New words and labels
To distinguish the differences
Between males and females.
Some say we should say womex
to get rid of the ‘men’
Some say ‘people with a cervix’
or there’s ‘pregnant people’ as well.
There’s also ‘uterus havers’,
‘bleeders’, ‘gestators’
‘ovulators’, ‘birthers’,
or my favourite – ‘menstruators’.
I am a woman,
How do I know?
I am because my body
makes it so.
First published as a thread on Twitter in December 2018.
