It was the year 1851 when Sojourner Truth, a woman born into slavery in the United States who would become a famous anti-slavery speaker, gave a short speech asking the simple question, “Am I not a woman?”
Her speech contributed to the birth of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States, but it also represented the cornerstone that unites women with a common goal because, at the time, society was divided into more privileged white women and more considered black women. “second category”.
His case shows us that biology and culture, natural and social are often intertwined in intricate ways, giving rise to different interpretations of the same reality. Therefore, the question “what does it mean to be a woman?” it continues to be as valid today as it was centuries ago.
The disputed genre
“Only the delusional would deny the biological differences between people, but only the uninformed can argue that what the body means and its relationship to social category does not vary across cultures and over time,” said historian Susan Stryker who dedicated life studying gender and human sexuality.
Until relatively recently, being a woman was inextricably linked to motherhood. Several studies have shown that in pro-natalist societies – which are almost all – women who voluntarily decide not to have children are more stigmatized than men, as well as being seen in a more negative and stereotyped way than those who have children.
Over time, the historical-cultural narrative has inextricably linked the concepts of “mother” and “woman”, so much so that the individual identities of women have been deeply undermined by pronatalist discourses. For this reason, since the 1960s, many women affiliated with the Child-Free movement have fought for their identity, separating being a woman from the ability or desire to procreate.
Shortly before, in 1949, the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir proposed another way of understanding this genre by stating: “on ne naît pas femme: on le devient”; i.e. “you were not born a woman, you become one”. She meant that from the moment we are born, our bodies are subject to the influence of social and cultural processes that transform us into the people we eventually become.
The philosopher and feminist activist pointed out that both men and women are shaped by society to fulfill certain roles, mandates and exclusions. From the moment we are born, we are pigeonholed into a category that contains an “instruction manual” on what is expected of us.
As another philosopher, María Luisa Femenías, pointed out, “being a woman is a social category that is supposed to be constituted on the basis of sexual dimorphism”. As we get older, we become aware of society’s expectations for our behaviors, which are largely based on our biological sex. Therefore, until now the concept of woman had started from a body dysmorphia, a genetic inheritance that differentiates us from men, to establish its roots of meaning in society and culture.
However, Judith Butler, also a philosopher, thinks that the correspondence or consistency between biological sex and gender is simply a cultural expectation because there have always been people who have identified as female, even if they were not born that gender . The Roman emperor Elagabalus, for example, preferred to be referred to in feminine terms. From this perspective, genres are learned and constructed in society.
Being a woman, an act of personal significance
The multiple answers to the question “what does it mean to be a woman?” they can push the boundaries of femininity in multiple directions. While some people embrace a rainbow of possibilities and refer to a sentiment that should take precedence over biology, others cling to a biological fundamentalism. And everyone is willing to defend or even impose their own “vision”.
But what is “correct” or “real” isn’t so obvious when we dive into the troubled waters of personal meaning. The only sure thing is that over time cultural concepts and conventions are transformed, becoming broader or, conversely, more restrictive, to reflect the social concerns of the moment and respond to the needs of a world that never stops change.
Labeling others differently than they have labeled themselves is crippling, but undermining the foundations of a concept that is at the core of who we are is terrifying for many. After all, being a woman and feeling like a woman continues to be an act that gives meaning to the person.
On the social level, while the concept continues to intertwine and unravel itself, lending itself to ferocious political struggles, it must be kept in mind that “the deconstruction of identity is not the deconstruction of politics; rather it establishes as politics the very terms by which identity is structured,” writes Butler.
“If identities were no longer established as premises of a political syllogism […] cultural configurations of sex and gender could then multiply”. In this way everyone would be freer to be who they are: a person with fewer labels and more freedom to explore their essence – beyond sex or gender – instead of trying to fit into molds that cannot contain human wealth and which often only serve to distance us.