Ending Extreme Misogyny With One Simple Declaration

We may disagree on many things as a culture.  But one thing we can all unite around is our insistence that misogyny is an evil that must be condemned - wherever it is found and in all its forms - in order to keep women safe.

One of the most dangerous forms of misogyny today is the insistence that men can become women - through a medical procedure, or even by simply believing themselves to be so.

This nonsensical idea reduces women to a stereotype; a pantomime; a part to be played. 

It’s so easy being a woman, even a man can do it.

And so this idea denies the very real experiences of womanhood that cannot be replicated by men - no matter how many slogans they chant (trans women are women, trans women are women); no matter how hard they try; and no matter what reality-bending laws they invent.

But worst of all, the extreme misogyny that insists men can become women robs women of the right to single-sex spaces. 

Furthermore, it makes female sports completely unfair to the point of being pointless.

So, in defence of women and their hard-won rights to respect, and to safety, and to fairness, can we all just agree to the simple proposition that women do not have a penis?

It seems ridiculous that I would even need to ask you to affirm that sex is binary – male and female - or to affirm a basic biological truth.

And yet it is precisely because people refuse to be crystal clear on the matter, that this form of extreme misogyny continues to undermine womanhood.

Many people dismiss discussions such as this as a gimmick, or as a stunt. 

I can assure you that it is not.

Ask a girl denied a spot on her sporting team by a man identifying as a woman if she thinks the issue is a joke.

Ask a woman seeking privacy with her young daughter in a female-only bathroom if she thinks this matter is a waste of Senate time.

As compassionate people we care deeply for those who are struggling with issues of identity. 

But our compassion does not over-rule our common sense. 

And we will not erase women in a well-intentioned, but ultimately misguided bid, to show kindness to struggling men.

This issue, of course, has another component to it.

To agree that women cannot have a penis is not only to defend women, it is to defend truth and reality.

It is to agree that when we look down - in the privacy of our own bathroom - our eyes are not deceiving us.

It is to agree that those dangly bits (or lack thereof) are not meaningless; they do not signifying nothing.

To agree that women cannot have a penis is to agree that one does not need to have a master’s degree in order to be able to discern a male from a female. This should be an issue so simple that even a child can understand it, and yet everyone from British Prime Ministers to US Supreme Court nominees have struggled with it.

To quote that wonderful, and yet now highly controversial scene from Kindergarten Cop …

“Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina”

Would we really defy reality by pretending the issue is any more complicated than that?

“Oh but what about intersex people?” I hear someone up the back say, as if they have suddenly discovered a third gender.

Intersex is an anomaly; it is evidence that something as gone terribly wrong in the normal development of a human being. It is not an example on which to build a whole new strain of biology.

Imagine if I said to you that humans only have two legs.

But because you’re a contrarian, or stupid (but I repeat myself), you argue that because you once saw a YouTube video of a guy in the mountains of Pakistan who was born with three legs, it is therefore not true that humans have two legs.

“Some have three,” you reply.

You’re not clever. You’re a moron who needs to spend less time on Youtube.

But funnily enough the Pakistani with the third leg brings me back to my main point.

Men have a third leg. Women most definitely do not.

So in the interests of respecting, protecting and championing the rights of girls and women, can we all just affirm once and for all a simple biological truth so obvious that your grandparents would have thought you insane for even questioning it?

Women do not have a penis. They never have. They never will.

And with that simple declaration, we can finally end this extreme misogny that seeks to erase women from society.