[dekhn]

I think I understand the point you're trying to make, but this is the sort of discussion board where many people are literalists. Women literally are baby machines: from the perspective of biology, and as a critical asset in the development of the human race (especially during times of high child mortality).

People get upset when you point this out, but they don't get upset because it's the truth, they get upset because of what they think the consequences of people knowing that truth will be. There are many things which can't be debated in public because it causes people (not just women) to get extremely emotional and retreat to lizard-brain defenses. My hope is that on HN, we can learn to control those responses.

[maxbond]

Appeals to literalism or objectivity often serve to create a seemingly objective and seemingly simple veneer over something that's truly subjective and complex.

In this case, "women are baby machines" is obscuring a lot:

- This is conflating being female with being a woman. Being female is a biological fact, being a woman is a distinct concept from being female. Conflating them serves to imply that our ideas about womanhood are objective rather than constructed. But most of our ideas about women have nothing to do with any biological reality - there's nothing about having two X chromosomes that means you wear dresses or engage in girltalk.

- Many women can't have children. However, if a woman has a hysterectomy, we generally don't say she's no longer a woman.

- Many people who can have children don't identify as being a woman.

- Having the capacity to bear children doesn't imply that this is your "greatest value." This is a normative statement, not a factual one. You can't prove a normative statement from factual statements. [1]

- We don't organize our society around biology. We weren't born with wings, but we fly. A woman's biology shouldn't limit her ability to pursue her own happiness. If she doesn't want to settle down in her 20s, chiding her for letting her biological clock run down is patronizing, moralizing, and unjustified.

People don't get upset because the truth is too hot to handle. They get upset because this is a bad faith line of argumentation used to justify bigotry - getting upset is a reasonable reaction to that.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

[dekhn]

I think you're getting worked up over nothing. In particular, it's probably likely the person you're arguing probably doesn't think what you think they're thinking.

To say that women's greatest value from a societal perspective is baby-making, a person is not saying or implying: that women who can't have babies aren't valuable. Or that people (for example trans-men) can get pregnant and have babies.

As for your semantic arguments, nobody is "proving" anything here. This is an internet discussion board, we're discussing biology and society. There is no philosophical proof, because the systems we're discussing are not logical.

How about this: "due to its necessity to the continued existence of humanity, the ability of baby-making people to make babies is highly valued, often greatly above other abilities that baby-making people have, and this is strongly considered in mate selection." I think that's all the OP meant to say with the parts you're complaining about rewritten to be less imperative.

I think it's pretty clear we do organize society around biology, not exclusively.

[maxbond]

I think the misunderstanding is yours. I think you're putting words in their mouth to make their statement more palatable.

[elzbardico]

Being a woman means being a female.

[maxbond]

Not so. For one, trans women are women, but are not biologically female. For another, being a woman is primarily about fulfilling a certain role in society, having a certain relationship to people based on your gender and theirs. That's got very little to do with biological sex. Like I said, there's nothing biological about wearing dresses. Kilts and skirts are virtually identical, but one of them is seen as very masculine and one of them is seen as very feminine.

[elzbardico]

Nops. Trans "women" are not women. They don't meet any biological criteria for that, they can't operate functionally as woman. There are not trans-females in any other species, as this is exclusivelly a cultural and psychological phenomena in humans. As you said yourself, there's nothing biological about wearing dresses, thus, using a dress doesn't make you a woman.

As human beings, trans people deserve care and respect and the full set of human rights, yet, this doesn't include that we bend reality based on imaginary constructs.

[maxbond]

Trans women are women. No other species may have trans individuals, but no other species has men or women either, or if they do, it's beyond our understanding (in the same way our understanding of their vocalizations or the way they think or experience is limited). Wearing a dress doesn't make you a woman, identifying as a woman and fulfilling that role in society does (which does often involve wearing dresses).

If you support trans people's right to exist as humans, maybe it behooves you to educate yourself about the difference between gender and sex, so that you don't repeat transphobic talking points.

[elzbardico]

Obviously we disagree on the fundamental point, but I appreciate that you took your time to have a civil discussion with me, and this makes me appreciate your point of view more rationally. I will definitelly think more about it. Who knows? maybe I'm wrong.

[TheHappyOddish]

> If you support trans people's right to exist as humans

Absolutist statements like this ("if you don't agree with my point of view, that means your viewpoint is the worst of the worst") make people not want to look further into or agree with your ideology, and are ironically binary.

Those distingushing between trans women and women and those thinking trans people have no right to exist as humans are not the same group. You've bent this entire discussion to try and make it about the talking point you wanted to make, so hopefully you're pleased you did it.

[berjin]

You are confused so you try to get everyone around you to redefine their vocabulary.

[msm_]

> from the perspective of biology, and as a critical asset in the development of the human race (especially during times of high child mortality)

There are many things that may be true from the perspective of biology, but we collectively as a humanity choose to ignore or fight them. I think most people will disagree with the opinion that reproduction is the only goal of human life. Because that's it - an opinion (that you seem to share).

For example, there are many people of both sexes that consciously decide not to have children. In this context, reducing women (and women only) to "literally baby machines" is not really logically defensible in my opinion. Unless I misunderstood your point?

[dekhn]

Nobody said reproduction was the only goal of human life. Although, one imagines, since it's the only reason that any human existed ever, it's a pretty important one. Probably the most important one!

I think you're imputing reduction when it wasn't implied or intended.

[aidenn0]

> People get upset when you point this out, but they don't get upset because it's the truth, they get upset because of what they think the consequences of people knowing that truth will be.

Or they get upset because they aren't Nihilists and believe in some form of personal meaning besides perpetuating the species?

[adamredwoods]

Or because people conflate statements from biological and societal domains, when they should be separating them.

[aidenn0]

I mean when the person who made the "literally baby machines" comment, they did qualify it was from a biological (explicitly) and social ("a critical asset in the development of the human race") perspective, they later said that reproduction was probably the most important goal of human life[1], so I think people are properly conflating these statements...

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35548367

[watwut]

This is not being literalist or objective. That is having very specific ideological opinion about value and purpose of women. As in, nothing about us matters except our ability to have babies.

This would be like saying that men are nothing but insemination machines. And yet, analysis of what men want or do on this forum is way more complex, because men are actually more then that.

From the perspective of biology, all that non-baby related aspirations and wants are also part of our biology. You are ignoring them because of ideology, not because women would lack these for biological reasons.

[FormerBandmate]

So are men, from a strictly biological perspective. Darwin doesn’t dictate your soul