On the Meaning of Sex: Thoughts about the New Definition of Woman

by Kajsa Ekis Ekman

Overview

A new definition of woman has taken hold in Western societies. Instead of a matter of biology and material reality, we are told it is an identity. Anyone who declares herself to be a woman is a woman; the body has henceforth become irrelevant. Gender, we are told, is a spectrum, and it resides in the mind. In countries such as Norway, Canada, Argentina, and Australia, laws have been enacted that give anyone the right to change his or her legal sex, irrespective of whether the person has had a medical procedure. At the same time, the industry for gender reassignment surgery is growing at an unprecedented pace. Seven out of 10 teenagers who seek treatment are now girls. The new definition of sex has been hailed as progressive. But is it really? And is it new? In this groundbreaking book, Swedish feminist and Marxist author Kajsa Ekis Ekman traces the ideological roots of this new definition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781925950663
Publisher:	Spinifex Press
Publication date:	02/07/2023
Pages:	342
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Stockholm born, Kajsa Ekis Ekman writes for the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter and is on the editorial collective of the anarchist magazine Brand. She has an MA in Literature from Södertörn University and is author of Skulden - eurokrisen sedd från Aten (Leopard Förlag 2013). She has founded the network delete comma, Feminists Against Surrogacy, and the climate action group, Klimax.

Table of Contents

Contents Introduction 1 Part 1: Seventy-One Genders — A Revolution in the Making 1. “We’re Expanding the Concept of What It Means to Be Human” 9 2. “Transwomen Are Women – But What Is a Woman?” 12 3. Boys Climb Trees, Girls Make Bead Necklaces: The Return of Stereotypes 18 4. Chasing the Gendered Brain 25 5. Gender Is in the Eye of the Beholder 42 6. 2007: The Order of Modernity 50 7. 2017: The Gender-Congruent Person 55 8. Help – My Son Loves Pink! 62 9. An Invisible Theory 71 10. The History of Sex : One-Sex and Two-Sex Theories 76 11. Return of the One-Sex Theory 83 12. What Happens to Biological Determinism When There Is No Body? 85 13. How Feminism Started Loving Gender 89 14. How Patriarchy Incorporated Its Dissidents 100 Part 2: One Pill Makes You a Girl, One Pill Makes You a Boy — The 71 Genders Become Two 15. When States Reassign Their Citizens’ Sex 119 16. “Doctors are Salivating at the Prospect of Applying Puberty Blockers” 125 17. They Will Probably Become Infertile, But That’s the Price You Pay – The New Era of Sterilisations 135 18. When States Convert Homosexuals 144 19. What Is a Man without a Penis? 149 20. Younger, Faster, Happier? 153 21. Hormone Evangelists in the Pharmaceutical Industry 160 22. Tumblr, Trans and Trauma – Testimonies from Teens 171 23. Mastectomy or Death: Harnessing the Threat of Suicide 182 24. The Industry Under Pressure 202 Part 3: The One Sex Theory 25. A Tale of Trans People? 207 26. Woman: A Dangerous Word 209 27. Vagina: A Dangerous Word 218 28. The Creation of the Cis-Person – or How We Fell in Love with Gender Roles 222 29. Gender Self-Identification 235 30. A Room of One’s Own 238 31. Unspeakable Violence 247 32. Every Man’s Right 250 33. Invisible Trans Men 253 34. Open Female Spaces, Closed Male Spaces 257 35. “The End of Women’s Sport as We Know It” 262 36. “It Started with the Realisation that Women Do Not Exist” – A Fatal Blow to Equality Policies 275 37. “She Deserves a Kick in the Ovaries” 280 38. Sex, Race, Class, or … An Exception to Intersectionality 292 39. Nature/Nurture – A Dialectical View 304 40. Notes on the Word ‘Woman’ 309 References 313 Index 329