What is a woman?
Matt Walsh asks this question in his 2022 charged documentary on transgender women, and the issue of what makes an authentic female. Even if you never watched it, you probably have feelings about this film, because we are creations of emotion and The Woman is a sacred facet in ALL human cultures.
The documentary falls a little flat by only pointing out the grossly obvious: “Women have XX chromosomes and men have XY chromosomes!!”1 If the only true different between women and men are chromosomes why care about sex-change and cross-dressing?
I by no means deny any esteem for Matt Walsh when I say this, but he failed SHOW us what a woman looks like — scripturally (he’s Catholic), traditionally, and culturally. And no matter how you cut it, if it’s true that women are a mere collection of hormones and biology then transgenders do have a case, even if a slight one.
With such a simplified qualifier alone, we have to wonder what God might have been thinking in the Garden. “Hmm. Let’s try out XY… now, let’s do XX. Good. That’s fine enough. He’s a man. She’s a woman. Their cells are uniquely different, but other than that… they are basically the same.”2
Women are not merely a collection of cells - if they were there would be hardly any difference between us and men. The lib crowd is right to point out that a woman is not only a matter of biology, but is also a creature of appearance and aesthetic. As we fall further into our current degenerate era I think those of us who call ourselves Christians will be forced to take a reality check and ask ourselves the most pertinent question of all.
Why have we forgotten what it means to be a woman?
There is little outrage when a man — such as Matt Walsh — discusses the attributes of The Real Man.3. A man may have the correct chromosomes, and yet if he is spineless, ungentlemanly, slovenly, or timid we can’t rely upon him or respect him as we would a Real Man. The same is true of women, although mainstream Christianity is less willing to charter the waters that would anger conservative church-going women. Do not conflate this with the Modesty discourse4. I don’t mean to say that we have forgotten how to cover up our thighs and cleavage, but that we have forgotten what it means to possess thighs and cleavage. The phenomenon of tacky mannish (or unisex) attire among conservative women — a type of dressing that would’ve been considered cross dressing only seventy years ago.5
It would be shallow — and lazy — of me to make it simply a matter of fashion. It takes more than chromosomes and clothes to make a lady. However these two are a great foundation for post-fall of man creatures. The libs know it. The fundamental Christians half-halfheartedly know it. Maybe if they two took a moment to drop derogatory slurs and share a discourse, they might transcend knowledge and find what it really means to be a woman — someone who is empowered in her own garb, someone who understands the ways of nurturing, soft spoken yet not feeble minded, open and hospitable, a vision-maker, a help-meet, the one who evangelizes through example rather than word, who inspires courage through beauty, and who whispers bold, nourishing promises.
Why have we forgotten what it means to be a woman? Because we accepted the lie that we were to become like men — and so we gave up our gifts and skills. We abandoned the spindle for the voting booth and found that we no longer had a place of our own anymore.
We’ve all forgotten, to a degree, what it means to be a woman — but at least some of in woke crowd are doing a little bit of a better job at trying. They know that biology is only half of the battle. One’s spirit, attitude, aesthetics, desires, and appearances go a long way in the real world.
The winter after Walsh’s documentary was released I attended a folk school in the Appalachian Mountains. I was the only conservative woman on campus, and it was the first time in my life where I felt like I was not judged for wearing dresses. I was surrounded by extreme woke individuals who identified as “she/her”, and dressed and spoke like true Ladies. They respected that I knew myself well enough to dress as I wished. We never discussed politics. Occasionally they asked me about my faith — and they listened, because I never set them up for “gotchas!” I learned from them, too. For their movements, mannerisms were in tune with the ethos of femininity. If they had been fundamental women instead, they would have been classified as doormats, because they were kind and selfless and beautiful. We discussed how to heal our communities, like proper women of old with civic power. I said hospitality. Someone else said, “Water” for she spiritually sensed the power of the womb, of baptism, and of the seas and and skies. She was woke, and yet she more than many of my Christian acquaintances was more in touch with God’s plan for mankind. Who was I to judge her for her supposed feminism and because she had not yet learned to see God when she was reminding me of what it meant to be a real woman - real by God’s standards?
The months I spent at that school were more healing than any ministry work I’d ever done. We renewed our fingers in accordance with Eve, Abraham’s wife, Esther, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and all the fine women of the past. We preserved food, sewed, mended, carved wood, danced, sang (as the angels, not as rock-stars), made and wore lace and linen and wool, told stories.
I finally had to face the raw truth of the woke movement:
THEIR CROWD WAS DOING A BETTER JOB AT PRESERVING FEMININITY THAN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. AND THEY WERE MAKING IT LOOK LIKE FUN.
Certain things are inherently and metaphysically feminine — no matter your chromosome makeup. And to partake in these practices is to purport influence on the shape of the Future Real Woman. Christians aren’t doing a very good job in it — either they are too ugly or too judgmental. The queer crowd sees the hypocrisy - they see the double standard of “cross dressing”, of everyone fighting over “what it means to be a woman” and somehow they are doing it a little better than us6.
They may be god-less, but they aren’t two faced. They aren’t telling women, “It is your duty to be sexy for your husband — so apply that makeup, shave your legs, and put on that mini skirt with the kids aren’t around!” Christians are so confused about what it means to be a woman — it is either something you hide or that you flaunt in a debased manner. Either you wear a floral-print sack and you speak demurely, or you pull up those skinny jeans and put on some mascara and sport string of profanities.
Christian, even conservative, women will argue that external femininity does not matter. The mainstream conservative woman, much like the secular liberal woman, will often claim that you can’t define what a woman is outside of sex. There are many different flavors of femininity (just as the opposing side says there are many genders). Being a woman is a combination of preferences and choices, most Christian women say. “All that matters is what is in my heart.”
And although they remain offended at the sight of a trans woman in a dress, Christian women will continue to wear leggings and sweat pants and ripped jeans. While their liberal vegan friends are doing the “traditional” by preparing home-made meals and baking for their friends, the common Christian woman is buying pre-packaged frozen meals for her children and serving a bag of Cheetos and Little Debbie’s at the family potluck. The wokes are dancing in old barns. The conservatives are droning on for an hour or more to a single Bible verse in an air-conditioned ware-house style church. The trans kids are drinking fresh squeezed lemonade — the Christian mom buys her kids a package of Pepsi’s. And while Christian churches preach about evangelism, it is the woke crowd who is hosting regular get-togethers. Christian women, single and married alike, are too busy or anxious to have any one over unless they’ve put weeks into orchestrating it — odd how the food even then is still rarely home-cooked and the decor is white-washed. Despite the planning, it is usually more bland than the spontaneous invitations I’ve received, “Hey, want to come over this afternoon and help me make a batch of spaghetti sauce?”
The true Christian formula for a real woman, along with faith, is: chromosomes + appearance and aesthetics + attitude and attributes. Any part of that on its own will lead to degeneracy or in-completion.
It is the woke women (and sometimes trans women or cross-dressers) who have hit the nail on the head. They are sweet, non-confrontational, not given to extreme fits of vulgar speech, wearing clothes they made, natural complexions and soft hairy legs, with something other than a fidget spinner or cell phone in their hands — more than likely a shape-note hymnal or a pair of knitting needles. They, unlike Christians, also haven’t bought the lie of commercialized porn — they might occasionally shave or wear makeup, but only because they want to and not because they think the natural woman is gross or fake. 7
I do not claim to have personally mastered this formula in dress, thought, or action. There are many women who are doing a better job at emulating what it means to be a Real Woman in both the secular and the christian worlds. Some of them are kinder than me, or more thoughtful — and more knowledgeable in the ways of selflessness.
This is not a diatribe about how I think all women should be like me — far from it! The point is that we as a Christian community must first relearn what it means to be a true woman — no matter how much it hurts our pride — before we are able to judge the Current Culture for their attempts at redefining femininity.
We might not like seeing men in dresses, however while our churches preach “All are equal under grace” the woke crowds are preserving Traditional Femininity in a way that we aren’t.
Until we remove the log from our eyes8, we are in no place to judge the woke crowd. How can we be a witness to them? Faith alone is words without works, and they are right to remind us of this — our fruit is not sweet to them, but obnoxious tasting. Our roots are just as peculiar9 as the woke crowd, but unlike them, we seem to have forgotten it.
If we can remember what it is to be real, godly women, we might find ourselves becoming a better, more beautiful witness for Truth.
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*face palm* like duh
Matt Walsh is not making this argument. But breaking “What is a Woman” down to ONLY biology leads to this belief.
He says a real man is “courageous”, “adventurous”, “masculine”. XY chromosomes are not enough to to make a man a man if he’s disposed to being a weak-minded.
I concede that Matt Walsh is probably at least partially aware that appearances and biology are two sides of the same coin because of his endorsement of modesty here.
Naturally I exclude secular feminists who intentionally wear jeans for cross dressing purposes.
This is not to say that wokes dress beautifully all of the time, just that they are prone to co-splaying like women.
If you have XX chromosomes dress like a beautiful goddess (or daughter of God), not like a man, ok?
For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth - Deuteronomy 14:2. Also found in 1 Peter 2:9.
“We abandoned the spindle for the voting booth and found that we no longer had a place of our own anymore.” What a great line.
I do find it encouraging how there is such a hunger for the Real amidst so much confusion, so much fakery. Real community, real bread, real milk, real dances—which all point toward and participate in Reality. How ironic that many folks feel they must engage in cosplay in order to recover a lost sense of, well, order and beauty. (I remember how beautiful my fellow Rennies became when they switched from T-shirts and jeans into their bodices and doublets.)
I'm reading Owen Barfield right now, and I think one could say that today there's a longing for what he calls “original participation” with reality—we suspect that the world is not simply dead matter or a whirring machine. Dirt is alive. The spheres sing.
Barfield also writes of the old principle of what Lewis described as having one's “insides on the outside”: The understanding of the human soul and its (or her, I should say, hearkening to the medieval understanding of the soul as feminine in relation to God) telos, and masculinity and femininity in particular, will be reflected in our clothing, architecture, and indeed, overall disposition and bearing.
I'm reminded of the encouragement I found years and years ago reading Rod Dreher's 'Crunchy Cons'—I was introduced to so much good stuff therein, including Eric Brende's work. I'm also always encouraged by my family, wherein I know courageous, competent men who are true husbandmen, and women who love sewing dresses for their daughters, making raw milk cheese and kefir, letting their children ride horses in the woods, and hosting all-are-welcome meals and psalm sings and barn dances.
Have you read John Senior? I think if he and John Seymour had ever befriended each other they would have shaken things up even more than they did separately.
Thank you!
Near to my area is a local back-to-the-land group that holds potlucks and skillsharing events. And I love to be around the ladies there— they wear their natural hair long, sew dresses and make shoes for their children, and cook food with whole ingredients and meat. They have broad smiles that beam over their entire face, and they are knowledgable about the land, the seasons, history, science, literature. Some of them are Christians, some pagans, some queer. And like you said, they make being a woman look fun.
Unfortunately, the Christian women I know are not all like that. Though the women at my church are mostly kind and feminine, their demeanor makes being a woman look nothing but sacrificial. When I talk to them, toting diaper bags, prepackaged baby snacks, and children named after their father’s side of the family, I’d much rather be a man. At least the men get to smoke cigars and laugh.