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A review by jamesrawillis
What Is a Woman?: One Man's Journey to Answer the Question of a Generation by Matt Walsh
1.0
While Walsh alleges to set out to "answer the question of a generation," he manages to write 256 pages of content only to answer it through confirmation bias in less than a paragraph near the end of the book. The rest is pretty much a reductive history on the development of gender studies by only talking about Alfred Kinsey and John Money, as described by Dr. Miriam Grossman. The fact that his year long search for a definition of woman was accomplished by talking to two trans person that agreed with Walsh's perspective is laughable.
For someone, like Walsh, to agree with notions of objective truth, to write a whole section on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) as if it were real should inform anyone reading this book of its veracity. ROGD is not a real diagnosis, and the limited data on this has yet to be based on people suffering from this alleged problem, but rather from parents expressing their confusion on their children's development and expressed identity. It's absurd.
Put another way, if, as Walsh states, "transgender doctors aren't exactly the best source on theology," (pg. 18), then I suppose it's safe to say that radio hosts, political commentators, and self described devout Catholics aren't the best source on gender ideology, transgenderism, mental health diagnoses, or what it means to be a woman for that matter. Surely Walsh can appreciate that the logic would cut both ways.
Walsh writes in a very clear and direct way, and the book is easy to follow. This is a pus. But I find his refusal to respect pronouns and the insistent to analogize gender to animalism to be offensive. He is obviously hostile towards trans people throughout the book. In some ways, I would say that the content of the book does not at all align the title, as there is very little discussion on what it really means to be a woman, or how to define a woman, but rather a hostile tirade against what he views as the tyranny of gender ideology and its alleged impact on trying to turn men into women, and women into men, albeit as impossible as it is, to him.
If you are expecting a nuanced assessment, similar to David Gilmore's Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity, well think again, because you will see no deep dive into notions of gender in this book, or any real semblance of discourse on why sex and gender are different, or the same. To him, it's genetics, and that's sufficient to say that these two words mean and refer to the same exact thing. I think I'll take my advice from a professor of anthropology who has actually studied this rather than a conservative talk show host.
There are two takeaways that I think are valid, but achieved in more meaningful ways done elsewhere, and by more qualified people.
First, I think it's worth saying "hey, maybe my five year old should be allowed to explore their identity, whatever that may be, safely before we start throwing medications and diagnoses at them." That's fair, but poorly expressed in this book.
Second, the LGBTQIA+ community has many more nuanced attitudes towards what it means to be any of the aforementioned identities. Simply interviewing two trans people that happens to disagree with what Walsh feels is the normal narrative and then declaring that as objective fact flies directly in the face of that nuance.
If you want to know the answer to the question of the book, what is a woman just skip to page 216 where you can soak up all of the confirmation bias you want.
For someone, like Walsh, to agree with notions of objective truth, to write a whole section on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) as if it were real should inform anyone reading this book of its veracity. ROGD is not a real diagnosis, and the limited data on this has yet to be based on people suffering from this alleged problem, but rather from parents expressing their confusion on their children's development and expressed identity. It's absurd.
Put another way, if, as Walsh states, "transgender doctors aren't exactly the best source on theology," (pg. 18), then I suppose it's safe to say that radio hosts, political commentators, and self described devout Catholics aren't the best source on gender ideology, transgenderism, mental health diagnoses, or what it means to be a woman for that matter. Surely Walsh can appreciate that the logic would cut both ways.
Walsh writes in a very clear and direct way, and the book is easy to follow. This is a pus. But I find his refusal to respect pronouns and the insistent to analogize gender to animalism to be offensive. He is obviously hostile towards trans people throughout the book. In some ways, I would say that the content of the book does not at all align the title, as there is very little discussion on what it really means to be a woman, or how to define a woman, but rather a hostile tirade against what he views as the tyranny of gender ideology and its alleged impact on trying to turn men into women, and women into men, albeit as impossible as it is, to him.
If you are expecting a nuanced assessment, similar to David Gilmore's Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity, well think again, because you will see no deep dive into notions of gender in this book, or any real semblance of discourse on why sex and gender are different, or the same. To him, it's genetics, and that's sufficient to say that these two words mean and refer to the same exact thing. I think I'll take my advice from a professor of anthropology who has actually studied this rather than a conservative talk show host.
There are two takeaways that I think are valid, but achieved in more meaningful ways done elsewhere, and by more qualified people.
First, I think it's worth saying "hey, maybe my five year old should be allowed to explore their identity, whatever that may be, safely before we start throwing medications and diagnoses at them." That's fair, but poorly expressed in this book.
Second, the LGBTQIA+ community has many more nuanced attitudes towards what it means to be any of the aforementioned identities. Simply interviewing two trans people that happens to disagree with what Walsh feels is the normal narrative and then declaring that as objective fact flies directly in the face of that nuance.
If you want to know the answer to the question of the book, what is a woman just skip to page 216 where you can soak up all of the confirmation bias you want.