{"id":109888,"date":"2025-04-16T15:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T21:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=109888"},"modified":"2025-04-16T15:41:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T21:41:38","slug":"on-the-definition-of-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2025\/04\/on-the-definition-of-woman.html","title":{"rendered":"On the definition of “Woman”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"London,<\/a>
A view of London as it appeared prior to the new ruling from the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A horrific judicial decision has just emerged out of the United Kingdom: \u00a0\u201cU.K. Supreme Court issues unanimous ruling on the definition of \u2018woman\u2019: The ruling is a significant development in the country\u2019s ongoing debate over transgender issues.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 If this sort of thing goes much further<\/em>, some people will begin to imagine that reality and biology are real and that words have determinate meaning. \u00a0And to think that such things are happening in the land of Lewis Carroll!<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what you mean by \u2018glory,'\u201d Alice said.<\/p>\n

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. \u201cOf course you don\u2019t\u2014till I tell you. I meant \u2018there\u2019s a nice knock-down argument for you!'\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut glory\u2019 doesn\u2019t mean \u2018a nice knock-down argument,'\u201d Alice objected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I use a word,\u201d Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, \u201cit means just what I choose it to mean\u2014neither more nor less.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is,\u201d said Alice, \u201cwhether you can make words mean so many different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is,\u201d said Humpty Dumpty, \u201cWhich is to be master\u2014that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. \u201cThey\u2019ve a temper, some of them\u2014particularly, verbs, they\u2019re the proudest\u2014adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs\u2014however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That\u2019s what I say!\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Lake<\/a>
Some months ago at Lake Atitl\u00e1n in Guatemala, which some scholars have identified as the Book of Mormon\u2019s \u201cWaters of Mormon.\u201d From left to right: Larry Ainsworth (a member of Interpreter\u2019s board of directors), Brant Gardner (a noted scholar of the Book of Mormon and now an Interpreter editor), Steve Densley (Interpreter\u2019s executive vice president), and an unidentified vagrant who photobombed the scene and then escaped, running maniacally\u00a0and hopping and laughing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Brant A. Gardner<\/a> has begun a new series of blog posts on the immutably unchanging website of the Interpreter Foundation that, I hope, many will find both useful and interesting. \u00a0Today\u2019s installment is \u201cThe Heartland Versus Mesoamerica Part 1: A Foundation for Comparison.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Fortress<\/a>
Build the wall! Let there be walls, and more walls! \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s long overdue that America rid itself of career criminals like Suguru Onda! \u00a0We don\u2019t want his type in our country or our state, and anyway, just like Canada and Denmark, Japan is our enemy. \u00a0Make America great again! \u00a0\u201cBYU grad student has I-20 visa revoked, leaving student, family, unclear\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve shared my view of the matter with Senator John Curtis<\/a>, Senator Mike Lee<\/a>, and my congressman, Representative Mike Kennedy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s face it: \u00a0Government is simply always and everywhere and invariably a force for good, and the more power it has and the more it intervenes in the lives of ordinary people, the better off the world will be. \u00a0Right? \u00a0Consider, for example, this case of a small family bakery in my own adopted hometown of Orem, Utah: \u00a0\u201c\u2018Our last hope\u2019: Family fights to save bakery with community support\u201d<\/a> \u00a0Curiously, I felt an urgent need immediately after reading that article to go out and buy some Argentine food. \u00a0I had a ham and cheese sandwich from La Brioche earlier today and, tonight, we\u2019ll enjoy the empanadas that we bought. \u00a0La Brioche is located at 845 North 100 West, Suite 104, in Orem, and it\u2019s open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 AM to 7 PM.<\/p>\n

\"asdiuhgiya[\"<\/a>
It felt something like this. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>For my sins \u2014 and as a legacy of my misspent southern California youth in and around swimming pools, on beaches, and, hatless, out on road-construction jobs \u2014 I spent some quality time with my dermatologist this morning. \u00a0In the medieval era, we penitents wore hair shirts whenever we weren\u2019t applying whips and cords to our backs. \u00a0Now we use liquid nitrogen (applied in my case by a professional who keeps up a continual patter of chirpy conversation and questions about the Middle East while I fight back tears from the pain). \u00a0But I deserve it. \u00a0Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\"Alt<\/a>
This candid photograph was taken of me just before I headed out this morning for my daily round of mutilating plants and tormenting kittens. \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This blog\u2019s repetitious former resident atheist, who posted here for many years under the moniker of gemli<\/em>, reappeared a couple of nights ago. \u00a0I had \u201cshadow-banned\u201d him because of his absolute refusal, during his last year or two, actually to engage with anything that I or anybody else had written and because of his insistence, instead, on simply repeating his position over and over and over again. \u00a0 Time having dulled my memory of the almost unendurable monotony of gemli\u2019s many daily comments, and because I\u2019m a soft-hearted sap, I decided to give him another chance here. \u00a0I went through the process, as Disqus explains it, of reversing the \u201cshadow ban.\u201d \u00a0I don\u2019t know, however, whether my effort to overturn the \u201cshadow ban\u201d has actually worked. \u00a0Gemli hasn\u2019t attempted to post again and, no matter how many times I\u2019ve followed the instructions, nothing seems to have changed. \u00a0For example, he\u2019s still listed on my control panel as \u201cshadow-banned\u201d or even as, in one place, seemingly neither \u201cshadow-banned\u201d nor not<\/em> \u201cshadow-banned.\u201d \u00a0(Maybe that makes sense to somebody?) \u00a0If gemli decides to try posting here again, I\u2019ll learn whether my attempt to un-ban him has worked.<\/p>\n

In the meanwhile, kindly and reasonably, I myself copied and pasted his recent comments \u2014 unchanged, unedited, and complete \u2014 into my responses to them, so that people here could read what he had written.<\/p>\n

However, over at the fever swamp known as the Peterson Obsession Board \u2014 I\u2019m not making this up! \u2014 gemli is deeply admired for the brilliance and rigor of the arguments he continually posted here prior to his assisted exit. \u00a0And some of his fan club there are now accusing me of having invented those recent comments out of thin air (in, as I understand the theory, a desperate bid to make my blog interesting), of having unethically modified or truncated those recent comments, of having lied about trying but apparently failing to un-ban him, and of just generally being, once again, the irredeemably vile human being that they\u2019ve always known me to be. \u00a0And it all redundantly serves to illustrate my undeviating dishonesty. \u00a0(In a world of continual and sometimes disorienting change, I remain constant! \u00a0I am a rock. \u00a0I am an island.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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