What Is a Woman?

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the need for Justices on the Supreme Court to know how to define woman. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is said to be professionally qualified to become a justice on the Supreme Court. From most accounts, she has many qualifications, but her inability to answer basic questions is questionable.

            Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) asked a basic question when she asked Jackson to “provide a definition of the word ‘woman’.” Judge Jackson was nominated for the Supreme Court because she checked both boxes suggested by President Joe Biden: she is a black woman. Yet, she told Senator Blackburn, “No, I can’t” define woman. To cover her inability by saying, she added, “I’m not a biologist. Well, she is a woman – or she looks and sounds like a woman.

            Admittedly, the request to define a woman is not the normal line of questioning for nominees for the Supreme Court. However, the radicals on the Left are causing confusion about both men and women. Therefore, the question now must be asked.

            Some people wonder why a Supreme Court justice needs to know how to define a woman. Well, there are many laws that are written to give rights to women or to protect them. Title IX is meant to provide a level playing for female athletes – obviously not working (see Lia Thomas). The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution gives women the right to vote. How will Jackson rule on cases that are based on either Title IX or the Nineteenth Amendment if she does not know how to define a woman? Nicole Russell wrote the following about the judge’s questionable answer. 

By refusing to answer the definition of “woman,” Jackson leaves the door open to what she thinks about sex, gender, and controversial cases like Bostock v. Clayton County.

If Jackson knows the definition of “woman” but remains afraid to say so, this is certainly a red flag. In a free country, a Supreme Court nominee should be able to speak the truth without fear of repercussion.

If Jackson is unable or unwilling to define what a woman is in a legal sense, this can pose real problems for future cases she may hear as a sitting Supreme Court justice. How can she know what the law says on sex and gender identity if she cannot define sex? How can she rule in cases on women’s issues or rights when she isn’t sure how to define a woman?

            Russell quoted her “friend” Mollie Hemingway as saying: “If you lack both the common sense and the education to understand what being a woman is – or you’re too terrified of your political allies to admit you do know – perhaps you should not have a job that affects other people in any substantial way.”

            Continuing, Russell wrote that the inability to define “woman” or “man” or “male” or “female” has consequences. If these words cannot be defined, it “leaves multiple expressions to be codified into law that would create loopholes for predators to abuse women and children.” It “leaves the vulnerable in society even more vulnerable when it comes to interpretations of the law.”

To make matters worse, it’s hard to overestimate how hypocritical this entire charade is when President Joe Biden himself promised to nominate specifically a black female for this role – white males had no chance – and then Jackson treats the issue like it’s a great mystery, too complex even for her.

            Russell was tempted to say that Jackson’s non-answer could be “political grandstanding or Jackson’s answer to cleverness.” She did not and she told her readers to avoid doing it. “Jackson purposefully played a game of semantics with an issue that has torn apart tenets of law, families, sports, and education. As a woman, she should know this.”

            I agree with Russell in saying that Jackson declined to the answer the question on purpose. If she would have defined woman, she would have been in trouble with the Far-Left radicals and black women. Jackson is a radical who is also a judicial activist.