USA Today: 'Science Says There's No Simple Answer' to Define a 'Woman'
Left-wing outlet also claims 'gender law scholars' can't define the word
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Left-wing "news" outlet USA Today has been hit with widespread mockery after claiming that "science says there's no simple answer" to define what a "woman" is.
The paper was leaping to the defense of Democrat Joe Biden's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who refused to define the word "woman" during her confirmation hearings this week.
The subject of gender arose during Senate hearings when Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) asked Jackson if she could "provide a definition for the word woman."
The subject came up because the national transgender debate, particularly in women's sports, may eventually reach the highest court.
"Can I provide a definition?" Jackson responded.
"No, I can't," she answered.
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"You can't?" Blackburn replied.
"Not in this context. I'm not a biologist," Jackson told the senator.
A piece published in USA Today on Thursday tackled the subject, running the headline, "Marsha Blackburn asked Ketanji Brown Jackson to define 'woman.' Science says there's no simple answer."
"Scientists, gender law scholars and philosophers of biology said Jackson's response was commendable, though perhaps misleading," USA Today wrote.
"It's useful, they say, that Jackson suggested science could help answer Blackburn's question, but they note that a competent biologist would not be able to offer a definitive answer either.
"Scientists agree there is no sufficient way to clearly define what makes someone a woman, and with billions of women on the planet, there is much variation."
"While traditional notions of sex and gender suggest a simple binary – if you are born with a penis, you are male and identify as a man and if you are born with a vagina, you are female and identify as a woman – the reality, gender experts say, is more complex," USA Today told readers.
The paper quoted Barnard College gender studies scholar Rebecca Jordan-Young, who praised Jackson's "pretty good answer" for stressing that "context matters" when it comes to disputes the nominee may rule on.
"There isn't one single 'biological' answer to the definition of a woman," Jordan-Young said.
"There's not even a singular biological answer to the question of 'what is a female,'" Jordan-Young added, pointing to at least six "biological markers" of sex in the body, which include "genitals, chromosomes, gonads, internal reproductive structures, hormone ratios, and secondary sex characteristics."
Harvard scholar and "philosopher of biology" Sarah Richardson told USA Today "science cannot settle what are really social questions."
Meanwhile, UCLA gender studies professor Juliet Williams indicated that the debate of what defines a woman is decades old, citing how black women weren't always "welcomed" in the category.
"For example, while the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote, for decades many black women were excluded from exercising it," USA Today wrote.
"During Jim Crow, there would be bathrooms labeled ‘men,’ ‘women’ and 'colored.'
"The longstanding view of white supremacy denied recognition as women to black women and women of color."
Wheaton College gender studies professor Kate Mason swiped Blackburn, telling USA Today she "would prefer a world in which reality was much simpler."
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Critics mocked the USA Today report on social media.
NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck called the report "truly insane," tweeting, "This isn't a column, editorial, guest op-ed, or even one of those you might see labeled as 'analysis.'
"This is a news article from USA Today's 'Health & Wellness' section."
"There is no sufficient way to define what makes someone a woman, of which there are billions," Washington Examiner reporter Jerry Dunleavy joked.
"The 'KBJ’s nomination is a historic first for black women' narrative running concurrent with the ‘what’s a woman anyway?’ narrative is objectively funny," National Journalism Center program director Becket Adams wrote.
