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# The semantic adventures of "woman"

Ann Coady

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Ann Coady. The semantic adventures of "woman". Lexis. Journal in English Lexicology, 2025, Gender and the lexicon, 25, 10.4000/14i19. hal-05224872

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# The semantic adventures of woman

Ann Coady

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# The semantic adventures of woman

Ann Coady

## Introduction

<footnote n="1">1 What does woman mean? The simplicity of the question belies the complexity of the answer. If dictionary definitions are an accurate description of usage, then until very recently, most speakers would probably have answered something like “adult human female”. However, feminist theorist Monique Wittig famously declared that lesbians were not women (cited in Hale [1996: 94]), philosopher Sally Haslanger has argued for a view of woman that excludes females who are not subordinated because of their sex (Haslanger [2000: 45–46]), and the debate about the status of trans women as women is currently particularly heated.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 This article examines the semantics of the word woman and why it is such a contested term today, exploring “some of the mechanisms through which the shaping and reshaping of word meanings emerge as part and parcel of the shaping and reshaping of social and political practices” (McConnell-Ginet [2002: 149]). In other words, as our social and political practices change, so does the semantics of woman. The word woman has been a central and stable concern for feminist linguists for decades. Yet today, the semantics of woman has become the focus of current debates around trans and non-binary identities and seems to crystallise political tensions between different groups.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3 From an etymological perspective woman, means adult human female and is composed of wif (woman) and man (human). What is interesting here is the premodification of man with wif, implying that it was only necessary to specify sex for women and thus that men were seen as default human beings. In the 1960s and 70s, premodification of words with woman, lady and female (e.g. woman architect, lady doctor, female president) was something that 2nd wave feminists criticised as demeaning, implying that, for example, a woman architect was, in some negative way, not a “normal” architect. Today, the premodification of woman with trans and cis (trans woman, cis woman) has also been added to the equation. Both terms have generated considerable controversy over the past few years. In the case of trans woman, many have asked whether trans women are</footnote>
"real" women or whether they are women at all. And in the case of cis woman, in a survey that a colleague and I carried out recently (Coady & Sorlin [forthcoming]), many women vehemently rejected cis, declaring that it was underpinned by a conception of gender that they did not agree with.

4. The semantics of woman is also necessarily underpinned by a certain conceptualisation of sex and gender. For many speakers, gender and sex are synonymous, or at least inextricably linked. From this perspective a woman is simply an adult human female. But for many others, gender is seen as a social role or as an innate feeling, i.e. someone may have XY chromosomes, male primary and secondary sex characteristics, but if they identify and live as a woman, they are a woman. This conceptualisation of gender is then reflected onto language and the semantics of the term woman. For these speakers, woman can mean adult human female, but it is not a necessary condition. From this perspective, what is necessary to be a woman is to be someone who identifies as a woman or someone who occupies a particular kind of social position. What woman means is far from simply a philosophical debate. How woman is defined can have very real consequences. For instance, in November 2024 a case came before the UK Supreme Court over what essentially amounts to a terminological dispute over the definition of woman and female. After six months of deliberation, the Court delivered its verdict in April 2025: "The meaning of the terms "sex", "man" and "woman" in the EA [Equality Act] 2010 is biological and not certificated sex" (Supreme Court [2025]). In other words, "[a] person with a GRC [Gender Recognition Certificate] in the female gender does not come within the definition of "woman" for the purposes of sex discrimination in section 11 of the EA 2010" (Supreme Court [2025]).

5. What does semantics have to say about what woman means? Traditional truth-based semantic approaches have often used woman as a basic example in how componential analysis works: a woman has the following three necessary conditions: [+HUMAN] [+ADULT] [-MALE]) (Leech [1974: 96]). But this does not provide a satisfactory explanation about how speakers are currently using woman to refer to trans women, or explain Wittig's declaration that lesbians were not women. I argue that despite its shortcomings, prototype theory is currently the best semantics theory we have to explain the sometimes contradictory uses of woman. This is essentially because prototype theory allows a certain leeway so that members of a category (e.g. women) only have to fulfil some, but not all, of the conditions (e.g. having XX chromosomes, or looking, acting and dressing in a particular way) in order to be classed as a member. Componential analysis, on the other hand, has a strict set of necessary conditions that a person must have in order to be classed as a woman (i.e. being an adult human female). These conditions, however, do not always correspond to how woman is currently being used.

6. I take a descriptive approach in that I do not offer suggestions as to what I personally think woman should mean, but rather focus on how various speakers use it and think it should be used. My perspective is descriptive but also critical in that I see current disagreements over what woman should mean as a struggle over language as well as a struggle that takes place in language. Semantics is thus clearly political. Having or claiming the authority to define "correct" or "legitimate" meanings is fundamentally ideological. As Fairclough notes, what is at stake "is more than 'mere words'; it is controlling the contours of the political world, it is legitimizing policy, and it is sustaining power relations" (Fairclough [2015: 112]). Thus, I take the view that woman is
currently a site of struggle that offers an insight into both past and current concerns in
feminist linguistics.

# 1. Corpus

7 The examples of how *woman* is currently being used, or how speakers think it *should* be used, are taken from the following sources:

* Dictionaries definitions: *Oxford English Dictionary* (Oxford English Dictionary [2024]), *Cambridge Dictionary* Cambridge Dictionary [n.d.] and *Merriam-Webster* (Merriam Webster Dictionary [n.d.])

* Newspaper style guides: *Guardian* and *Observer* style guide (Guardian [2022])

* Online surveys: A 2021 YouGov US survey (YouGov [2021]), a 2022 YouGov UK survey (YouGov [2022]) and a 2024 online survey carried out by my colleague and I (see Coady & Sorlin [forthcoming] for an analysis of the results and the annex for the questionnaire).

* Corpus of News on the Web (NOW) (Davies [2016])

* Semantics text books: Leech [1974] and Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014]

* Philosophy articles: Byrne [2020], Fox [2011], Hale [1996], Haslanger [2000], Mikkola [2024] and Spelman [1988]

* Scientific definitions: The World Health Organisation (WHO) (World Health Organisation [n.d.] and Fausto-Sterling [2000])

* Quotes from public figures: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Channel 4 [2017]; Smith [2017] and organisations For Women Scotland [2022] and campaigners (in Cameron [2019]).

# 2. Etymology: Woman as a premodified man

8 The etymology of *woman* can be traced back to the combination of two Old English (OE) words: *wif* and *man*. Wif referred to women / adult female humans¹ and man was a generic word to refer to people of any sex. Woman was formed by combining *wif* and man to create *wifman*, which, in etymological terms, means “woman / adult female human”. Men, on the other hand, were referred to as *wer* (which is cognate with the Latin *vir*). Over time speakers began to use man to refer specifically to adult male humans, rather than in its original generic sense and *wer* eventually disappeared, only surviving in *werewolf* (Curzan [2003: 160]). Through the repeated use of man to refer to adult males, the functional weight of the word slowly changed and the primary meaning of man became “adult male human”. What is interesting about this development is that speakers thought it necessary to premodify man with *wif* to specify female sex, but not necessary to specify male sex by premodifying man with *wer* (there is no attested use of *werman* in OE), implying that females were seen a special category of humans, not quite fitting into the prototype of what it meant to be fully human, i.e. male. This can be linked to the use of woman itself as a premodifier, such as woman doctor, which could be seen to imply some kind of deviance from the norm.

# 3. Premodification

9 Asymmetrical gender marking, for example using *woman* or *lady* as a premodifier of nouns such as *doctor* or *president* was a main focus for 2nd wave feminist linguists as
these premodifiers were often seen as unnecessarily specifying gender in contexts where gender should not be relevant, often highlighting the incongruity of a woman being a doctor or a president. Most style guides today caution against using premodifiers to specify gender unless it is relevant. In cases where gender is deemed relevant, the *Guardian* and *Observer* style guide, for example, advises using *female* as premodifier, not *woman*:

> woman, women: are nouns, not adjectives, so say female president, female MPs etc. rather than "woman president", "women MPs". An easy way to check is to try using man instead of woman eg "man president", "men MPs" — if it doesn't work for men, it doesn't work for women. (Guardian [2022])

> female: not "woman" or "women" in such phrases as female home secretary, female voters. (Guardian [2021])

Interestingly, the style guide gives no entry for *lady* as a premodifier. The only examples are *Lady* as an honorific (Lady Gaga, Lady Macbeth, Lady Thatcher), implying that cautioning against using *lady* to modify *doctor*, for example, is no longer even thought of as necessary.

10. In some cases, of course, specifying the gender of the person in question is relevant. When the iconic architect Zaha Hadid died in 2016, she was variously described online as a *female architect*, a *woman architect*, or simply as an *architect*. Whereas some (e.g. Bukowski 2016) considered that referring to her as a *female architect* minimised her achievements as they were only to be seen as great when compared to other female architects, others (e.g. Miranda 2016) argued that highlighting her gender was very relevant as it demonstrated that her achievements were all the more impressive in a field heavily dominated by men (see Cameron 2016 for a fuller discussion).

11. Similar debates exist in relation to premodifying *trans* with *man* or *woman*. During a 2017 interview, author and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was asked if she thought that trans women were “real women”. Adichie replied, “my feeling is trans women are trans women [...] I don’t think it’s a good thing to talk about women’s issues being exactly the same as the issues of trans women” (Channel 4 [2017]). This comment sparked anger from some groups, who considered that Adichie was implying that trans women were not “real women” and that her comments were transphobic. She responded by condemning “a ‘language orthodoxy’ on the political left” and clarified that “of course they are women but in talking about feminism and gender and all of that, it’s important for us to acknowledge the differences in experience of gender. That’s really what my point is” Adichie cited in Smith [2017]. A 2022 survey carried out in the UK (YouGov [2022]) asked the same question. In response to the statement “a trans woman is a woman”, 40% disagreed and 38% agreed. Similar figures were found in a survey carried out in the USA in 2021 (YouGov [2021]) in which 46% of people disagreed with the same statement and 37% agreed. This, of course, does not show how people are actually using the word *woman*. Those who disagreed may, in fact, refer to a particular person as a woman because they assume that she is a cis woman, but she may in fact be trans.

12. As with *female architect*, sometimes there are cases in which adding a premodifier is thought to be necessary and is not intended as discriminatory. For instance, a 2017 study by Lal Zimman [2017b] on trans men showed that there was a division between the participants regarding the premodification of *man* with *trans*: There were those who “saw themselves as simply men, no different from cisgender men, and those who felt that trans man is a distinctive gender category with important differences from the
unmarked cis male category [...]" (Zimman [2017b: 1001]). Those who saw themselves as simply men, did not describe themselves with the premodifier *trans*, whereas the others did, which is presumably the same for trans women.

13 The premodifier *cis* has created similar tensions with many people rejecting the label. In an online survey that I carried out with a colleague (see Coady & Sorlin [forthcoming] for an analysis of the results and the annex for the questionnaire), we asked the respondents to tick the label that best currently described them. The options were:

* **Cis woman** (you were assigned female at birth and you identify as a woman)

* **Cis man** (you were assigned male at birth and you identify as a man)

* **Trans woman** (you were assigned female at birth and you identify as a man)

* **Trans woman** (you were assigned female at birth and you identify as a man)

* **Queer / nonbinary** (you do not feel comfortable describing yourself with binary gender labels)

* **Gender nonconforming** (e.g. you usually act or dress in a way which does not conform to traditional gender stereotypes)

* **Other**

14 Out of the 806 respondents, 5% either refused the label *cis* or ticked it but commented that it was problematic for them. Below are some examples of the comments given by those who rejected the premodifier *cis*:

> Woman — I don't need a prefix or qualifier before that. All options above register as tacit acceptance of an ideology to which I do not subscribe.

> Woman. Not "cis". Human adult female. I am astonished that the identity of the overwhelming majority is not included in your list

> I would have ticked the first box [cis woman] but I object to the use of the phrase "assigned wo/man" at birth when what we are referring to is a biological reality not a question of ticketing people.

> Female — no need for the ‘cis’ as many find this offensive. Female means biological girl or woman.

15 For these respondents the premodifier *cis* is unnecessary and potentially offensive. For them, *woman* means *adult human female* and does not include people who might live and identify as women but who are not female. This demonstrates that the way speakers use *woman*, in this case whether and how they premodify it, is necessarily underpinned by a certain conceptualisation of sex and gender. The participants above reject *cis* because in their worldview, there is a direct correspondance between being a female and being a woman. For these respondents, gender and sex are synonymous, or at least inextricably linked. For them, ticking *cis* would mean endorsing a view of sex and gender that they do not agree with. The comments from our survey exemplify just how contested the definition of *woman* word has become.

## 4. Contested legal definitions

16 The debate over the meaning of *woman* is very clearly not just a philosophical or terminological argument, but a struggle to control the contours of the political world. Depending on how we define *woman*, policies and protections for certain groups will be different. As mentioned in the introduction, in November 2024, the UK Supreme Court heard a case brought by the group For Women Scotland in what essentially amounted
to a dispute over the definition of *woman* and *female* (Supreme Court [2025]). For Women Scotland challenged the Scottish government over statutory guidance that they had issued recognising that trans people with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) were legally defined as the sex they identify with for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. For Women Scotland challenged this definition and the case went all the way to the UK Supreme Court. The Court delivered its decision in April 2025: *woman* means *adult human female* and does not include trans women. This means that the Equality Act protects trans people from discrimination based on gender reassignment but not against discrimination on the grounds of sex. A trans woman cannot, for example pursue an equal pay claim as a woman as this discrimination is based on sex. In addition, some single-sex services can legally exclude trans people "if they can show this is a 'limited provision' which is 'a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim'" (Sim [2024]) (e.g. in a women-only hospital ward or a women's refuge). For Women Scotland argued that including trans women in the legal definition of *woman* would make it much more difficult to exclude trans women with a GRC from women-only spaces (For Women Scotland [2022]).

17

The root of this case originated in 2018 when the then Conservative UK government organised a public consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and specifically how the government “might make the existing process under the Gender Recognition Act a better service for those trans and non-binary people who wish to use it”². One proposed change in the law was to allow individuals to be legally recognised as men or women on the basis of self-identification rather than having to get a GRC. In response, a group of feminists put up a billboard with a dictionary definition of *woman*: “Woman. Noun. Adult female human”. Some trans groups criticised this as transphobic and the billboard was taken down. Cameron notes that,

> while the campaigners' response ('how can it be offensive to quote the dictionary?')
> was disingenuous — they must have known that what offended their critics was not
> the quotation but the political statement they were using it to make — to many
> onlookers it did seem extraordinary that feminists could be threatened with
> prosecution for expressing the belief that only female humans can be women.
> (Cameron [2019])

18

How to define *woman* and *female* has become so heated because members of both groups see it as a threat: some cis women see it as a threat to the protections that they have fought hard to gain and some trans women see it as a threat to their very identity. How these words are defined, who is included or excluded from them, has very real consequences for all parties concerned.

## 5. Circular dictionary definitions

19

As we have just seen, dictionary definitions have a certain authority when it comes to deciding what words means and whether a particular meaning is classed as legitimate. They can also reveal the underlying “subsurface tremors [of political history]” (Geertz [2000: 234 cited in Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 2]). A 2020 controversy over some of the synonyms and example sentences for the word *woman* in the OED illustrates how these subsurface tremors can bubble up in dictionaries. The OED had synonyms for *woman* that included *bitch*, *besom*, *piece*, *bit*, *mare*, *baggage*, *wench*, *petticoat*, *frail*, *bird*, *bint*, *biddy*, and *filly*, and example sentences such as:
Ms September will embody the professional, intelligent yet sexy career woman
If that does not work, they can become women of the streets
male fisherfolk who take their catch home for the little woman to gut
I told you to be home when I get home, little woman
(Oxford English Dictionary [2024])

20

After tens of thousands of people signed an online petition³ to highlight the negative way that women were represented through the OED's choice of synonyms and example sentences, the dictionary revised its entry for *woman*. The petition also called for expanded definitions of woman to include examples of lesbians and trans women. Lexicographers use large corpora to find examples of a particular word in context and although they aim to give a description of actual usage, rather than dictate how language should be used, the choice of example sentences and the final definition still come down to a subjective judgement, illustrating the very fine line between descriptive and prescriptive linguistics. Indeed, dictionaries do not simply reflect usage; they influence it in a cycle of description and indirect prescription. Cameron notes how "it is striking that among present-day users of English the most revered authorities are those that claim most unequivocally to be 'descriptive', and therefore disinterested (the most obvious example is *The Oxford English Dictionary*, which is usually taken to settle any argument about the existence, meaning and spelling of English words)" (Cameron [1995: 7–8]).

21

According to Merriam Webster, “Woman has retained its original meaning, which is now almost 1400 years old: ‘an adult female human being’” (Merriam Webster Dictionary [n.d.]). *Oxford English Dictionary* (OED) (Oxford English Dictionary [2024]) and *Cambridge Dictionary* (Cambridge Dictionary [n.d.]) also have the same primary definition for *woman*. However, when we look at these primary definitions in more detail, we encounter circular explanations like the following:

*Woman*= an adult female⁴ human being
Female (noun / adj) = a woman or a girl; the sex which may bear offspring, being one of the two main categories of sex into which humans and many other living things are divided, distinguished by the production at maturity of gametes (egg cells) that may be fertilised by male gametes (sperm cells).

22

Not without some controversy, all three dictionaries have recently expanded their definition of *woman* and / or *female* in order to include trans women. In 2022, Cambridge expanded its definition of *woman* to include “an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth” (Cambridge Dictionary [n.d.]). Also in 2022, Merriam Webster expanded its definition of *female* to include “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male” (Merriam Webster Dictionary [n.d.]). And in 2024 OED updated its definition of *female* to include “the gender or (in later use) gender identity associated with this sex” (Oxford English Dictionary [2024]). It is important to highlight that we are dealing with semantic broadening here. These definitions have been *added* to the various meanings of *woman* and *female*, they have not replaced the primary definition of *adult human female* / *being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs*. These expanded definitions demonstrate how words are shaped and reshaped as society itself is shaped and reshaped. In spite of these expanded meanings, we are still left with a circular definition:

* A **woman**= an adult female human / someone who lives and identifies as an adult female human
* An **adult female human** / someone who lives and identifies as an adult female human= a woman

23 All the dictionary definitions of *female* above mention biology and specifically *typically* having the capacity to bear young or produce eggs. The word *typically* here is important, as for various reasons, many women do not produce eggs and / or cannot get pregnant yet they are still classed as female.

## 6. Biological definitions

24 The World Health Organisation defines sex as “the biological characteristics that define humans as female or male. While these sets of biological characteristics are not mutually exclusive, as there are individuals who possess both, they tend to differentiate humans as males and females” (World Health Organisation n.d.). These characteristics include anatomy, physiology, genetics, and hormones and are usually determined by chromosomes: some people have XY chromosomes and some have XX chromosomes. These chromosomes determine how the embryo will develop: those with XX usually develop into people with a uterus and ovaries, i.e. typically females. Those with XY usually develop into people with a penis and testicles, i.e. typically males.

25 Nonetheless, two things should be taken into account here. Firstly, there are many cases where it is not clear which category to put someone in. As our knowledge of science improves, not only the biological binary of male and female, but also the way we define these categories are being seriously challenged (Fausto-Sterling [2000: 78-114]). It is becoming increasingly difficult to draw a clear line which neatly separates the human population into two sexes. In which category do we put people who have XY chromosomes, but who look like females and have functional female genitalia and structures including a vagina, uterus and fallopian tubes (Swyer syndrome)? How do we class people with XX chromosomes, but who have what looks like a small penis, facial hair, a deep voice after puberty, excessive levels of testosterone, but also a uterus and fallopian tubes (congenital adrenal hyperplasia)? And which category is suitable for people with XXY chromosomes (Klinefelter Syndrome)? Estimates for people with disorders of sexual development (DSD) range between 1.7% and 0.018% of the population⁵. This discrepancy is, rather ironically, due to disagreements over the fundamental definition of *DSD* and *intersex*. Although most people's bodies fall unambiguously into the categories *male* or *female*, science has demonstrated that a significant number of people simply do not fit into this binary.

26 Secondly, in daily life, when we judge whether someone is male or female, we do so based on their appearance, for example body shape, facial hair, voice, clothes, and hairstyle. We generally do not have direct knowledge of a person's chromosomes. Even in a medical context, when midwives declare the sex of a child at birth, it is based on a quick glance at the baby's genitals, not through a chromosome test. Thus, although secondary sex characteristics such as body shape, facial hair, and voice are usually the result of having certain chromosomes, we must remember that we generally judge people's sex through the filter of secondary sex characteristics and social gender (e.g. clothes and hair style), not directly through knowledge of their chromosomes. In addition, when trans people take hormones, or have surgery, the changes in their
bodies can be quite significant (see Zimman 2014 for an interesting discussion about the sex / gender distinction).

27

I would like to stress here that I am not claiming that biological differences do not exist and are not important. I think they do exist and they are sometimes very important: Criado Perez [2019] notes, among many other examples, that males and females do not react in the same way to medication, that 80% of people with autoimmune diseases are female, and females have more severe adverse reactions to vaccines than males. The point I want to make is that defining sex is not as easy as we once thought, at least not if we require necessary conditions. What would these necessary conditions be – chromosomes, genitals, secondary physical characteristics? If so which ones? In addition, scientific definitions, like all definitions, are not neutral: “[E]mphasizing different definitional attributes (hormones versus chromosomes, for example) for defining and categorizing woman and men, females and males, involves a *choice* of what values, interests, and purposes we see our definitions advancing” (Schiappa [2022: 25]).

28

Now that we have examined the basic legal, dictionary and biological definitions of *woman* and *female*, we will turn to how different semantic theories have dealt with the issue.

## 7. Semantic theories

29

Hollmann [2018: 526–527] divides the history of the study of semantics in linguistics into roughly two stages:

* an objectivist or truth-conditional theory of semantics, in which words are connected in some objective way to the real world. A word is made up of semantic components and in order for the word to be used in a truthful way, it must satisfy all of the necessary conditions. For instance, according to this approach, in order to be a woman, the person must satisfy three conditions: be a human, an adult and a female.

* a cognitive approach, in which speakers have an idea of what a prototypical woman is. On the basis of this prototypical or central member of the category *woman*, a speaker will judge how close someone is and decide whether they can be a member of this category or not. Members of a category only have to satisfy *some* but not all conditions to be included, so for some people a woman does not have to be female if she satisfies certain other conditions.

## 8. An objectivist or truth-conditional theory of semantics: Componential Analysis

30

Componential analysis identifies “objective” semantic features on the basis of binary oppositions, for example a woman is not a man, a male is not a female. In classical denotational approaches such as componential analysis, definitions are based on satisfying all the necessary conditions. For instance, many older linguistics textbooks use the words *woman*, *man*, *girl* and *boy* as standard examples of how to do componential analysis.

* *man* : +human +adult +male

* *woman* : +human +adult -male

* *boy* : +human -adult +male
• girl: +human -adult -male (Leech [1974: 96])

31 In order to be a woman, all three of the above conditions must be satisfied: if you are not a human, you are not a woman; if you are not an adult, you are not a woman; and if you are a male, you are not a woman⁶. Although more recent text books still use examples involving the components of [MALE] and [FEMALE], they are more nuanced. For instance, Cruse [2000: 254] notes that the above analysis has been criticised on the grounds that the examples are not parallel: the transition from *girl* to *woman* is much later than that for *boy* to *man* with *girl* often being used to refer to females who are decades into adulthood. He also concedes that there are grey areas that componential analysis tends to gloss over: “For instance, neither male nor female is not logically anomalous, even for an individual belonging to a normally gendered species, given the possibility of various developmental or genetic abnormalities and so forth” (Cruse [2000: 169]).

32 Other criticisms of the objectivist approach highlight its inability to explain how we are able to produce and make sense of examples such as the following Tweet during the World Cup 2014 quarter final between Holland and Costa Rica: "#Robben is a girl!! too much crying!" (cited in Hollmann [2018: 526]). Arjen Robben is an adult cis gender male football player so this Tweet is not meant to be understood literally, and yet speakers of English easily understand what is meant, i.e. that crying, especially in public, is not compatible with being a man.

33 Finally, scholars have found fault with this approach from an intercultural perspective. Goddard and Wierzbicka note that in some languages, there are no words for *male* and *female* and yet scholars have assumed that “the concepts behind the words man, woman, boy, and girl depend on the concepts of male and female, and these concepts (it is assumed) are universal, whether or not they are lexicalized in a particular language” (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 25]). An objectivist approach tends to presume a universal perspective on language and cognition, which is in fact based on a Western view.

# 9. Cognitive approaches: Natural semantic metalanguage and prototype theory

34 Cognitive approaches, such as Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and prototype theoretical semantics, developed in reaction to objectivist or truth-based approaches. For cognitive linguists, “meaning is first and foremost a conceptual phenomenon, albeit with social and cultural underpinnings” (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 39]). There can be no objective view from this perspective as everything is filtered through our human cognitive system.

## 9.1. Natural semantic metalanguage

35 NSM aligns in some ways with a classical denotational approach and in others with a prototype approach. It is similar to the objectivist position in that it requires necessary and sufficient conditions. On the other hand, following a prototype theoretical position, it acknowledges that many of these conditions are subjective and “reflect the inherent
subjectivity and anthropocentrism of ordinary language" (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 39]).

36 According to NSM, there exist "semantic primitives" or "primes", of which 65 have been identified so far (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 12]). They are the basic semantic building blocks that exist universally in all cultures. Semantic primes are the result of "the breaking down of complex meanings into configurations of progressively simpler meanings" (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 28]). Semantic primes thus cannot be broken down into smaller component parts. Goddard and Wierzbicka argue that *men*, *women* and *children* "appear to be strong candidates for universally lexicalized meanings" (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 47]) with equivalents in all the languages they studied. On the other hand, *male* and *female* are not classed as a lexico-semantic universals as many languages do not have an exact equivalent of *male* and *female* (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 49]). Thus, *men*, *women* and *children* are proposed as universal semantic molecules, which are complex semantic units that can be decomposed into semantic primes (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 17–18]). In the following definition of *woman*, the semantic primes are in bold and the semantic molecules are followed by [m].

37 In NSM *women* [m] are defined as:

a. **people of one kind**

b. **people of this kind are not children** [m]

c. **people of this kind have bodies of one kind**

d. **the bodies of people of this kind are like this:**

e. **inside the body of someone of this kind there can be for some time a living body of a child** [m] (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 37])

38 Goddard and Wierzbicka stress that this definition "in no way implies that an individual woman who cannot have children is not a *woman*. The claim is rather that to say that someone is a *woman* is to say something "generic" about this person: that she is someone belonging to the kind of people whose bodies are of the kind that can have children" (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 32]).

39 Following in the steps of the three dictionaries mentioned above, an expansion of the definition of *woman* in NSM is possible if we follow the same logic that Goddard and Wierzbicka followed for the definition of *child*. The authors recognise that there are two main senses of the word *child*:

Child1 is (roughly speaking) a stage-of-life term, and its meaning is one of the main concerns of this study.

Child2 is not a stage-of-life term, but rather a relational term, implying 'someone's child'. (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 29])

40 It thus seems reasonable to suggest that two senses for the word *woman* might be able to co-exist without contradiction:

* *Woman*₁ is an adult female human being

* *Woman*₂ is an adult who lives and identifies as an adult female human

41 The definition of *female* given by Goddard and Wierzbicka is very similar to their definition for *woman*, but whereas the definition for *woman* includes a criterion for reproduction, this is surprisingly absent from the definition of *female*. *Females* as in "it's a female dog, chicken, fish, frog, spider, etc." are defined as:

a. **a living thing of one of two kinds**
b. there **are two kinds of many living things because there are two kinds of bodies of many living things, like there are two kinds of people's bodies**

c. women's [m] **bodies are of one of these two kinds**

d. the **body** of this **living thing** is of **this kind** (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 49])

42 Notwithstanding, like the dictionary definitions mentioned above, these definitions also leave us spinning in circles. The definition of *woman* is still *adult female human* and vice versa. Whereas the definitions provided by Goddard and Wierzbicka seem to provide no room for trans women, they do stress that these definitions are “not intended to be a picture of reality. They are intended to be a picture of the conceptualization implicit in the words *women* and *men***” (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 32]). In other words, these definitions are based on our conceptual categories of *woman* and *female* rather than any definitive truth, which from a cognitive linguistic perspective, we do not have direct access to in any case. It would therefore arguably be more accurate to say ‘people of this kind are *perceived* to have bodies of one kind’ as how we tend to categorise people in ordinary day-to-day contexts is based on which category we *perceive* them to belong in, not on any actual biological data.

## 9.2. Prototype theory

43 Prototype theory is based on research carried out by Eleanor Rosch in the field of psychology in the 1970s and is based on Ludwig Wittgenstein's idea of "family resemblance". Wittgenstein famously used the example of games to explain the notion of family ressemblance: card games, board games, ball games, and games like ring-a-ring-a-roses do not share any one essential element that connects them all, rather, they are connected through "a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing" (Wittgenstein [2009 [1953]: 66]). For instance, there may be similarities between game A and B and between game B and C, but no similarities between game A and C, yet they are still members of the same "family".

44 In a series of experiments carried out in the 1970s (Rosch & Lloyd [1978]), Rosch found that English-speakers in the USA agreed that a robin is a better example of a bird than a penguin. She also found that they were quicker to determine the truth of *A robin is a bird* than *A penguin is a bird*. Rosch thus suggested that speakers tend to organise linguistic categories around a prototypical or central member that then radiate out with less prototypical members in the outer circles. A robin, would thus be a central member of the category, whereas a penguin would be a less central member of *birds* (depending on the environement of the speaker — inhabitants of southern Chili, for instance, might see penguins as more central than robins). Members only have to fulfil some, not all, of the conditions in order to be classed as a member (for example, having wings and a beak, but not necessarily being able to fly).

45 Cognitive linguists, such as George Lakoff, later introduced Rosch's insights into linguistics. Semantic categories are "organized around the referents that normal speakers regard as the most characteristic and the properties that they deem important" (Van Olmen & Athanasopoulos [2018: 7-8]). Thus, the fact that for most speakers, *woman* means *adult human female* and that *female* means "the sex which may bear offspring [...] distinguished by the production at maturity of gametes (egg cells) that may be fertilised by male gametes (sperm cells)" (Oxford English Dictionary [2024]), suggests that this biological criterion is deemed to be an important and
necessary condition by most speakers. Contrary to the objectivist approaches above, cognitive approaches take into account speaker and contextual variability: “A woman usually, but not always dresses in a feminine fashion. A woman usually, but not always, has female sex organs. Thus, the concept avoids essentialist determinism, yet acknowledges similarity” (italics in orginal) (Fox [2011: 156]). A protoype approach thus does not exclude non-prototypical members.

46

Cognitive approaches allow more leeway for non-prototypical members who are not necessarily a perfect fit for our Idealized Cognitive Models (ICMs) of sex and gender. According to George Lakoff [1987: 67], ICMs are cognitive structures that allow us to organise our knowledge of the world. On this view, prototype effects are byproducts of ICMs. For instance, the words *male* and *female* are defined within an ICM in which most humans and animals are divided into one of these mutually exclusive categories. ICMs do not, however, always fit the world very precisely as we have seen with the discussion above about people who do not necessarily fit neatly into the categories *male* or *female*.

47

When several ICMs combine, they form a “complex cluster that is psychologically more basic than the models taken individually” (Lakoff [1987: 74]). Lakoff uses the example of *mother* to illustrate how this can happen. The complexities of modern life mean that a simple definition of *mother* as “a woman who has given birth to a child” does not cover the full range of cases in which *mother* is applicable. According to Lakoff, *mother* thus has at least five ICMs:

the “birth model” (your mother is the woman who gave birth to you);

the “genetic model” (your mother is the woman you inherited 50% of your DNA from whether she gave birth to you or whether the egg was donated);

the “nurturance model” (your mother is the woman who brought you up, whether she is your biological mother or your adoptive mother);

the “marital model” (your mother is the woman married to your father); and

the “genealogical model” (your closest female ancestor is your mother) (Lakoff [1987: 74]).

48

For many people, all of these models combine, resulting in a prototypical mother, but this is far from universal. Lakoff points out that,

when the cluster of models that jointly characterize a concept diverge, there is still a strong pull to view one as the most important. This is reflected in the institution of dictionaries. Each dictionary, by historical convention, must list a primary meaning when a word has more than one. Not surprisingly, the human beings who write dictionaries vary in their choices. (Lakoff [1987: 75])

49

This “strong pull to view one as the most important” is exactly what we are witnessing today with the debate around what it means to be a “real” woman. Goddard and Wierzbicka searched an online corpus in 2008 and found that the frequency of *real man* was 1.6 times higher than *real woman* (30 occurrences versus 19) (Goddard & Wierzbicka [2014: 41]). I found the same tendency in various corpora⁷ in January 2025:

• 5198 hits for *real man* vs 1906 for *real woman* in News On the Web (NOW⁸) (Davies [2016])

• 4938 hits for *real man* vs 1822 hits for *real woman* in the Corpus Of Contemporary American English (COCA) (Davies [2008])

• 1056 hits for *real man* vs 406 hits for *real woman* in iWeb (Davies [2018])

50

A random sample of the two collocations from the NOW corpus (Davies [2016]) reveals that most of the occurrences of *real woman* refer to a physical woman, as opposed to a fictional character, plastic doll or robot (lines 1, 3, 6 and 8-10 in the table below). On the
states that none of the 13 characteristics are necessary or sufficient conditions, although Cruse [2000: 135] notes that “there is nothing in principle to prevent some features being necessary”. Hale clusters the 13 characteristics into five groups (which I have given subtitles to for purposes of clarity), that are all weighted differently (Hale [1996: 107–113]). I have kept the characteristics and clusters in the same order as Hale, but it is important to point out that they are not in order of weight (in order of weight it would be clusters 1, 4, 2, 3 and 5).

Cluster 1: Sex characteristics (“more heavily weighted than any of the other defining characteristics”) (Hale [1996: 107]):

Absence of a penis

Presence of breasts

Presence of reproductive organs (uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes)

Presence of oestrogen and progesterone within a certain range

Presence of XX, or perhaps absence of Y, chromosomes

Cluster 2: Gender identity (“less heavily weighted”) (Hale [1996: 109])

Having a gender identity as a woman (i.e. if you feel yourself to be a woman, then you are a woman)

Cluster 3: Gender roles (no mention of weight)

Having an occupation considered to be acceptable for a woman

Engaging in leisure pursuits considered to be acceptable for a woman

Having a heterosexual relationship with a man [...] and not later renouncing one's status as heterosexual

Cluster 4: Gender performance (“very heavily weighted”) (Hale [1996: 109])

Having physical gender self-presentation as a woman (e.g. clothes, jewellery, cosmetics, hairstyle, overall body morphology and size and vocal characteristics)

Behaving as a woman (e.g. posture, facial expressions, manners, decorum, etiquette and styles of verbal expression)

Giving textual cues that you are a woman (e.g. your birth certificate, driver's licence, passport, etc. bear the designation 'F' for female, and you use only feminine pronouns to refer to yourself)

If 10-12 are done in such a way that the people you interact with think you are a woman and do not question this, then you are a woman.

Cluster 5: (no mention of weight)

Having a history consistent with the gender assignment “woman” as produced by (10)-(12) which provides an unbroken line of descent from female infancy through girlhood to womanhood.

54

According to this definition then, a central or prototypical member of the category *woman* is a person for whom all 13 characteristics are present, and a non-central member would have fewer. Hale states that the weighting system is based on dominant cultural definitions, but these dominant cultural definitions seem to be based on Hale's intuition rather than the result of empirical testing (see Cruse [2000: 133-134] for examples of experiments done in the field of psychology on prototype theory). In addition, even if experiments proved Hale's intuition to be right (i.e. most speakers agree with the list and weighting), the weight given to characteristics would also depend on the individual and on the discursive context. Trans women are probably more likely to give more weight to characteristics 6 and 10-12 than cis people. But in a medical context, they might give less weight to these characteristics and more to 1-5. Van Olmen and Athanasopoulos note that “more research is needed to find out why certain properties are important to speakers and others are not” and that “it is not enough to just make a list of the properties in which members of a category are (dis)similar. Some undoubtedly carry more weight than others” (Van Olmen & Athanasopoulos [2018]).
55

The fact that these characteristics and the weight they carry can change from speaker to speaker and from context to context, is something which almost defeats the purpose of semantics itself, i.e. to identify what words have “in common which does not depend on the speaker, the hearer or the situation. It is this shared core that semantics has typically concentrated on” (Van Olmen & Athanasopoulos [2018]). Does this mean that anyone can use *woman* to mean anything they want, like Humpty Dumpty, rendering words meaningless? I would answer that the answer is no, at least not if the speaker wants to be understood by others. Even if meaning is contextual, words are not completely empty of meaning. We still attach concepts and connotations to them and speakers still have encyclopedic knowledge about the various meanings a word can have and how they have used been used in previous contexts (McConnell-Ginet [2008]). According to the context, we will pick out the most likely meaning from this encyclopedic knowledge. However, if contextual meaning is a weakness of prototype theory, then it is a weakness of any approach that analyses actual language use.

56

Another weakness of prototype theory is fuzzy boundaries. Some semantic categories have relatively clear boundaries. Most speakers, for example, would agree that ring-a-ring-a-roses is a game and that a penguin is a bird, albeit not very central examples. However, other categories are not so clear cut. Colour categories, for instance, have fuzzy boundaries: “The “redder” a shade of orange, the less it is orange and the more it is red” (Taylor [2008: 43]). The boundaries of red are set by the presence of neighboring, contrasting categories (in this case, orange). Although the fuzzy boundaries of some semantic categories are readily admitted by cognitive scientists, Cruse notes that

[o]ne of the most serious shortcomings of the ‘standard’ prototype view is that no category boundary is recognised [...]. Yet a category without a boundary is virtually useless: a primary function of a category is to discriminate between things which are in it and things which are not in it. The classical view of categories, with necessary and sufficient features, set a boundary (albeit an unnaturally sharp one) but allowed no internal structure. In throwing this out, prototype theory has thrown out one of the baby twins with the proverbial bath water. The view taken here is that a fully satisfactory description of a category must specify both internal structure and location of boundary area. It is accepted that category boundaries are to a greater or lesser extent fuzzy (so classical definitions are not adequate); but even fuzzy boundaries have locations, which are in principle specifiable. Both category centres and category boundaries have both linguistic and behavioural correlates, and should be given equal status in accounts of category structure.
(Cruse [2000: 138])

57

If we go back to the 13 characteristics suggested by Hale, I have already said that a central member of the category *woman* will have all 13 characteristics. However, because none of the 13 characteristics are necessary or sufficient, this technically means that a person could have none of these 13 characteristics and still claim membership to the category *woman*, albeit as a non-central member. In this case, it seems as though we are in fact left with a completely empty semantic category. Van Olmen and Athanasopoulos argue that having “no built-in cut-off points, [...] is at odds with the common linguistic behavior of saying that something falls within the meaning of some expression or not. Just imagine a dialogue where one person states spoons are art and the other replies *no, they aren’t*” (Van Olmen & Athanasopoulos [2018: 7–8]). This is exactly what is happening today with *woman*, which the 2025 UK Supreme Court case illustrates perfectly. People are arguing about that cut-off point and whether trans
women are inside or outside of it and whatever the decision is, it will not be “just” semantics:

58

Defining is often an attempt to direct thought along certain theoretical lines, to push a particular strategy for political action. Definitions draw boundaries around a concept. When the concept involved are ones connected to personal identities, some people are included and others excluded by definition. Defining is seldom ‘just’ semantics but is consequential precisely because words are key resources for thought and action, central players in theory and politics. (McConnell-Ginet [2002: 158–159])

59

Both the advantage and disadvantage of prototype theory is that it allows everyone's definition to be right. This is because “[t]here is no fixed limit on how far something can depart from the prototype and still be assimilated to the class, if the categorizer is perceptive or clever enough to find some point of resemblance to typical instances” (Langacker [1991: 266] quoted in Cruse [2000: 135]). One person's ICM about gender and sex might allow for trans women to be members of the category *woman*, but another person's ICM might not. But both are right according to their ICM. So far, no theory has been able to solve this conundrum. Contrary to linguists, who are interested in how speakers actually use words from a descriptive perspective, philosophers have focused on what words should mean from a moral and political perspective.

## 10. Feminist philosophical approaches

60

The concept *woman* has been hotly debated in feminist circles and from around the 1980s. Feminism is a movement that fights for women's equality. However, not all women face the same kinds of discrimination. So, what essential quality do all women share? What is the “golden nugget of womanness” (Spelman [1988: 159] quoted in Mikkola [2024]) that unites us all? These questions have created somewhat of an existential crisis for some feminists.

61

2nd wave feminists purposefully separated nature (sex) and culture (gender) in order to liberate women from centuries of oppression based on biological determinism advocating a “coat rack” theory of sex and gender, i.e. gender roles are attributed to people according to their sex, but they are not inseparable. By separating sex from gender, it meant that a female-bodied person did not necessarily have to be nurturing, quietly spoken and submissive as these were socially expected traits rather than biologically predetermined ones. Fear of biological determinism has resulted in “the word female [being] virtually banished from the discourse of Anglophone academic feminist theory” (Frye [2005: 44]). Feminists therefore focused on gender as a social construct. This focus on woman as a social category, rather than a biological one “inadvertently created new socially constructed accounts of supposedly shared femininity” (Mikkola [2024]). But feminists could not agree on what these shared elements were. It is important to remember here that feminists were not interested in how woman was actually being used by speakers, they were interested in how it should be used as a political tool; for instance Fox [2011: 151] talks about what theories are “desirable”.

62

For Sally Haslanger, the “gold nugget” that all women share is “a particular kind of social position, viz., one of sexually-marked subordinate. So women have in common that their (assumed) sex has socially disadvantaged them” (italics in original)
(Haslanger [2000: 45]). She defines gender as a social class based on perceived biological sex, rather than an innate identity or as the norms and roles that a person is expected to play in society (Haslanger [2000: 37]). Therefore if a female is perceived to be a man, they do not occupy the social position of woman and are therefore not members of the category woman:

> One might complain, however, that there must be some women (or rather, females) who aren't oppressed, and in particular, aren't oppressed as women. Perhaps there are; e.g. some may "pass" as men, others may be recognizably female but not be subordinated in any way linked to that recognition. I'm not convinced that there are many cases (if any) of the latter, but I'll certainly grant that there could be females who did not satisfy the definition that I've offered. In fact, I believe it is part of the project of feminism to bring about a day when there are no more women (though, of course, we should not aim to do away with females!). (italics in original) (Haslanger [2000: 45-46])

63

A woman is therefore someone who is *perceived* by others to be female, which as argued above, is how we tend to classify people in everyday life.

64

Other philosophers take a different view. Alex Byrne argues that “woman is a biological (and not social) category” (Byrne [2020: 3785]), which is how the word was used for most of its history and probably how most speakers still understand it today. In line with the primary dictionary definitions for woman, Byrne argues that “women are adult human females — nothing more, and nothing less” (Byrne [2020: 3801]). He argues that attempts to coax woman to change semantically are pointless because as long as “mature females of our species [...] continue to be an important topic of thought and talk” speakers will find “a new word for the category (a snappier version of ‘natal woman’ or ‘bio woman’, already in occasional use) [to] fill the lexical vacuum” (Byrne [2020: 3801]). This, indeed, seems to be the case, with cis now being commonly used as a premodifier. Notwithstanding, as seen above, many women reject this premodifier and refuse definitions of woman that do not include adult human female as a necessary condition.

65

Mari Mikkola argues that “disputes about ‘what it is to be a woman’ have become theoretically bankrupt and intractable, which has generated an analytical impasse that looks unsurpassable” (Mikkola [2024]). And in fact, some speakers now avoid the word woman altogether.

## 11. Woman's adventures on the euphemism treadmill

66

As Muriel Schulz noted in “The semantic derogation of woman”, originally published in 1975 (Schulz [2000]), words referring to women, including the word woman itself, have a tendency to acquire negative, in particular sexual, connotations. Woman, as seen above, comes from the Old English wifman and was the standard word to refer to an adult human female for centuries. By around the 1400s, it was starting to undergo semantic derogation and was felt to be too coarse to refer to certain women, especially those of higher rank. Lady came to the rescue.

67

Lady can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon times, originating from the word hlæfdige, a compound noun made of hlæf (bread) and dīge (kneader), literally “the kneader of bread”. The masculine form was hlāford, composed of hlæf (bread) and weard (guard, keeper), which eventually became lord. Over time lord and lady became titles of nobility,
which is still the same for *lord* today. *Lady*, on the other hand, has undergone what Schulz calls democratic levelling or the “mildest form of debasement” (Schulz [2000: 83]). By the end of the 19th century, the *Ladies Home Journal* declared that “[w]oman meant merely an adult female of the human race; lady meant someone who was, as we say, ‘well born’, and, consequently, well-bred; in other words, ‘Lady’ grew to mean a woman, plus education, refinement, dignity and culture” (cited in Boyd [2012: 36]). Any woman can be a lady today and some speakers still feel that referring to a woman as a *woman*, rather than a *lady*, is somewhat rude (Mills [1995: 84]). This is because, as Deborah Cameron argues,

‘Lady’ is a euphemism, a veil drawn over the grossness of female physicality, sexuality and reproduction. A lady does not have bodily functions, whether sex-specific, like menstruation (as the song says, ‘only women bleed’) or shared with the male of the species (there used to be a saying that ‘horses sweat, men perspire and ladies gently glow’). The word ‘lady’ appears in coy expressions like ‘lady garden’, which are designed to sanitize references to the female body, but when the reference is to something like rape, which cannot easily be sanitized, its effect is incongruous and jarring. (Cameron [2015])

68

At some point, *woman* had become a dirty word and ended up on what Steven Pinker has termed the “euphemism treadmill” (Pinker [2003: 235]), to be replaced by *lady*. Feminists in the 1960s and 70s fought hard to reclaim *woman* as a neutral word but today it has become problematic for other reasons.

69

Current debates around whom *woman* includes and excludes (i.e. its category boundaries) has meant that the word has become potentially exclusionary and even offensive. In an effort towards including trans men and non-binary females, some speakers, particularly in the medical context, are avoiding *woman* and instead using gender-neutral terms such as *pregnant people*, or *people who menstruate*, not, however, without push back: In 2021, the UK House of Lords rejected a bill because it used the expression *pregnant people* instead of *pregnant women* or *mothers*. Conservative peer Baroness Noakes said the phrasing contributed to “the erasure of women in society” (Hansard [2021]). The House of Commons agreed to remove *pregnant people* and replace it with *mothers* and the bill was passed.

70

Gender-neutral terms such as *pregnant people* have been seen by some as not only more inclusive, but also more accurate (Zimman [2017a: 100]), but by others as making *woman* into a dirty word again, albeit for different reasons. Cancer Research UK, for instance, offers cervical screening to “anyone with a cervix”¹⁰. The words *woman* and *female* are not mentioned on the page at all. On the other hand, the words *man* and *male* appear several times on their page for prostate cancer¹¹. This asymmetry is something that Cameron has discussed, noting that

> we are seldom if ever exhorted to replace ‘man’ with terms like ‘mxn’, ‘ejaculator’ and ‘everyone who has a penis’. That’s another reason why some feminists resist analogous W-word substitutes like ‘womxn’ and ‘menstruator’. Whatever else it may be, a gender revolution that does not challenge the default status of men is not a feminist revolution (Cameron [2019]).

71

Alternative spellings of *woman* are not new and have existed since at least the 1970s. *Womyn*, for example, was coined in the 1970s in order to avoid *man* and symbolise women's liberation from men. Today, it is mostly known in the context of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival and its ban on trans women in 1991. This spelling has thus been rejected by some as trans exclusionary. On the other hand, *womxn* is a very recent coinage, like *Mx*, and *Latinx*. The *x* is intended to be an “orthographic symbol of gender-
inclusiveness” (Cameron [2018]). But, as Cameron notes, whereas *Mx* and *Latinx* are meant to include everyone, *womxn* is not intended to include men. Cameron discusses the examples the Wellcome Collection, a museum in London, using *womxn* for an event in 2018. There were so many complaints that they eventually removed the *x*. *Womxn* is contentious for two main reasons: the first is the avoidance of *women* as a potentially offensive word, whereas most people who claim this identity do not see it as offensive. The second reason is the asymmetry between how *woman* is avoided, but not *man*, implying that *man* is the neutral default status whereas *woman* is problematic. *Woman* is perhaps back on the euphemism treadmill once again.

Conclusion

72

To come back to the main question posed in the article: What does *woman* mean today and why is it so contested?

73

I would agree with historical linguist Anne Curzan that “[w]ords fundamentally mean what speakers believe that words mean and what they use words to mean” (Curzan [2003: 175]). In the end, there is no “correct” or “true” definition of *woman*. The dominant definition for most speakers is still probably *adult human female* (whether biological characteristics are known or assumed), but this is not the only definition in use, for example, in trans and non-binary communities, being an adult human female is not a necessary condition of being a woman. Of course, speakers cannot use words however they like. *Woman* might be used differently by different people in different contexts, but as far as I know, nobody is using *woman* to refer to oranges or pens. Speakers share some kind of common encyclopedic knowledge about how a word has been used in previous discursive contexts and will choose the most appropriate meaning depending on the context. They may not always agree on how *woman* is being used, but the fact that speakers disagree about its use shows that we all share knowledge of these potential meanings and therefore a common discursive space.

74

Prototype theory explains better than any other semantic theory the debate about what people think *woman* means, or should mean, and how it is possible for potentially contradictory meanings to coexist. However, one major shortcoming of prototype theory is that it can explain who is included in the category *woman*, but not who is excluded. The lack of semantic boundaries is probably not of much consequence in everyday interaction (speakers have been disagreeing about what words mean for a long time), but it is very consequential in other areas. As far as legal definitions are concerned, it is up to the courts to decide where these boundaries are drawn. But of course, legal definitions, like scientific definitions, are not made in a social and political vacuum and wherever they choose to draw that boundary, it will be a cultural act.

75

The evolving, competing and sometimes contradictory meanings of *woman* are embedded in evolving and contested gendered social practices. As conceptions about sex and gender change over time, this is reflected in words related to sex and gender (including *sex* and *gender* themselves). For 1st wave feminists, the word *gender* (how we use it today) did not even exist. A woman was an adult human female — no more and no less. 2nd wave feminists, purposefully prised apart *sex* and *gender*. But *gender* was still based on *sex*, in a “coat rack” model, meaning that only females could become women. 3rd and 4th wave feminists, on the other hand, have argued that both *sex* and *gender* are socially and historically constructed concepts that mutually influence each other. It is
thus not necessary to have certain biological characteristics to be a woman. However, I
agree with Byrne [2020] in that as long as speakers continue to think that biological
differences are relevant, they will find a way to make this difference semantically
present (e.g. cis woman).

76

In this article, I have focused on what various groups and speakers have said about the meaning of woman, including dictionary definitions, newspaper style guides, online surveys, the NOW corpus, semantics text books, philosophers, scientists and public figures (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) and organisations (For Woman Scotland). I have focused more on meta discourse about the word woman (i.e. what speakers say about it), rather than how they are actually using it (for instance, a speaker might claim that woman should only be used to refer to adult human females but then use it to refer to a transwoman in conversation). From a quick search on the NOW corpus, I suspect that woman (3 906 083 hits) with no premodifier is used to refer to people who are assumed to be adult human females, but that woman with the prefix trans is used to refer to trans women, in the same way that speakers of Old English did not premodify man with wer but they did with wif. This hypothesis would, of course, require a much closer look at the data, which is beyond the scope of this article.

77

Perhaps what is more interesting than what people think *woman* means is the reason that people are arguing over the meaning of it. Disagreements about what words mean are really disagreements about the nature of the world, not necessarily what the world *is*, but more often what it *should be*. The debate about what *woman* should mean is fundamentally a debate about how the world should be organised in relation to sex and gender.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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# APPENDIXES

## Appendix: Survey
The survey was open for five weeks from 19th February 2024 until 27th March 2024. An analysis of the results will be published in Coady & Sorlin [forthcoming]. Out of a total of 822 respondents, 806 provided valid responses.

Pronoun sharing practices

First of all, thank you for taking the time to fill out this very short survey!

We are two researchers doing a project on pronoun sharing practices (e.g., putting your pronouns in your email signature, on social media bios, introducing yourself with your pronouns, etc.). The main question we are interested in is *why* people do or do not share their pronouns and what they think about the practice in general.

It is important for us to have as wide a range of opinions as possible — from those who share their pronouns as well as those who don't, and from those who see these practices in a positive light as well as those who don't. So, please feel free to send the link on to anyone who you think might do the survey.

We are aware that some of the terms and labels used in this survey can be debated.
Please feel free to add any comments in the text box at the end of the survey.

The survey is completely anonymous. The information collected will be used as data for a presentation about pronoun sharing practices in Oct 2024 and an article to be published in 2025.

Ann Coady and Sandrine Sorlin

Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier, France.

An example of someone sharing his pronouns on Instagram

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

How old are you? (tick only one box)

☐ Under 18

☐ 18-25

☐ 26-35

☐ 36-45
☐ 46-55

☐ 56-65

☐ Over 65

**What variety of English do you mainly use? (tick only one box)**

☐ British / Irish / Scottish / Welsh

☐ North American

☐ Australian / New Zealand

☐ South African

☐ Indian

☐ Other:

**What is your occupational category? (tick only one box)**

☐ Student

☐ Academic (lecturer, university professor...)

☐ Teaching (primary, secondary, adult)

☐ Science, technology, engineering

☐ Health sector

☐ Culture / media

☐ Administrative and secretarial

☐ Other:

**What is your highest educational diploma? (tick only one box)**

☐ None

☐ High school diploma (or equivalent)

☐ Undergraduate degree (or equivalent)

☐ Master's degree (or equivalent)

☐ PhD (or equivalent)

**Where would you put yourself on this scale of political orientation? (tick only one box)**

Left wing Right wing

1 2 3 4 5

☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

**Do you share your pronouns? (tick only one box)**

☐ Yes

☐ No

**Sharing pronouns in a NON-PROFESSIONAL context: If you share your pronouns in non-professional contexts, please specify the situation. (tick any boxes that apply)**
☐ When you introduce yourself to someone for the first time

☐ Personal email account

☐ Instagram

☐ Facebook/Meta

☐ Twitter/X

☐ WhatsApp

☐ Zoom / Teams

☐ Other:

**Sharing pronouns AT WORK: If you share your pronouns as part of your job, please specify the situation. (tick any boxes that apply)**

☐ Professional email

☐ A badge that you wear

☐ In meetings / at conferences

☐ When introducing yourself to a new colleague / business associate / client, etc

☐ Zoom / Teams

☐ Twitter / X

☐ Other:

**If you DO share your pronouns, why do you do so? (tick any boxes that apply)**

☐ To tell others how I'd like to be addressed because it might not obvious to them

☐ To show my support for trans and non-binary people

☐ To create a more inclusive society

☐ To question gender binaries

☐ I feel like it's expected from me (peer pressure)

☐ I haven't given much thought to it. People around me do it, so I do too

☐ I don't have a choice (e.g., as part of your job)

☐ To show respect / sensitivity towards all genders

☐ To show my political stance (the personal is political)

☐ To show that I care about others

☐ Other:

You can add any details or explanations here if you wish.

**If you DO share your pronouns, how do you feel in situations where others do NOT?**

**If you DO NOT share your pronouns, why not? (tick any boxes that apply)**

☐ It's not something I've ever given much thought to

☐ It would make me feel uncomfortable
☐ It feels too much like political correctness

☐ It's just “virtue signalling” / for show

☐ I feel that it's irrelevant information to give

☐ It's just a fad, it will disappear

☐ I feel that it would attract unwanted attention

☐ My gender is my private concern. I don't want to share it with everybody

☐ It is too political

☐ I don't need to share my pronouns. It's obvious what gender I am

☐ Other:

You can add any details or explanations here if you wish.

If you do NOT share your pronouns, how do you feel in situations where others DO?

Have you seen these pronoun sharing practices in languages other than English? If so, please give details.

**Which label best currently describes you? (tick any boxes that apply)**

☐ Cis woman (you were assigned female at birth and you identify as a woman)

☐ Cis man (you were assigned male at birth and you identify as a man)

☐ Trans woman (you were assigned female at birth and you identify as a man)

☐ Trans man (you were assigned female at birth and you identify as a man)

☐ Queer / non binary (you do not feel comfortable describing yourself with binary gender labels)

☐ Gender non-conforming (e.g., you usually act or dress in a way which does not conform to traditional gender stereotypes)

☐ Other:

Is there anything that you feel we have missed about pronoun sharing practices or anything that you would like to add?

NOTES

1. In this section, I use **woman** and **adult female human** as synonyms as this seems to be how speakers of Old English used them (Curzan [2003: 159–160]).

2. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/reform-of-the-gender-recognition-act-2004

3. https://www.change.org/p/change-oxford-dictionary-s-sexist-definition-of-woman

4. The word **female** comes from the Latin *femella* (“young woman, girl”), so in an etymological sense at least, **woman** and **female** are indeed synonyms.

5. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/intersex-people-by-country

6. There are, as Cruse notes, various reasons for claiming that the meaning **female** is the marked term of the male/female opposition, for example the use of a suffix for the feminine term (*princess*, *actress*) and the common use of the masculine as a generic term (*mankind*) (Cruse [2000: 258]). However, it can be argued that both of these phenomena are originally based on
sexism: suffixes were added to the base term in order to mark women out as somehow deviating from the norm and are thus no mere coincidence (Coady [2018: 277–280]) and the masculine generic was simply one variety that was heavily promoted by language authorities until it became the norm. Curzan also points out the underlying sexism “in the assumption of the masculine or male as the unmarked semantic feature” (Curzan [2003: 136]).

7. All corpora are available at: https://www.english-corpora.org/

8. At the time of writing (April 2025), the NOW corpus contained 20.3 billion words of data from web-based newspapers and magazines from 2010. However, new data is added to the corpus each day and so it grows by about 120-140 million words of data each month.

9. "In a sense, *real* and *technically/strictly* speaking have opposite semantic effects. *Technically* and *strictly* dissociate a category from its conventioalized frame. *Real*, on the other hand, highlights attributes conventionally associated with a frame, while at the same time releasing the category from otherwise necessary conditions for membership" (Taylor [1995: 97]).

10. https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-screening/cervical-screening

11. https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/prostate-cancer/getting-diagnosed/screening

ABSTRACTS

What does woman mean, and why has its definition become such a political and semantic
battleground? This article explores the contemporary semantic, social, and ideological
dimensions of the term woman, demonstrating how its meaning is shaped by, and in turn shapes,
evolving cultural, legal, and political practices. Drawing on feminist linguistic theory, cognitive
semantics, dictionary entries, legal definitions, and survey data, I investigate how woman has
become a contested category, particularly in light of debates over trans and non-binary
identities.

From componential analysis to prototype theory and Natural Semantic Metalanguage, the article evaluates various semantic frameworks to see which theory best explains how people are currently using woman as well as metadiscourses about what they think it *should* mean. I argue that prototype theory, which allows for flexible, gradable membership in a category is the best theory we currently have to explain how woman is being used. However, the absence of clearly defined category boundaries remains problematic, especially when legal interpretations demand definitive exclusions or inclusions, as illustrated by the 2025 UK Supreme Court decision that ruled the legal definition of woman to be based on biological sex.

The article adopts a descriptive and critical approach, analysing how speakers are using *woman* and what they think the word *should* mean. In doing so, it shows that semantics is not neutral: defining *woman* is also a struggle over social recognition, policy-making, and power. Ultimately, the article argues that *woman* has become a site of ideological struggle, in which the evolving and competing meanings of the word *woman* reflect broader tensions in feminism and gender politics.

Que signifie *femme*, et pourquoi la définition de ce mot est-elle devenue un terrain
d'affrontement à la fois politique et sémantique ? Cet article explore les dimensions
contemporaines — sémantiques, sociales et idéologiques — du terme *femme*, en montrant
comment son sens est façonné par les pratiques culturelles, juridiques et politiques, tout en les
influençant à son tour. S’appuyant sur la linguistique féministe, la sémantique cognitive, les définitions dans des dictionnaires, les définitions juridiques et des enquêtes d’opinion, j’analyse comment *femme* est devenue une catégorie contestée, notamment à la lumière des débats autour des identités trans et non binaires.

De l’analyse componentielle à la théorie du prototype, en passant par *Natural Semantic Metalanguage*, l’article évalue différents cadres sémantiques afin de déterminer quelle théorie rend le mieux compte de l’usage actuel du mot *femme*, ainsi que des métadiscours sur ce que les locuteur-trices pensent qu’il devrait signifier. Je soutiens que la théorie du prototype, qui permet une appartenance souple et graduelle à une catégorie, est la meilleure théorie dont nous disposons actuellement pour expliquer l’usage du mot *femme*. Toutefois, l’absence de frontières catégoriques clairement définies demeure problématique, en particulier lorsque les interprétations juridiques exigent des inclusions ou des exclusions nettes, comme l’illustre la décision de la Cour suprême du Royaume-Uni en 2025, qui a statué que la définition légale de *femme* repose sur le sexe biologique.

L’article adopte une approche descriptive et critique, en s’intéressant à ce que les locuteur-trices disent que *femme* devrait signifier, et à la manière dont ils et elles l’emploient effectivement. Ce faisant, il montre que la sémantique n’est pas neutre : définir *femme*, c’est aussi lutter pour la reconnaissance sociale, l’élaboration de politiques publiques, et l’exercice du pouvoir. En définitive, *femme* apparaît comme un site de lutte idéologique, où les significations évolutives et concurrentes du mot *femme* reflètent des tensions plus larges dans le féminisme et les identités de genre.

## INDEX

**Mots-clés:** sémantique, femme, féminisme, genre, trans, théorie du prototype

**Keywords:** semantics, woman, feminism, gender, trans, prototype theory

## AUTHOR

ANN COADY

Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, France
ann.coady@univ-montp3.fr