Tough question, this.
But not really. A woman potentially produces eggs.
A woman is a human person of such a nature that she has the potential, if she is mature, and if everything functions normally and optimally, to produce the large reproductive gametes that are functionally receptive in relation to the smaller and dispensing male gametes, i.e. the human sperm.
That’s all there is to it.
You don’t have to involve any notions of chromosomes or reproductive pathways or secondary or primary sex characteristics — all of that is secondary and contingent in relation to the basic function, the fundamental teleology, upon which sex as a category is predicated.
The problem is that none of this makes sense in a modern reductionist framework.
Without something like the classical metaphysics and its objective teleology (the inherent abstract functions of natures), there’s no enduring and objective basis for the distinction between male and female. On a reductionist framework, the distinction between the sexes is really totally arbitrary at the end of the day (which also is the core reason for the entire transhumanist discourse).
But unfortunately for the reductionist, inherent teleology is just logically necessary given the distinction between actuality and potentiality.
We can easily derive this distinction from the immediate necessary truths inherent in something like the form of a triangle. A necessary truth of the triangle is for instance that the sum of its angles is 180 degrees.
But the nature, the essence, of the triangle also implies you can combine it with another triangle and form a hexagram (the star of David). This is an inherent potentiality of the triangle as an actualized form.
And what do we do with this primal distinction between potentiality and actuality?
It’s simple. This specific, inherent potentiality of the triangle to possibly form a hexagram when paired with another triangle is just part of its teleology. Teleology simply means the specific potential towards certain effects that inheres in the essential form.
And the female form, while almost infiniely more complex than the simple abstract triangle, just has the inherent potential towards the generation of eggs — the receptive reproductive gamete.
There. The discussion is over.
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Update:
Apparently these statements above are considered to be incredibly controversial and reactionary. They shouldn’t be.
Assuming an essentialist approach to sex, you can still perfectly coherently hold to a firm distinction between sex and gender, where the latter is then just a discourse around social facts.
The only important difference to the established and incoherent metaphysics if you hold to the above is that you can’t radically deconstruct sex as a category and totally subsume it under gender.
But you can still make perfect sense of something like the transgender phenomenon, and all of the established explanatory frameworks for it are intact (whether biological, psychological, discursive, performative or what have you).
You can still have your tomboys or 男の娘 and the whole spectrum of queer sexual identities — and you can even explain them as hard-wired biological facts, because sex is an ontological category deeper than biology. So you can have your cake of the whole spectrum of gender-non-conforming behaviours and eat it too.
The only difference in terms of outlook is that gender is not a totally arbitrary category that’s ultimately based in nothing enduring at all.
In fact, without sex as a stable ontological category, all of these latter categories and designations ultimately become arbitrary and incomprehensible
Ahh, but delayed and expedited puberty? Hormone disrupting chemicals in air, water, soil, food? Since the dawn of industrial devolution, now, some 500 chemicals in a body of someone living in highly polluted cities, say, New York or even the flyover farming states or Cairo, and, bam, old mother nature and sex expression in the good old genes and hormone factories of the body, completely wiped away from a normal set of growth regimes.
Sex chromosomes — XY chromosomes = man and XX = woman, right? Wrong. On the Y chromosome, a gene called SRY generally causes a fetus to develop male. But the SRY can show up on an X, turning an XX fetus essentially male. If the SRY gene does not work on the Y, the fetus develops essentially female. An XY fetus with a functioning SRY can essentially develop female. In the case of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, cells in the body are not entirely receptive to androgens (masculinizing hormones). Subsequently, the body ends up appearing female-typical but the individual lacks body hair (which is dependent on androgen-sensitivity). Women with complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome are less “masculinized” in their muscles and brains than many other cisgender women, because cisgender women in general are more receptive to androgens.
Genitals — The genitals of every sex and gender come from the same stuff, and many individuals (who are not intersex) have ambiguous genitalia and are still referred to as men or women. Moreover, a person can appear to be male-typical but is biologically female-typical, or vice versa. For instance, cisgender men with extreme Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia may be entirely male-typical but discover later in life that they have ovaries and a uterus. Even though these individuals have XX chromosomes and ovaries, their adrenal glands make so many androgens that their bodies develop male-typical (including their muscle development and gender identity).
Hormones — All genders and sexes make the same hormones, just in different quantities, on average. The average man has more androgens than the average woman. But what about athletic women, who are more likely to have naturally high levels of androgens? There’s a lot of variation here, also – such as the 1 out of every 10-20 women who have polycystic ovarian syndrome.
Thousands of morphed genes, and, and, well, you get the picture, from cleft lips to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome to the thousands of blown out DNA formations. Extra legs growing from the spines of frogs to three-headed snakes, what a wonderful Doctor Moreau's Island we have reaped.
Then the wacked-out Judaics!
The Jewish obligation to observe commandments is traditionally divided along male/female lines: men pray three times daily, while women don’t have to; men put on tefillin, while women do not. Some women’s recent efforts to observe the religious privileges they’re exempt from have made ripples in the Jewish world, and even the news.
But what if we told you that the foundation for all this was wrong? That Judaism recognized not two, but as many as eight genders? The Mishnah describes half a dozen categories that are between male and female, such as saris or ailonit — the terms refer to an non-reproductive version of the male or female body, respectively — and categories that refer to ambiguous or indeterminate gender.
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THen more smoke and mirrors from wonderful Jewish "scientists": Daniel Goldman!
From Gender and Race to Eidos: A broader term for culturally defined roles based on biological traits
Based on the various analyses of potential eidoi, and comparing it to otherculturally defined categorizations, I propose the following definition of eidos: asocial role that divide societies into distinct groups which establish theway in which people interact with one another, and which are closelyrelated to, but which are distinct from, biological separations. Usingthis definition it seems that there are cultural phenomenona which reasonablyfit into the category of eidoi, and ones that do not. Apparent examples of eidoiare gender, race, adolescence, and clan. This definition allows us to investigatevarious cultural roles in a new way. And so it seems that the addition of ”eidos”into the scientific lexicon is reasonable and useful.
All 21 genders officially recognised by the NHS -- check it out.
Or, The Magic number is now 32?
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Oh, Ellison and Altman and Zuckerberg, they will get it right soon -- Homo Robopethicus:
These robots, like Victoria, are designed to simulate pregnancy and labor, allowing medical professionals to practice different scenarios and emergency procedures. Additionally, robots are being developed to assist in the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process, specifically in the sperm injection phase, leading to the birth of healthy babies.