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What Is a Woman?
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Wikipedia article
'What Is a Woman?' is a 2022 American documentary about gender and transgender issues presented by conservative political commentator Matt Walsh, produced and released by 'The Daily Wire', and directed by Justin Folk. It received a divided reception from critics and political commentators.
Summary
The documentary features Walsh asking "What is a woman?" and related questions to a variety of people, including a pediatrician, a gender studies professor, a psychiatrist, a gender-affirming family and marriage therapist, a transgender opponent of medical transitions for minors, a surgeon who specializes in sex reassignment surgery, and psychologist Jordan Peterson. Walsh also discusses the terms "non-binary" and "transgender" with a Maasai tribe in Kenya and interviewed a gay man who was nude in public in San Francisco. The documentary discusses sex reassignment surgery and transgender athletes in women's sports.
It features a speech given by Walsh at a meeting of the Loudoun County School Board that was called so people could express their opinions on Policy 8040, which would allow transgender students to use their preferred name and pronouns as well as allow the students to use school bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity. During the speech, Walsh said: "You are all child abusers. You prey upon impressionable children and indoctrinate them into your insane ideological cult, a cult which holds many fanatical views but none so deranged as the idea that boys are girls and girls are boys."
At the end of the documentary, Walsh's wife defines a woman as "an adult human female, who needs help opening this [jar]."
Production
Walsh said that he made 'What Is a Woman?' because he did not think anyone had been able to answer its titular question after a tweet he had made four years prior. According to Walsh, during the production, "Most of the people we talked to either didn't want to talk about it or they appeared to be confused about something as simple as what a woman is." Asked how he would define a woman, Walsh said "An adult human female" and "I would have given an answer that is biological, because that is 100% the answer." Walsh also said that "I think gender ideology can be beaten because it cannot withstand any scrutiny at all. And so all it requires is us to have a little bit of boldness, to look at it in the face and ask some basic questions."
Walsh wanted the documentary to be different from other right-wing films: "We're not interested in bringing a bunch of people I agree with into a room, asking them questions just so they can give me an answer that I could have said myself, and then slap a bunch of narration on top of it". Instead, Walsh wanted to talk to people he disagreed with to get the answers he was seeking: "If we were going to get answers, it was the only way to get them."
In February 2022, Eli Erlick, a transgender activist, alleged that Walsh had invited dozens of people to participate in the documentary under false pretenses. Model Kataluna Enriquez, Fallon Fox, and other transgender public figures corroborated the account. Walsh created a group called the Gender Unity Project, which the activists accused of "trying to lure them into participating in an anti-trans documentary." The Gender Unity Project's Twitter account and website were taken down shortly after the allegations went public. Erlick claimed there were at least 50 other recruited interviewees, including a 14-year-old transgender girl.
Release
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'What Is a Woman?' was released for subscribers to 'The Daily Wire' website on June 1, 2022, to coincide with the beginning of pride month.
'The Daily Wire' said it was hit with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack during the premiere of the documentary. An article by 'The Daily Dot' cast doubt on the DDoS claim, noting previous technical problems with the website.
On June 14, Walsh published a book and self-narrated audiobook based on the documentary, titled 'What Is a Woman?: One Man's Journey to Answer the Question of a Generation', through DW Books, 'The Daily Wire's publishing branch.
In September 2022, 'The Daily Dot' reported that event management website Eventbrite was refusing to allow users to use its platform to show the documentary, citing violations of its community guidelines, including the prohibition of hateful content regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. On September 7, Walsh accused the website of refusing screenings since July and said that "It is absolutely ludicrous and indefensible to categorize our film as 'hate speech'". Many fans of Walsh accused Eventbrite of "censorship."
Reactions
In May 2022, a transgender man alleged that Walsh used an image from his Instagram account in the documentary without his permission. Twitter refused a request to take down a trailer containing the image.
On June 6, 2022, Walsh said that he received death threats and had police involved after the release of 'What Is a Woman?'
Texas state representative Matt Schaefer, a Republican, promoted the documentary, encouraging his Twitter followers to "Ask your Senator or Representative if they have watched".
Reception
According to AJ Eckert of 'Science-Based Medicine', 'What Is a Woman?' "has been widely advertised by pundits, traditional media, and social media platforms opposed to gender-affirming care and especially the use of pronouns, restrooms, and locker rooms by trans people that align with the gender identities".
Dimitrije Vojnov of Radio Television of Serbia said that Walsh could become the American Right's equivalent of Michael Moore, and just as biased. Sasha Stone of 'Awards Daily' said that the documentary is "more or less a profile of Matt Walsh" that "reflects his past year of asking the question to activists, 'what is a woman' since apparently this is a difficult thing to explain."
Jack Wolfsohn of 'National Review' said that "Most critics have refused to review 'What Is a Woman?' because of the stance Walsh takes", citing Walsh sharing "some of the responses from critics who were invited to critique the film" and refused to do so. Stone argued that the reason why critics refused to review the documentary is because Walsh "is considered [to be] at the very top of the enemies list on Twitter, alongside Ben Shapiro, Elon Musk and Donald Trump (when he was on Twitter)." and that "Even associating with [Walsh] at all could probably get someone fired if they reviewed the film."
Positive
Rich Lowry of 'National Review' wrote that, while he had only watched clips of the documentary, they are "mesmerizing and extremely disturbing." Evalyn Homoelle of 'The Daily Signal' called the documentary "bold, humorous, thought-provoking, and undeniably chilling". Rod Dreher of 'The American Conservative' argued that the documentary shows that Walsh had "the courage to ask the questions and demand the answers" from his opponents. Kaylee McGhee White of the 'Washington Examiner' said that the documentary reveals "the effort to erase the female identity and objective truth ... harming individuals, their families, and communities." Leor Sapir of 'City Journal' compared the documentary to other books and movies that "sparks a demand for social reform", such as Ralph Nader's 'Unsafe at Any Speed', and said that the documentary "has been virtually ignored by the left-of-center media." Karol Markowicz of the 'New York Post' praised the documentary for "expos[ing] the lunacy of pro-trans extremism", calling it "a cross between Michael Moore's 1989 documentary 'Roger & Me' where the filmmaker pursued General Motor's CEO Roger Smith, and the Borat movies in which Sacha Baron Cohen pretends to be clueless journalist Borat Sagdiyev from Kazakhstan making films about American culture." Author and journalist Matt Taibbi said that Walsh "tries and fails to get trans activists, academics, and medical professionals to offer a definition of womanhood" and in doing so, he "pranks the pants off America's silliest intellectuals." Transgender YouTuber and political commentator Blaire White praised the documentary in 'The Spectator Australia'.Laura Dodsworth of 'The Critic' argued that the documentary's "success lies in its determined pursuit of the answer to one question", but criticized it for not "interrogat[ing] the meaning of gender as much as it could". Debbie Hayton of 'The Spectator' argued that the documentary shows "The naivety of the gender identity brigade", but said that "while Walsh is critical of gender identity ideology, he did not explain why such a bizarre idea has captivated society." Nina Power of 'Compact' said that "The documentary presents a searing and unforgettable indictment of today's gender ideology that should rouse action across the political spectrum.", but added that "Walsh's framing doesn't always do justice to the possibilities of such a cross-partisan alliance in defense of woman, man, and reality." Jo Bartosch of 'Spiked' called it "a must-watch documentary" that "captures a strange moment in time when politicians, clinicians and the corporate world are gleefully promoting the lie that humans can change sex", but criticized the documentary for ignoring the contributions of feminists who have been critical of the transgender movement, including Helen Joyce, Kathleen Stock, Abigail Shrier, Kara Dansky, and Janice Raymond. Christian Toto, a film critic and contributor to 'The Daily Wire', wrote that "Walsh's elementary question leads to larger, disturbing queries", but said the documentary "could use some hard data, along with more experts" and empathy towards transgender people.
Samuel Sey of 'The Christian Post' called the documentary "both hilarious and haunting" and "truly fantastic", adding that "Walsh's infamous ability to maintain an impeccable level of satire and seriousness is what makes [the documentary] so compelling." Erika Ahern of CatholicVote.org said that "While [the documentary] is about exposing the culture of 'sexual justice' for what it truly is, it is more profoundly a film about Pilate's last question to Christ, 'What is truth?' And it's about what happens when we answer, 'I am my own truth.'" Amy Welborn of 'The Catholic World Report' called the documentary "well-produced, amusing, and frustrating", but said that Walsh "fails to drill down into the more potent questions for his topic". Mathew De Sousa of 'The Catholic Weekly' said the documentary "provides a fair scope of both leftist and conservative beliefs on core gender issues", but that it "could be a more robust resource for Christians if a little more time was given to those arguments against gender ideology and the transgender agenda." Brett McCracken of 'The Gospel Coalition' praised the documentary for its "basic but brilliant narrative concept", but added that "one wonders if a bit more empathy could have strengthened Walsh's case", criticizing his "name-calling" of transgender people as "not a great tactic in persuasion, nor in evangelism." Ann Schneible of the 'National Catholic Register' gave the documentary a "B+", praising "how easily it breaks through the cognitive dissonance exhibited by supporters of gender ideologies and their inability or unwillingness to answer the simplest questions on this topic." and opined that "Walsh's interview style works well in this context.", but criticized the documentary for its "stylistic and narrative choices" and criticized 'The Daily Wire' for limiting the distribution of the documentary by putting it "behind a paywall on the 'Daily Wire' site.", while also opining that doing so "gives the appearance that they intend to be exclusionary".
Kai Burkhardt of the German newspaper 'Die Welt' called Walsh a "conservative Michael Moore" and praised the documentary for stirring up America's "gender war" by efficiently asking seemingly easy questions to supposed experts in the field, who are unable to answer.
Negative
Claire Goforth of 'The Daily Dot' called the documentary transphobic and argued that "Duplicity is central to the creation of this documentary". John Kendall Hawkins of 'CounterPunch' called the documentary "more conservative silliness", concluding that it "just adds to the relentless white noise we can't seem to escape and adds nothing to our humanity. The film is not worth watching, but its posture is worth noting." Malcolm Harris of Intelligencer argued that the documentary is a part of "The right's dangerous 'just asking questions' anti-trans campaign", concluding that "The plan is working: This year's Pride month looks to have a casualty count. If Walsh and his ilk are successful, next year's will be higher. They're begging for it." Nathan J. Robinson of 'Current Affairs' argued that the documentary shows "Conservative Ignorance" and treats "cruel, mindless prejudices ... as 'common sense'", concluding that "Debunking this stuff is easy.", but that "Slick propaganda like 'What Is A Woman?' will cause real harm to trans people, and while I generally consider censorship counterproductive, we should not understate the toxicity of a film like this." Katie Kadue of 'Gawker' opined that "For Walsh and other patrollers of the gender boundary, trans women are a contamination risk. They stand accused of infiltrating not only physical women's spaces like bathrooms and locker rooms but also the clean conceptual space of the category 'woman': they are, according to this transphobic logic, men who fraudulently claim to be women." Moises Mendez II of 'Rolling Stone' also called the documentary transphobic and argued that it represents an "essentialist ideology". Mendez criticized social media companies for allowing 'The Daily Wire' to feature advertisements of the documentary on their platforms, saying that "the ease with which the Daily Wire is allowed to promote this project through ads across multiple platforms is telling of the social media companies' priorities during Pride month or any month."AJ Eckert of 'Science-Based Medicine' called the documentary "every bit as much of a science denying propaganda film disguised as a documentary as antivax films like 'VAXXED' or the anti-evolution film 'Expelled!', and such films tend to be potent messaging tools.", concluding that "Walsh clearly did not set out to honestly seek answers to a perplexing question, even if they are complex. Instead, he started with a conclusion and then sought out sources to support that conclusion, no matter how dubious the source, making this film an exercise not in honest truth-seeking but rather motivated reasoning."
Erin Rook of 'LGBTQ Nation' called the documentary "propaganda" that is "full of transphobic lies", adding that "Walsh paints a frightening image of mutilated children and confused professionals of an immoral ideology threatening the Western Christian way of life", and that it "provides ammunition for those who seek to deprive transgender people of access to affirming and life-saving healthcare." Gwendolyn Ann Smith of the 'Bay Area Reporter' and co-founder of the Transgender Day of Remembrance argued that "The point of the film, of course, is to paint transgender people and those who support us as deluded, foolish, or both.", concluding that "people like Walsh want to paint us as monsters rather than people." Eli Erlick, founder of the organization Trans Student Educational Resources, told 'Rolling Stone' that "to believe what's in [the documentary] requires a fantastical hatred of trans people" and that it shows an "appalling lack of research on the trans community".
Mixed
Jennifer Graham of 'Deseret News' said that Walsh "may be trolling all of us with the film," but that "he could be asking the question that turns the culture war."Jason Whitlock of Blaze Media called the documentary "great", but criticized it for not mentioning God or Christianity, saying that "It fights a spiritual war on secular terms" and that "Before we answer 'what is a woman,' we need to relearn the meaning of being Christian." Whitlock also noted his conversation with Walsh on the issue, during which he said "We didn't want the film to be a theological debate or to present the issue as though you have to be religious to disagree with gender ideology", adding "That's the approach the left would have wanted us to take."
Adam Zivo of the Canadian newspaper the 'National Post' praised the documentary for "reveal[ing] activist absurdity", but said it "ultimately fails" because "Walsh seems more interested in capturing 'gotcha' moments with his interviewees" and argued that Walsh used "bad-faith storytelling to rile up audiences while oversimplifying complex issues."
See also
* 'Johnny the Walrus'
References
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