The Australian Department of Health struggled to define “woman” at a Senate Estimates hearing April 4 after a senator posed the question.
Alex Antic, a Liberal senator, asked Health Secretary Brendan Murphy to define the term “woman.”
“I’m going to finish up then … with a very simple question for the department, and that is one which has troubled me for a great deal of time with the bureaucracy here,” Antic said. “Can someone please provide me with a definition of what a woman is? Department of Health: definition of a man? Definition of a woman? Anyone?”
Murphy said there are a “variety of definitions” for a woman.
WOW ppl! Our world has gone mad 🥴 pic.twitter.com/zXJmiABAN5
— Jamie Sale (@JamieSale) April 7, 2022
“You’re going to take on notice the question of what a woman is?” Antic pressed. (RELATED: Tulsi Gabbard Rips ‘Hypocrisy And Absurdity’ Of SCOTUS Nominee’s Inability To Define ‘Woman’)
“It’s a very contested space at the moment, senator,” Murphy replied. “There are definitions and terms of how people identify themselves so we’re happy to provide a working definition on that.”
In an interview with 2GB, Antic said Murphy’s response was “utterly ludicrous,” followed by him defining a woman as “an adult human female,” news.com.au reported.
“In one sense you don’t want to attack the man. It’s more an issue of showing how far the insidious creep of radical gender theory has drifted through our institutions — it is endemic,” he said.
Government officials in the U.S. have also struggled to define the term “woman,” most notably newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who declined to define the term.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra refused to give a direct answer earlier in the month on whether men can get pregnant when questioned by Republican Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert.
“I’m asking you what you know. Can men get pregnant?” Boebert asked.
“I’m not aware of it,” Becerra answered.
Daily Wire podcast host Matt Walsh challenged two “non-binary” panelists on the definition during an episode of “Dr. Phil” in January. The guests, Addison and Ethan, said the term cannot be given a definition since it has a different meaning for every individual. Walsh defined a “woman” as an “adult human female.”
Oxford English Dictionary defines “woman” as an “adult female human being.”