You’ve probably seen the clips. A man in a flannel shirt sits across from a professor or a protester, tilts his head, and asks a four-word question that has basically become a cultural hand grenade. The What Is a Woman movie isn’t just a documentary; it’s a phenomenon that managed to bypass the traditional Hollywood gatekeepers to become one of the most-watched and most-hated pieces of media in recent years. Whether you find it brilliant or bigoted, you can’t deny it changed the way we talk about gender online.
It’s polarizing. It's loud. Honestly, it’s a masterclass in low-budget, high-impact filmmaking.
The film, released in 2022 by The Daily Wire and starring conservative commentator Matt Walsh, focuses on a single premise. Walsh travels across the United States and even to Africa, asking various people—from gender studies professors to a Maasai tribe—to define the word "woman." The responses, or sometimes the lack of them, form the backbone of the entire 95-minute runtime.
The Core Conflict of the What Is a Woman Movie
At its heart, the movie is about the clash between traditional biological definitions and modern gender theory. Walsh approaches his subjects with a "deadpan" style that some fans compare to Sacha Baron Cohen, though his critics argue he’s less a comedian and more an interrogator. He isn't looking for a nuanced sociological discussion. He wants a simple, dictionary-style answer.
When he asks "What is a woman?" to a pediatrician or a therapist, he is often met with circular logic, such as "A woman is someone who identifies as a woman." For Walsh’s audience, this is a "gotcha" moment that proves the modern gender movement lacks a logical foundation. However, for those on the other side, the question is seen as a bad-faith trap designed to ignore the complexities of human identity and the lived experience of transgender individuals.
It’s a massive divide.
Why the Maasai Scene Went Viral
One of the most talked-about moments involves Walsh visiting the Maasai people in Kenya. He asks them about gender roles and the concept of "transgender" identities. The tribe members appear confused, even laughing at the idea that a man could become a woman.
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This scene was designed to show that "gender ideology" is a Western, bourgeois construct. Critics, however, pointed out that using a single indigenous group to debunk complex psychological concepts is a bit of a stretch. They argue it ignores the long history of third-gender roles in various other cultures, like the Fa'afafine in Samoa or the Hijra in South Asia. But for the average viewer of the What Is a Woman movie, the visual of a traditional tribe being baffled by modern American discourse was incredibly effective.
The Controversy That Fueled the Fire
If you want to make a movie successful in 2026, get people to try and ban it. That’s exactly what happened here.
Upon its release, the film was largely ignored by mainstream critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it famously had a massive gap between the audience score (which stayed in the high 90s) and the critic score, which barely existed because major outlets refused to review it. This "blackout" only made Walsh’s base more vocal.
Then came the Twitter—now X—blowup.
In 2023, Elon Musk personally promoted the film on his platform after a dispute between The Daily Wire and X’s internal moderation team regarding "misgendering" rules. Musk eventually tweeted that "every parent should watch this." The result? The movie garnered hundreds of millions of views in a matter of days. It was a distribution breakthrough that showed you don't need a theater or a Netflix deal to reach a global audience.
Analyzing the Impact on Health and Policy
The What Is a Woman movie didn't just stay on the screen. It bled into real-world politics and healthcare.
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In the film, Walsh interviews Dr. Marci Bowers, a world-renowned gender-affirming surgeon who is herself a transgender woman. The interview is tense. They discuss the long-term effects of puberty blockers and surgeries. Walsh uses these interviews to suggest that the medical establishment is "rushing" children into permanent changes.
Since the film's release, we’ve seen a massive shift in how these topics are handled:
- Several U.S. states have passed bans on gender-affirming care for minors.
- The "Cass Review" in the UK led to the NHS restricting the use of puberty blockers, citing a lack of long-term evidence.
- Public opinion polls show a tightening of views on whether gender is determined at birth.
Whether Walsh caused these shifts or simply rode the wave is a matter of debate. But the movie provided a visual language for the "gender critical" movement that hadn't existed before. It simplified an incredibly dense academic topic into something your uncle could share on Facebook.
The Missing Voices
One fair critique of the film is its narrow scope. Walsh doesn't spend much time talking to transgender people who are happy with their transitions or those who feel their lives were saved by medical intervention. By focusing on "de-transitioners" and academic types who struggle to give concise definitions, the movie paints a very specific, curated picture. It’s effective storytelling, but it isn't an objective documentary in the traditional sense. It’s a polemic.
Why It Still Ranks and Trends
People are still searching for the What Is a Woman movie because the conversation hasn't ended. If anything, it’s gotten more intense. Every time a female athlete loses a spot to a trans competitor or a school board meeting goes viral, this movie gets a fresh "second life."
It’s become a litmus test.
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If you say you like the movie, you’re often labeled a bigot in certain circles. If you say you hate it, you’re labeled as "woke" or "anti-science" in others. There is almost no middle ground. That kind of friction is exactly what search engines and social media algorithms crave.
Practical Takeaways for Navigating the Discourse
If you are planning to watch it or are currently debating its merits, here are a few things to keep in mind to keep your head above water.
Check the sources yourself. Walsh cites various studies and medical experts. Don't take his word for it, and don't take his critics' word either. Look up the WPATH standards or the Cass Review findings. Reality is usually found in the boring, 200-page PDF reports, not the 30-second TikTok clips.
Understand the "Man on the Street" tactic.
Remember that for every person who looks silly on camera, there were likely five others who gave nuanced, boring answers that were edited out. That’s just how filmmaking works. Walsh is a pro at finding the most "viral" reaction.
Look at the broader context of the 2020s.
This movie didn't happen in a vacuum. It was a reaction to a decade of very rapid cultural change. Understanding that it is a "counter-cultural" document helps explain why it resonates so deeply with people who feel left behind by modern social shifts.
The What Is a Woman movie is a piece of history now. It’s a marker of a specific time in the West when we couldn't even agree on the basic building blocks of our biology or our language. If you're going to engage with it, do it with your eyes open. Recognize the bias, acknowledge the effective rhetoric, and then decide for yourself where the truth actually lies.
The best way to form an opinion on a controversial piece of media is to watch it in its entirety, then read the most coherent critique of it you can find. Compare the two. The truth usually isn't in the movie or the protest—it’s somewhere in the uncomfortable space between them. For those looking to understand the current political landscape, watching this film is basically required reading, if only to understand what half the country is talking about.