Menstruators!!! - What's Up, Docs? on Radio 4

IdaGlossop · 2025-09-02T16:09:42+00:00

This is an interesting programme on Radio 4. I have learnt that 1/3 of menstruators suffer period poverty. Interesting. I have learnt that the plastic in a packet of sanitary towels is the equivalent of eight plastic bags. Interesting. I have learnt that it is possible to make a 30-minute programme about the defining physical process of the female body without once using a female pronoun. Ludicrous and infuriating. YABU = menstruators is an inclusive word to use to describe male and female people losing the lining of their womb each month YANBU = menstruators is an absurd word that panders to the deluded fantasists who have persuaded themselves that a human being born male can lose his womb lining once a month for 40 years.

lljkk · 08/09/2025 18:35

I haven't heard the original full radio broadcast. BUT
I did hear an excerpt on pick of the week.
About "how creative I am when I'm on my period" said the guest Expert. Literally sharing her own experience and how she said other women feel same.
Revelling in their hormonal cycle.

I felt proper BOAK and does that mean creative people should be paid double when menstruating and only a minimal retainer rest of the time? Who wants to perpetuate the stereotype of women as Creators (literally). Don't care about the word menstruator but would rather no one believes my creativity peaks must coincide with a menstrual cycle.

MichelleCancelled · 06/09/2025 17:35

hydriotaphia · 04/09/2025 11:35

But why would a radio 4 documentary need to use simple language to include people with English as a second language or with learning difficulties? I totally agree that public health messaging needs to be simply written, but the idea that every publication does is ludicrous.

This is one of the most ridiculous things I have read on here, why shouldn't my daughter listen to R4? How disabilist.

limescale · 05/09/2025 08:54

Avocadocat · 05/09/2025 08:31

It’s ironically called ‘the stronger sex - what science tells us about the female body’ and the blurb talks about women. I was so excited and then in the opening chapters there’s a long spiel about how TWAW. And lots of examples of trans women’s strength etc.

A theme is how women are suppressed by men and don’t get the same opportunities which affects their lives later on. True. But then talks about how men who spend their childhood and teenage years as men with those experiences and hormones can become women - and they overcome challenges and are stronger so why can’t ‘cis’ women.

Aside from the accuracy issue it really hurt my brain trying to process who she meant at times

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stronger-Sex-Science-Tells-Female/dp/1805460889

Show quote history

I am impressed (I think!) that you managed to get so far w/o your poor ears melting or catching fire with rage. What a load of old twaddle.

LuLuLemonDrizzleCake · 05/09/2025 08:39

I don't menstruate anymore due to an early hysterectomy.

But only women menstruate so I would have no issue with the programme referring to women throughout. I can use common sense to know it doesn't apply to me!

Absolutely no need to erase the word woman and dehumanise us.

Waitfortheguinness · 05/09/2025 08:38

Topseyt123 · 02/09/2025 17:15

It is a dreadful, utterly ridiculous word. It seems like another attempt to avoid mentioning women and to airbrush them away as if they were unimportant.

Funnily enough, it never seems to happen to men!

There is one collective pronoun for them……..W**kers!
after all it’s what most of them do for 40 years, at least, probably more 😂😂

Avocadocat · 05/09/2025 08:31

opencecilgee · 05/09/2025 07:42

Fuxking hell. The mind boggles 🫣

Show quote history

It’s ironically called ‘the stronger sex - what science tells us about the female body’ and the blurb talks about women. I was so excited and then in the opening chapters there’s a long spiel about how TWAW. And lots of examples of trans women’s strength etc.

A theme is how women are suppressed by men and don’t get the same opportunities which affects their lives later on. True. But then talks about how men who spend their childhood and teenage years as men with those experiences and hormones can become women - and they overcome challenges and are stronger so why can’t ‘cis’ women.

Aside from the accuracy issue it really hurt my brain trying to process who she meant at times

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stronger-Sex-Science-Tells-Female/dp/1805460889

opencecilgee · 05/09/2025 07:42

Avocadocat · 02/09/2025 17:38

I’ve been trying to listen to an audio book about the female body and strength training. It’s all about women’s physiology. The author goes out of her way to start off using the word women but then say cis women and then just talk about women according to their biology in more and more obscure ways. At one point for example she talks about people born with ovaries to refer to baby girls.

Men however remain men throughout the book. No babies born with prostates. She even mixes it in a sentence so says something like ‘cis women compared to men’.

At one point she actually uses the example of trans women who are taking female hormones to say some women can have strength closer to men 🥴

Fuxking hell. The mind boggles 🫣

Millytante · 05/09/2025 05:04

EmpressoftheMundane · 04/09/2025 19:58

Ah, I see. Yes, I don’t like being called a female either. But in this case it would be an accommodation I could make to avoid being “a menstruater”.

Show quote history

Hah, yes. You’re damn right about that!

Catiette · 04/09/2025 21:39

hydriotaphia · 04/09/2025 10:20

"Women who menstruate" is also not accurate. I started my period when I was 11 - I was not a woman then! Unless you subscribe to the sleazy/sexist idea that starting periods = start of womanhood.

I never saw such desperate desire for absurdly impossible precision in language until this movement.

Catiette · 04/09/2025 21:29

hydriotaphia · 04/09/2025 10:18

Well, I am a woman and I am not disgusted by this language. I also think that the OP's own posts on this thread demonstrate why more accurate language is helpful. On the first page she posted "all women menstruate" - ie she herself has fallen into the misogynistic/patriarchal trap of equating womanhood with biological function, even she is obviously aware that many women never have a period, and even those who do have them only do so for 35-40 years of their lives (and later corrected herself accordingly). So in this case it would appear that traditional language has caused someone who presumably self-defines as a feminist to think in a sexist and regressive way.

Please recognise the difference between "female" and "woman", which are words describing half of the human species (ie. sex), and "womanhood" and "femininity", which are words describing the socially constructed roles imposed on this half (ie. gender).

Far too many people nowadays seem to believe that simply naming "women"'s biological functions reduces women to these functions. It's an astonishingly naive and dangerous perspective - "sexist and regressive", in fact.

It seems so obvious to me that we need to retain and be able to use words that distinguish human females from human males - including with reference to their bodily functions - without assuming that this means that the people being described using these words are reduced to these functions.

Calling someone a "woman" in a health context, simply to establish that she likely has / has had / will have experience of menstruation, to enable appropriate care, is not a "patriarchal misogynistic trap", for goodness sake! It's a necessary linguistic descriptor to enable her health to be protected, and her legal protections as part of the class of humans who carry babies to be upheld etc.

It doesn't say anything more about her - nothing about her appearance, her personality, her strengths, her weaknesses, her humanity... Nothing! Because there are no limits to what a woman can be in these respects. Saying "women menstruate" doesn't change this. In fact, it's those who say it that it does who are drawing a totally unnecessary linguistic arrow from "women and menstruation" to "women and limitation".

Now, that is "sexist and regressive".

EmpressoftheMundane · 04/09/2025 19:58

Millytante · 04/09/2025 18:56

Those men, and it almost always IS men, who’ll say ‘There’s a female in the office who….’ and ‘It’s females who are responsible for road accidents’
He’ll unwaveringly refer to their counterparts as ‘men’ though.
Seriously (and although my post may have been badly put) this is very real indeed, and rarely issues from ordinary decent blokes.

Show quote history

Ah, I see. Yes, I don’t like being called a female either. But in this case it would be an accommodation I could make to avoid being “a menstruater”.

Millytante · 04/09/2025 18:56

EmpressoftheMundane · 04/09/2025 17:56

What are you talking about?

Show quote history

Those men, and it almost always IS men, who’ll say ‘There’s a female in the office who….’ and ‘It’s females who are responsible for road accidents’
He’ll unwaveringly refer to their counterparts as ‘men’ though.
Seriously (and although my post may have been badly put) this is very real indeed, and rarely issues from ordinary decent blokes.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 04/09/2025 18:46

Yes, I've noticed that. Another step away from clear communication.

Newmeagain · 04/09/2025 18:07

This whole thing is like an infection that is spreading.

Has anyone noticed that on mumsnet many posters have started using “they” for no discernible reason, when referring to their child, husband, etc. It can be very confusing and I think those posters think that is correct grammar.

EmpressoftheMundane · 04/09/2025 17:56

Millytante · 04/09/2025 17:35

Not as a noun we couldn’t.
At the moment that adjective used as a noun for us is a handy indicator that the person using it has a very poor opinion of women indeed, and should be given a wide berth!

Show quote history

What are you talking about?

Millytante · 04/09/2025 17:51

Mischance · 04/09/2025 17:38

Ah - I am post menopausal - does this mean I am a man now? - how exciting!

🤣
We just fade from view, and generally cease. Men sure don’t want us in their club.

Millytante · 04/09/2025 17:49

hydriotaphia · 04/09/2025 10:20

"Women who menstruate" is also not accurate. I started my period when I was 11 - I was not a woman then! Unless you subscribe to the sleazy/sexist idea that starting periods = start of womanhood.

Casuistry, as regards the discussion here, since nobody’s arguing about that, since it’s not the point.
At bottom, fudging language in this manner has been a way to embrace men who insist on their right to be seen and endorsed as women.
It’s an imposition which was based on no consultation, and we just woke up one morning, and there reason and biological reality were: gone!
To make blokes happy, through relinquishing our bloody words, if you don’t mind.

But you reminded me, when you mentioned patriarchal stereotyping. Not all women are to be identified by big tits, ‘American hair’, lavish makeup, and high heels.
That these have long been stock in trade of impersonators and remain the quick fix for ‘men as women’ still, it seems even trans women are the tools and agents of patriarchal oppression ( not that I’ve ever doubted it)

PengALeng · 04/09/2025 17:48

BBC have guzzled the trans kool aid. They absolutely despise women. Shame on everyone involved in this pathetic little programme. Traitors.

Papadulo · 04/09/2025 17:43

I got pissed off with the Radio 4 Sliced Bread podcast after they did an entire episode on sports bras without mentioning women once. Fucking BBC hates women.

Mischance · 04/09/2025 17:39

Mind you I did have to tweezer out a long hair from my chin this morning!

Mischance · 04/09/2025 17:38

Ah - I am post menopausal - does this mean I am a man now? - how exciting!

Millytante · 04/09/2025 17:35

EmpressoftheMundane · 04/09/2025 10:27

Transmen are women. So using the word women would be clear.

If we want to be sensitive, we could use the word Female instead of Woman.

Not as a noun we couldn’t.
At the moment that adjective used as a noun for us is a handy indicator that the person using it has a very poor opinion of women indeed, and should be given a wide berth!

Millytante · 04/09/2025 17:31

TheodoreisntBeth · 04/09/2025 13:52

Whether you are a man or a woman is biological. Not all women menstruate, but everyone who menstruates is a woman or girl.

This is about resisting a concerted attempt to divorce the meaning of the word woman from biology. Some people try to argue that women pushing back on the theft of our language is about biological determinism, saying that to be a woman you have to menstruate, or birth a child, or whatever. It's not about that.

What makes you a woman, if it's not your biology? You can't 'feel like' a woman, any more than you can feel like a lefthanded person or a brown eyed one. You just are, it's a biological fact. You can be any kind of woman you want, just as you can be any kind of brown eyed person. But what makes you a woman, is having a body formed around the production of large gametes - even if it never does. Biology is what makes you a woman.

Show quote history

Excellently put.

it’s scarcely to be wondered at that there’ll be slip ups in hasty reactions to this broadcast and similar hogwash, since we’ve to be swatting away angry buzzing assaults on ourselves as women all the damn time. A gal becomes angry and frazzled, maybe careless.

Millytante · 04/09/2025 17:27

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 02/09/2025 18:25

Oh, and I should have said this too - we all know that health promotion campaigns work best if they use clear, simple language and if the target audience sees immediately the message is being addressed to them. This is why it matters that the NHS has sometimes talked about 'people with a cervix' instead of 'women'. Women with poor literacy or women who speak English as an additional language are not going to know what a cervix is or whether they have one. Same goes for menstruators.

Spot on. Over and above one’s opinion about trans activism, transmitting health information is the principal imperative.
Fudged or euphemistic language is often dangerous, and if that small number of women around who wish to present as actual men are ‘de-validated’ by important information being aimed specifically at women….well, tough flipping titty, your feelings are not the most important point here, and to spare them through altered terminology may endanger the rest.

LittleBitofBread · 04/09/2025 17:24

KimHwn · 02/09/2025 17:41

Sorry but this just isn't true. There are women that don't and have never menstruate for myriad reasons due to health. I listened to the programme and thought they were sensitive to biological females that don't menstruate, and that's why they were careful with language.

Show quote history

Pull the other one. They're saying menstruators because the BBC is STILL running scared of the possible consequences of not pandering to gender ideologues.
They could easily have had a sensitivity disclaimer at the start along the lines of 'we do recognise that not all women menstruate, for many different reasons'.