Use of the term "hamburger" by sonographers to describe baby girl "bits"

Women are sorry.

In ante-natal care, I would believe anything.

I think it is the fact that;

Women are often reduced to the contents of their genitalia.

Women's are often reduced to pieces of meat.

Sonographers are probably mostly lovely people who are pressed for time and want to explain things in a way people can understand. They are, quite clearly, not tools of the patriarchy but just people doing their jobs.

It is still crass.

if you are referring to me, vezzie, i'm not saying it doesn't matter. i'm saying it doesn't exist and that the OP is predicated on a bogus line of enquiry. because in fact no one is referring to children's genitalia as hamburgers.

well of course. if they said 'there's her hamburger' i'd think the person was a farking idiot. but they don't say that, they're referring to 'the sign' rather than using it as a slang term for the genitals. (and i know that the OP came back and drip fed that they did, but i don't really believe it).

I think I will go on all the baby naming threads now and rant "IT'S A PERFECTLY GOOD NAME IF YOU LIKE IT, IF YOU DON'T THEN DON'T CALL YOUR CHILD THAT, WHY EVEN HAVE THIS CONVERSATION?"

Dunno vezzie
Ignore is my default

I always boggle a bit when someone storms onto a thread to insist that the subject of the thread DOESN'T MATTER IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER JUST LEAVE IT IT DOESN'T MATTER. It is so odd; presumably the subject of nearly all threads provokes a million silent shrugs, amongst the people who then leave it, but.... why?

Of all the words to use to describe the genitalia of foetuses, we ended up with fast-food Americana.

Who'd have thought it..?

I am sure there are adequate alternatives.

I think the fact that c) is even an option is probably what bothers me most, TBH.

Yes edith
I want a willy equivalent. Why can't I have one?

I guess for me it depends if they are saying

that bit there that looks like a hamburger
or
there is her hamburger

I would imagine the first
no-one's ever said it to me though, it's the first time I've heard it in this context, so did sound really odd

Another underlying point is the lack of a generally accepted day to day term for female external genitalia. No-one complains if someone points out a willie (rather than a penis), because the term is in such common use.

aitch that makes more sense, I think!
so they call anything that shape a hamburger.
hmm
still not keen at all

a. because i don't think that vulva would make everyone happy.
b. because it's the shape they're talking about. hence the borked joints. if it looked like a roast chicken or a frisbee or a couscous maker or a chest of drawers they would call it that.
c. because more people know what a hamburger looks like than a vulva, and sonographers get about five minutes per patient.

• 'wouldn't care' should have been 'wouldn't care for it for'

I'd be uncomfortable for any part of my body to be described by a HCP as a hamburger or having a hamburger sign, yes.

It's hardly an empirical description.

The whole film Falling Down was predicated on that.

line - thanks for explaining. I was just getting confused what we were talking about.

I agree, I wouldn't care either for a boy or a girl.

Snobbery?

aitch, if I go to any doctor, I do accept they know a load of medical words I don't regularly use. It's not snobbish. If they're good doctors, they'll also know how to explain those terms so I can understand. Eg. by saying it's three lines or by saying it's like a hamburger. We've established some people wouldn't care for the connotations of the term hamburger ... others don't mind. Why not use a term that makes everyone happy?

Jericho, I was thinking about aitch's post.

I would also not like my DS to be described using a crass [meat-related] metaphor or simile. It's all very reductionist.

don't be confused, sardinequeen. it's merely to establish that what sonographers refer to is the shape, regardless of location or nature of what they are looking at.

the snorting about vulva, btw, is just snobbery imo. you know that most people don't use that term. more but not all people would know clitoris, they'd know labia, they'd know vagina, but you can pretty much guarantee that everyone knows what a burger in a bun looks like.

should women with bad joints be offended if 'hamburger sign' is used about their borked knee, because of this women as meat thing?

line - no, and I don't think anyone said 'vulva' was the entirety of the area. But it does refer to the visible bits fo female genitals, doesn't it? Or am I going totally mad here?

I get that it is used in an innocuous way (joints etc).

Still crass though. (ie lacking sensitivity to the women/meat connotation)

No biggie, bigger battles to fight, etc.

But crass nonetheless.

I didn't find out the sex of mine, but if I had, any drivelling about hamburgers or turtles would have been met with a rather cool response.