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

I've had crazy theories before that were ahead of their time

Aitch, I really really get it that you are entirely comfortable with the use of 'hamburger' as a term to describe the genitalia of a female foetus.

But I'm quite confortable having a discussion about it, no matter how bonkers I seem. I may be wrong; I may not be wrong. But having a discussion is OK.

It isn't the shape of the hamburger though really. I get that lots of people don't know of those Hustler images. Even I didn't think immediately of those images, and they are something I have seen lots and read about.

The association I'm thinking of is women = meat. I don't believe that there are many adults who have never come across that association. And hamburgers are made from meat, right?

Why did Hustler present women in this manner in the first place? They weren't the ones who invented the women as pieces of meat insult - it existed already. They just 'played around' with it and took it to an extreme in terms of making no bones about what porn is about. They did it to shock and raise their profile, but they also did it because they are hardcore misogynists (although they think/pretend they are defenders of free speech).

They took the 'women as no better than a piece of meat' thing and actually ground those women up and turned them into burger patties.

They took the insult which started out as steak (bad enough as it is dehumanizing and invokes death) and cheapened it/took it even further by making it cheap disposable fast food meat product that women were being compared to (and they weren't wrong - this is what the porn industry has become like, they need an endless supply of disposable women).

Anyway, be that as it may, I guess it is an obscure reference for a lot of people. The legacy of that reference is the porn industry of today though.

But even people who don't know about the above surely know that in male dominated society;

women = sex
women = meat (and also chattel, livestock, etc)
sex + meat + female = crass.

Perhaps not. Lucky you if you are blissfully unaware. I'm not unaware so it bothers me. Like I say, not that big a deal but interesting to analyse and discuss anyway.

but a shape of a hamburger doesn't carry any negative connotation for 99.99999% of the population, though. it's really quite a stretch.
i saw those Hustler images years back and it's never made me think any the less of a hamburger...
so you do think that calling something a banana shape because it's shaped like a banana is also crass, in sonography terms?

That isn't exactly what I said. I said;

"Thanks Aitch. Got you.
Yes I would think it was crass with regards to a male child.
Doesn't carry the same connotations as women/meat though.
But still crass, yes. ("See that bit that looks like meat and two veg/a hotdog")"

Notice I used examples of terminology which is used about male genitalia and I said, it doesn't carry the same connotations as women/meat.

In other words I would think it a lame way to talk about boys too but it doesn't carry the same weight of hugely negative imagery that forms part of a culture of violence against women, and centuries of gender based oppression.

Just as using crass words to talk about white people's colour of skin isn't the epitome of charm, but it doesn't carry the same connotations as doing the same to people of colour.

It's all about whether you're in the oppressed group or the oppressing group innit?

Standard feminist analysis AFAIK.

you're changing the goalposts, though, you earlier said that it would have been crass to use a hamburger shape to identify boys' parts as well. for me that was the clincher on how ridiculous this is.

If banana was being used to describe an area that was to do with the colour of the person's skin (a gland or something), something that was to do with their identity as a person of colour, then I would imagine that could be found crass. Although the banana imagery is less violent that the graphic images of women presented as dead meat (for men to wank over).

I think something like a flaming cross would be a better analogy.

Hamburger being used to point out joint problems = not crass.
Hamburger being used to point out something that identities one as female (the reason for one's oppression through the means of treating one as dead meat and publishing graphic images of that treatment for the entertainment of the group which oppresses you) = crass.

look, beachcomber, i would agree with you if the thing wasn't actually shaped like a farking hamburger. i presume a black person would be okay with, as one of the sonographers said below, something that looked like a banana being described as 'banana shaped', despite the fact that throwing bananas onto the pitch has very publicly and very globally been used to oppress black football players.

Forgot to say - what made Hustler publish the 'all meat' issue was the fact that women were speaking out about 'being hung up like pieces of meat' in porn.

That is the referecne that I would imagine most people to be aware of, even if they aren't aware of Hustler's 'fuck you' response to that protest.

But hey, like I said, it is crass and unfortunate - not the first up against the wall come the revolution, but little things do matter.

Just look at how we all police our language when it comes to crass racist language (and so we should).

I'm not really drawing a line. I'm just am able to see why it is an unfortunate turn of phrase.

That the vast majority of people will not be aware of.

And it is nothing to do with descriptions of genitalia. It is to do with graphic representations of women.

I'm guessing that it won't bother most people now. But at the time Hustler published those images (in an issue that was called the 'all meat' issue), women took to the streets in protest.

Honestly, check out the burger one in the Dines presentation. It might illustrate why this bothers feminists. You don't have to agree of course. And I accept that for most people, it is a pretty obscure reference nowadays. It was headline news at the time though.

i imagine most people know of the images, beachcomber. no question they're awful, but it's you who is drawing the line between that and a foetus's genitalia. not the sonographer and not the vast, vast, vast majority of parents.

It isn't about female genitalia being referred to as hamburgers in porn. As I said earlier, the connection is more subtle.

I can't find a link to the Hustler image I'm looking for, oddly, because it is as famous as the meat grinder one. It is late and my googling skills have left me. It is in a slide in a presentation by Gail Dines. The whole presentation is well worth watching but for people pressed for time, you get the burger image at about 10.20 - 10.25 in (you should be able to drag forward).

So, female genitalia on a scan looks mostly like a hamburger, so sonagraphers who can read scans easily, tell parents who can't read scans easily that they should look for the bit that looks like a hamburger?

and some people think that they have heard female genitalia in porn referred to as hamburger?

Therefore, porn terminology must have filtered through to sonographers?

Sorry, but this is one of the craziest theories I have ever heard of

to be fair a lot of it is me asking exactly that, tuffintop.

nice idea, but that's not true of the NHS at all. it's an organisation that needs to find the most expedient way of achieving the result, and with five mins per scan they're going to use the most obvious allusion. and actually on this thread i'd be inclined to think that the middle of the venn diagram that includes pregnant women who have ever heard female genitals described as 'hamburgers' and been offended by it to the degree that they would be offended by the mere expression 'shape' of a hamburger despite the fact that it IS describing something that is the shape of a hamburger would be so statistically insignificant as not to warrant the cost of re-training every sonographer in the country.

we have 11 pages on this????
weird

It looks like a hamburger. So whats wrong with saying it looks like a hamburger?

Surely, even if you think that its only a small proportion of women, who've been abused and exposed to some unpleasant stuff, who think 'hamburger' evokes nasty connotations in the context of female genitalia, you'd want to care for that small proportion?

Most doctors are wonderful people who aim to make the majority of their patients content.

Ah, good.

I was beginning to worry!

no idea if you are being sarcastic or making a joke. so i am going to go with 'making a joke' and in return.

Shit ! Sorry, I only just realized!

I was actually arguing against the existence of hamburgers!

Damn, I feel bad for all that basic and simple feminist analysis I bothered with there.

jericho... hamburgers exist. as your pal stewie would say... get over it.

bloody hell, stewie... read the thread. one person beaten up by the vast majority and I'M the one who is being dismissive? lolol. and trampling? am i not allowed on here? fucksakes, the amount of times i have stood up for this place, but i really see what they are talking about now. you, in particular, have sought to undermine in your customary passive aggressive way and you really seem to object to the fact that i haven't rolled over.

Surely, though, if hamburgers didn't exist, they'd find another description - right?

because it's the shape of a hamburger, that's why.
and it's my belief that so few people would ever begin to think about taking offence at something shaped like a hamburger being describes as being 'in the shape of a hamburger' that there is more to lose than to gain. if 'three little lines' did the trick, 'the shape of a hamburger' wouldn't be being used.
and i'm just asking you to test your thinking in a wider forum, that's all. as someone who has taken quite a pasting on this thread for not going along with the line here, i can understand why you would shrink from it.