The nonsense of this article ought to bring home to women who aren't aware yet that the erasure of the meaning of the very word women is happening even when describing procedures affecting only females.
Many of us know what it is like to be told to drop our legs to each side and "relax" in the doctor's couch for a cervical smear. You can hear the clang of the tray and that awful squeaking as it is unscrewed. It's is sharp at the edges and the last bit where they open it inside you ...can make you feel quite sick. It is uncomfortable and embarrassing and you are very very vulnerable and relying on a doctor not to hurt you in your most intimate of places. Your vagina.
The female body is the only one with a vagina.
The reason we have a smear test is so that we don't die of cervical cancer.
The female body is the only one with a cervix.
Cervical cancer only occurs in female bodies. It kills 2 females a week. It kills no males a week.
And yet.... and yet.... even the women who have redesigned the speculum to be more comfortable and better functioning for females .... have to say it has not been tested on "PEOPLE WITH VAGINAS".
Women. Women have vaginas. Women need smear tests. Women need to not die from cervical cancer at the rate of 2 a week.
Women need to be able to say that they want that investigation done by a female. They wasn't a female to insert that object into them. This is specifically important for victims of rape for example. If they can bear the procedure at all that is. They will have been raped by a penis. Females aren't "PEOPLE WITH A PENIS".
Women facing a smear test know their own bodies. Show them some respect when you speak about them.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/apr/23/how-to-redesign-the-vaginal-speculum?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other