Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Period poverty / 'bleeders'

446 replies

Beagadorsrock · 10/12/2018 14:07

"
❤️Jane Austen was a Super Plus fan, Lizzie preferred a Mooncup + Emma didn't leave Hartfield without her Thinx. But some bleeders in the UK can't afford sanitary products, imagine the scandal at the ball!💃🏽 Donate to @bloodygood__ this Festive Period & help someone's #flowhoho❣️"

twitter.com/ladycariad/status/1072068738147631104

Very disappointing. I can't believe we are back in the Middle Ages so comprehensively.
And no, using 'bleeder' is not "more inclusive" because it includes trans men. It is massively, massively reducing women to a (distasteful and historically considered 'impure') bodily function.

Can I start referring to men as "standuppissers"?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
19
Melamin · 14/12/2018 23:07
Grin
OtepotiLilliane42 · 14/12/2018 22:10

Thought you might enjoy this!

Men and Tampons ... in a Perfect World
TwistedStitch · 14/12/2018 21:48

How long till women start being referred to as incubators when pregnant

Well 'gestational carriers' is already being used so it's not much of a stretch to incubators.

Theswaggyotter · 14/12/2018 21:43

How long till women start being referred to as incubators when pregnant, lactators when breast feeding etc.
I remember discussions on here along these lines a couple of years ago and thinking surely it would never come to this...but now I’m not so sure.
Totally depressing, and so disrespectful of their apparent intended market ie displaced refugees trying to find their way in a new culture and finding themselves branded as bleeders. FFS! Angry

littlbrowndog · 14/12/2018 15:01

Jeez wha5 is wrong with the word women / girls
We are the only ones who get periods

bleeders
That is such an insult
Posh girls ffs
Idiots
Not one person in real life ever uses that word to describ3 a woman
Ffs

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 14/12/2018 14:59

Person of persons
Goolie owner of goolie owners
Prostate have of prostate havers
Non bleeder or non bleeders

Ereshkigal · 14/12/2018 14:57

And the language in those campaigns remains male-centred.

Indeed it is.

In any one day, you could be creating marketing collateral for our sports partners such as, the League Managers Association or the Professional Golfers Association. The next you could be writing tweets and Facebook posts to maintain the profile of our “Man of Men” badge to the golfing community, or drafting plans for a cultivation events featuring a famous footballer.

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/994386594/

Melamin · 14/12/2018 14:53

Many people today will have no idea how anachronistic the (supposed to be humorous) claim is, nor will be aware of the fact that it was well into the 20th century before most women even in the UK had anything other than rags as sanpro.

My MIL told me this is what she had to do in the 1950s - she was shown how to soak and wash them by her older sister. Other protection was available then, but I think her family were a bit on the frugal side behind the times.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 14/12/2018 14:53

Oddly enough I have found that people who went to a single sex school often have strange attitudes to the opposite sex (either quite dismissive or submissive to them).

Beagadorsrock · 14/12/2018 14:52

Tentatively, I think that maybe Cariad and/or the people at BGP thought that by using it themselves, they would take the sting out of the insult, a bit like African Americans have 're-appropriated' the n- word.

They're all talking about 'normalising' blood after all.

Problems with this:

  • I'm sorry, I can't see how pointing out specifically to it removes any kind of societal stigma about menstrual bleeding. Talking matter-of-factly about menstruation, like the vagina monologues, would be better, because that would make a point of refusing to be shamed into euphemism.
  • they instead take the view that it's important to make it 'fun' ??? Cariad actually in her morning after tweets wrote something like "love your blood'
  • no comparison is possible between the political racism of the n. word and the even baser sexism (unthinking sexism) of specifically biting your tongue when you want to say woman and instead, I know, use an insult! (question for the feminist theorists: Is this what the slutwalk does?)
  • they should have used quotation marks (it might, just might carry through as a spoken thing, but in writing it does nothing)

...
and that would be if they did it "to reduce the stigma of monthly bleeding for vulnerable people". But then they made it clear that they were saying:
we CANNOT say woman because NAW... so we'll find something else.

That is not inclusive. That is self-censoring, Vichy-Style. Can they not see the difference?

OP posts:
ScatterChasse · 14/12/2018 14:33

Never mind the fact her school was private, it was a girls' school.

We were often told we shouldn't think things were stereotypically male or female. I'm pretty sure they were talking about subjects and careers though, rather than biological functions...

VickyEadie · 14/12/2018 14:31

I was just re-reading the original 'attempt at humour by referencing Jane Austen in a thread about sanitary protection' thing.

I'm sure others have pointed this out - but even claiming that women in Austen's day had anything other than rags that had to be washed and hung out on the line by way of sanpro is fucking stupid. Many people today will have no idea how anachronistic the (supposed to be humorous) claim is, nor will be aware of the fact that it was well into the 20th century before most women even in the UK had anything other than rags as sanpro.

And that this fact is central to the limitations on women's activities until very recently (those sanpro ads which have women roller skating, etc will fly over the heads of a lot of people these days) is yet another kick in the teeth to those of us trying to hold back the tide of being shoved back in our "place".

littlbrowndog · 14/12/2018 14:21

Creepy guys is what we can conclude

Popchyk · 14/12/2018 14:07

There seems to be a lot of men who identify as women who are particularly interested in only those charities devoted to menstruation and specific female biology.

At the very least they are using it as a means to control women, market their own products and raise their own media profile.

You'd think the women in these campaigns would catch on. But no, they just carry on doing the grunt work while the brave and stunning hoover up the plaudits.

I know of no women who identify as men who are part of campaigns to combat prostate cancer. And the language in those campaigns remains male-centred. Which is a literal violence that the trans community seems to be resolutely ignoring.

I wonder what we can conclude from that.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 14/12/2018 13:52

Sexism is sexism though. Insult a man and it’s bad - same to a woman and if she objects she is a hag, troll, slag, aggressive (or ‘unladylike’), bitch, man hater...

Same old same old. But this time they have the bloody cheek to put on ‘womanface’ to mock us!

Notevenmyrealname · 14/12/2018 13:46

would I be homophobic to talk of male homosexuals as buggers
The exact same thought crossed my mind when I first read the OP. It’s about the same level of insult (well round our way it is anyway). Pretty sure there’d be an outcry if someone said that though.

GoldenWonderwall · 14/12/2018 12:46

I thought the white, middle class thing was pointing out that it didn’t seem right that pretty much every position of power in western society was held by a white, middle class man, and that this wasn’t ok, not that being white and middle class isn’t ok.

So a white middle class woman in charge creates diversity in those types of roles as does a Asian working class man or a black middle class woman or a trans middle class man etc.

Lucywithout · 14/12/2018 12:37

If it iisaccepted that fertile adult females can be spoken of as "bleeders" would I be homophobic to talk of male homosexuals as buggers? Some of us bleed - some of them do that they are both abusive swearwords.
NO JOKE!

Ereshkigal · 14/12/2018 12:28

Sophie LaBelle of Assigned Male would be doing a book signing at their next event.

FFS.

EmpressAdultHumanFemale · 14/12/2018 12:27

Juno Roche (a transgender person who identifies as a woman) is already on the board of the Vagina Museum project as detailed upthread.

I went to a fundraiser for them a while ago; an evening talking about vaginas & women's bodies. Parts of it were so good, & I tried to tune out the occasional 'cervix-haver' and 'people with periods' references... but then we got to the end and the news that Sophie LaBelle of Assigned Male would be doing a book signing at their next event. Despite neither having a vagina nor considering one to be an integral part of female anatomy.

Sigh.

Popchyk · 14/12/2018 11:50

These people have put a target on their backs. They just don't realise it.

The "language which is inclusive of men" demand is just the start.

Next it will be that there must be a man who identifies as a woman as a trustee/director in the campaign in order to oversee trans inclusion.

Then income from the campaign must be specifically set aside for men who identify as women.

Then since trans people are the most oppressed and suicidal, all income must be channelled their way, since all the refugees have the privilege of not being trans.

Juno Roche (a transgender person who identifies as a woman) is already on the board of the Vagina Museum project as detailed upthread.

VickyEadie · 14/12/2018 11:21

It doesn't matter how many 'symptoms' of a period I get, from irritation to cramping, if I don't bleed I haven't had my period, and whatever time I start feeling cramps, the bleeding determines whether or not my period is on time or late.

Now I'm well past menopause, any symptoms I get that vaguely remind me (I say "vaguely remind me because they don't even scratch the surface of the unremitting-for-a-week cramps I used to get every 22 days until I was 52) of period pain? Trapped wind.

FloralBunting · 14/12/2018 11:11

It doesn't matter how many 'symptoms' of a period I get, from irritation to cramping, if I don't bleed I haven't had my period, and whatever time I start feeling cramps, the bleeding determines whether or not my period is on time or late.

This is so fundamental that we are here on this very thread discussing why some organizations see fit to reduce women to the general status of 'bleeders'. No blood = no period.

Bowlofbabelfish · 14/12/2018 11:03

did they not actually TALK to women before they came up with this?!?

I get the impression they talk at women, rather than to them

Hamster00 · 14/12/2018 10:57

This whole transgender fallacy about periods has been around for as long as I can remember/when I transitioned.

For example:

mavenroundtable.io/transgenderuniverse/articles/my-time-of-the-month-as-a-transgender-woman-s5VLSxx6Qk6Y76mGeUz_LQ/

theestablishment.co/yes-trans-women-can-get-period-symptoms-e43a43979e8c/

But it's all a load of shit. The standard treatment is basically a conjugated oestrogen and an anti-androgen. The oestrogen is taken continuously and there is no "cycle" or "cyclical" symptoms. Yes, when starting on hormone treatment there are side effects which MIMIC (in the loosest sense of the word) menopause - ie hot flushes, sleep problems, mood changes and weight gain - HOWEVER these vanish after a month or 2 at most. They're side effects - NOTHING MORE.

Progesterone is not usually administered by GICs/specialists as it has little or no benefits on the feminisation of secondary sex characteristics.

Ok now strap yourselves in, here's the incredulous bit.

Some *trans (AGP) people do buy progesterone and self-med progesterone to cycle it to simulate a woman's menstrual cycle. Here is one particularly...umm..."interesting" thread. www.susans.org/forums/index.php?topic=236854.0 I needn't say any more - because quite frankly every time I see this crap I'm lost for words....

...I mean the bit about "needing chocolate" Angry...

*Trans women do not have periods. Transsexual women do not have periods. End of. It's appropriation at its worst.

But coming back to the original term... the whole thing is "inclusivity" at its worst. "Bleeder" is just dehumanising, reductive and fucking offensive. I mean, did they not actually TALK to women before they came up with this?!?