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Original poster

For anyone who thinks calling pregnant women 'birthing people' is not a big deal, here's where that leads

160 replies

Clymene · 26/10/2020 19:00

Femcare is an organisation in Canada which provides education and advocacy around periods, seeks to end period poverty and end the stigma and health issues associated with periods.

Look at this tweet in their series about PCOS: 'another complication that may arise as a result of polycystic ovary syndrome is a menstruator having a miscarriage or premature birth of the baby'

A woman who is pregnant is not menstruating you fucking idiots. AngryAngryAngry

This is where this shitty language gets us. Organisations which are created and funded for women's health have completely erased us.

We are menstruators, birth givers, ovary havers.

Ps I am gratified to see that my iPad doesn't like the word menstruator. I'm sure that will change with the next update Hmm

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IwishNothingButTheBestForYou2 · 28/10/2020 09:37

@FrenchtoEnglish

Don't call them cunts. Cunts is our word. Women have cunts. They're ours. We need to reclaim the word. We've got cunts. Some men wish they had cunts. They can't have 'em. I sympathise with them. But they don't have them. We need private spaces because of our cunts. If you don't have one, you're not getting in. You can dress like you've got one. You can make a fake one. But women's spaces are only for proper cunts.

I know it's only Wednesday but I'm nominating this for post of the week.

FuckingRidiculous · 27/10/2020 20:15

When are we getting rid of the word men then? Or is it just women we're not allowed to call ourselves anymore?

I'll let DH know that he is no longer allowed to call himself a man. He is a penis haver, an ejaculator, semen producer, non birth person or any other ridiculous way to describe a biological MAN

FrenchtoEnglish · 27/10/2020 19:43

Don't call them cunts. Cunts is our word. Women have cunts. They're ours. We need to reclaim the word. We've got cunts. Some men wish they had cunts. They can't have 'em. I sympathise with them. But they don't have them. We need private spaces because of our cunts. If you don't have one, you're not getting in. You can dress like you've got one. You can make a fake one. But women's spaces are only for proper cunts.

TheFleegleHasLanded · 27/10/2020 19:32

Language matters:
uncommongroundmedia.com/the-gender-cult-is-winning-the-war-of-language/

PurpleHoodie · 27/10/2020 19:26
Halloween Grin
RuffleCrow · 27/10/2020 19:23

Ejaculators need to stop ejacu-splaining the female experience.

jellybe · 27/10/2020 19:18

@JacobReesMogadishu

I’m in a Facebook group of midwifery students and wannabe students and they are all so woke I could weep. Lots of posts saying stuff like it’s not just women who give birth. Talking about how you should never use the word woman in assignments, never use the word woman in a personal statement when applying.

I’d have thought as student midwives they should be the most pro women people about. They don’t seem to see the eraser of women aspect of their language and actions.

Oh my word I think I'm in the same group. It baffles and worries me how woke these future midwives are. Surely they can see that our future jobs will be looking after females and the biggest sign of them being female; the fact they are giving birth.
HecatesCats · 27/10/2020 19:06

@Clymene

FPFW have nailed it
Thanks for sharing, this is useful.
OwlOne · 27/10/2020 19:00

It sounds worse than chattel

CharlieParley · 27/10/2020 18:57

@MellowBird85

There’s really no need to get angry about this. The people who come up with is language are so silly and desperate, I actually pity them. It’s like in the film Mean Girls when Gretchen tries to make the word “fetch” happen. ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
I wish that was true. The people who have come up with this dehumanising language have managed to get gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics written into a number of national laws and international human rights law. This phrase is the origin of reducing people (almost always women and girls) to a number of unconnected biological functions or organs. This is in aid of removing sex as a legal category from all laws, policies and practice worldwide, which will result in erasing women as a biological and political class and abolishing our sex-based rights.

This language has found its way into the policies of every major human rights organisation, including UN Women, Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, women's health care charities, women's reproductive rights and care organisations like Planned Parenthood, the British Midwifery Association (the professions highest body) has included this language in its internal materials. It's getting taught to children and used every single day in countless media articles.

And this is happening on all continents.

merrymouse · 27/10/2020 18:50

How do you describe a concept like amenorrhea if everyone has to pretend that anyone could have a period?

How do you distinguish one group of people who aren't 'menstruators' from another?

Original poster
Clymene · 27/10/2020 18:48

FPFW have nailed it

For anyone who thinks calling pregnant women 'birthing people' is not a big deal, here's where that leads
OP posts:
Coffeeoverload · 27/10/2020 18:29

Rhetorical question I meant. Not eaten today...

Coffeeoverload · 27/10/2020 18:26

WHY ARE MEN NOT BEING ERASED???!! ARGH!

Obviously this is a hypothetical question.... Sad

For anyone who thinks calling pregnant women 'birthing people' is not a big deal, here's where that leads
Original poster
Clymene · 27/10/2020 18:14

Mainstream media, companies and organisations which provide products and services to women have erased us. We should be very frightened.

If we cannot name ourselves as a sex class, we cannot organise. We can not identify when we are discriminated against and we will lose the sex based rights that our foremothers fought so hard for. This stuff matters. It's not just semantics.

For anyone who thinks calling pregnant women 'birthing people' is not a big deal, here's where that leads
For anyone who thinks calling pregnant women 'birthing people' is not a big deal, here's where that leads
For anyone who thinks calling pregnant women 'birthing people' is not a big deal, here's where that leads
OP posts:
FuckingRidiculous · 27/10/2020 17:51

God it just infuriates me.

Everyone every where is allowed to identify as whatever the hell they want these days it's seems, except actual biological females who are no longer allowed to identify as or call themselves female lest it upset someone else?

Bloody nonsense. I'm a woman not a menstruator (my phone won't even recognise it) and I'll never call myself as such and will correct anyone that tries.

nepeta · 27/10/2020 17:22

@tattooedmummy1

Uterus evacuation facilitator GrinGrinGrin
That and the midMENstrators made my day. For some reason the examples at the beginning of this thread made me really upset. So thank you for the humour.
tattooedmummy1 · 27/10/2020 17:06

Uterus evacuation facilitator GrinGrinGrin

WhataFarce76 · 27/10/2020 16:57

@MellowBird85

There’s really no need to get angry about this. The people who come up with is language are so silly and desperate, I actually pity them. It’s like in the film Mean Girls when Gretchen tries to make the word “fetch” happen. ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
But it is happening. It's happening in schools, which is important, because by the time 'our' generation are gone, this will become the new norm for the next generation. They will not even know their rights and language have been taken away from them, because the changes are so insidious and sneaky. My daughters are already spouting some of this utter nonsense.
highame · 27/10/2020 16:26

Lots of stuff on the internet trying to obliterate us, but lots of stuff on TV calling us women. My guess, nobody dares but they might in the future if no one can stop this lunacy.

Court cases will multiply and the more women realise what's going on, the easier crowdfunding will become.

Floisme · 27/10/2020 16:11

@nepeta

So what are midwives going to be called in the future? Midspouses, I guess.
I like uterus evacuation facilitator.
MarieIVanArkleStinks · 27/10/2020 16:05

Well, if we're getting inventive with the wordplay I'd rather be a 'struator. Because men don't really seem to have much to do with it.

Or how about men 'ater? With the obligatory disclaimer than I only hate the ones trying to turn women into some kind of dirty secret. I feel a NAMALT coming on ...

Datun · 27/10/2020 16:04

@nepeta

'm not really concerned with those women who genuinely are saying it to be kind. It will take a conversation of about 30 seconds to make them see the issue.

I have had two conversations with women who wrote those articles where my gender identity is replaced by calling me a body part owner.

I emailed them to inquire further and explained why I found what they did problematic (!).

Both stated in their answers that transgender people are so much more abused and assaulted than bog-standard women that they have decided being nice is more important than any discomfort this might give me. So I wasn't able to make them change their views.

That because they're not being nice. Or kind. They're being misogynistic.

When I said genuinely 'kind', that's what meant.

If you can't make someone realise in a short conversation why it's wrong to place the validation of a handful of males as more important than being able to name all women, it's not kindness that is motivating them.

KitBumbleB · 27/10/2020 16:03

Well if we are no longer allowed to use the term women surely trans women aren't either? Trans menstrators anyone?

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