Guardian: people unable to identify or name women's genitalia

Interestingly, Lynn Enright believes that TWAW. I read her book, she's quite sure that hashtag-be-kind is the first step.

So, yes, interesting article from the Guardian.

Agree with Nicknames that there's a bit of an unpleasant element of sneering at the uneducated here. But why expect anyone to know this stuff if no-one teaches them? Or if it's taboo to talk about female genitals?

Which begs the question - why do so many of us not ask for clarification? Why do we accept not understanding?

I can accept that some people are squeamish, or perhaps completely uninterested in the workings of their insides, even if that attitude is totally alien to me.

“I'd the upbringing a nun would envy and that's the truth. Until I was fifteen I was more familiar with Africa than my own body.”

As Joe Orton wrote in the 60s.

To be fair I wouldn’t have got Monis pubis that’s not something I’ve seen since school. I know all the correct important parts but I would called labia inner and labia outer not Minora and Majora so I guess I would be % of those who failed!

'Why couldn't they say urine in a doctor's exam room FFS?'

Because lots of people don't understand words like 'urine' and 'faeces'. Or 'vulva' for that matter. Yes it's depressing, but it's more important that people understand what the doctor is asking them

Hang on, did I just read IN The GUARDIAN, that women have three holes. Wonder what LOJ has to say about that. Transphobes.

Oh I’m glad they’ve fixed it. I mentioned this story to DH who’d also read it and was very cross, not out of righteous feminist ally rage but due to the shallow desire to test himself and prove himself better informed than average.

I know why they did it like that originally - they thought that having even the most stylised of representation of the external female genitals was just too shocking, so a cross-section of the vagina was more acceptable. You will note that while the cross section picture was right up at the top of the page, the new diagram has been moved to halfway down where a random browser can’t see it and the top picture is now “kindly nurse reassures worried older female patient.” There’s a world of semiotics in all that if you can be bothered.

DH is still disappointed that it wasn’t an interactive point and click quiz.

So how was this woman to know where she had an infection if the doctors used both terms ambiguously?

Language matters!

'Waterworks' - yes, I remember that, too.

What got me about my colleague was that something had gone wrong in her body, something potentially life-threatening to her baby, something she didn't understand, yet it didn't occur to her to ask for clarification.

It was also even more unclear than 'waterworks'. At least that was understood to mean the bits of your body that 'make water' (an old euphemism for peeing). So a "water infection" meant a UTI. But "waters", particularly in reference to a pregnant woman, always referred to the amniotic fluid.

I wonder if I’d have known some of the things on the quiz without that book, because I certainly don’t remember learning them at school. It was all Fallopian tubes and ovaries there, as the article mentions.

Apologies, being a bit childish but started imagining this as a picture round on “Countdown”.. !

I recently had to fill in a form that asked about my 'water works' and if I had any problems with them. WTF are water works!

They’ve amended the graphic now.

I have to say that I’d struggle to relate that nicely coloured neat little image to anything I could actually see with a mirror.

I've just been for a stay in hospital and I was pleased to see a poster on the wall that showed a drawing of what you see when you look at yourself in a mirror with everything labelled, next to the sort of cross section drawings showing uterus and ovaries that you tend to see in biology books. It said something like, learn about your body in order to look after your body ...I wish I'd taken a photo of it (although the nurses might have thought me a weirdo!)

Interesting article from the Guardian as their journalist got it wrong earlier in the year.

Not only the reporter but all the other people who are supposed to read and check copy before it goes to press.

Drives me mad on naked attraction when they “what do you think about her vagina”, etc. No it’s not her vagina, it’s her vulva you idiots. Seeing her vagina is going to take some interesting camera angles!

Interesting article from the Guardian as their journalist got it wrong earlier in the year.
‘This article was amended on 5 January 2021 because an earlier version, in two instances, referred to the sculpture as of a vagina, when vulva was the correct term.’

They didn’t change the headline though probably because of the pun on ‘vagina monologues’.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/03/the-vagina-dialogues-33-metre-artwork-draws-far-rights-ire-in-brazil

Eve Appeal is a charity that highlights female reproductive cancers. They did a survey a few years ago, quite a bit survey, and found that 50% of women don't know the difference between their vulva and their vagina.

So, how do you know if you have vulval cancer if you don't know where your vulva is?

Women die because of this stuff.

Mark my words - this is all leading up to the scenario whereby victims of abuse won't be permitted or able to name their own private parts in court, meaning that nonces will get off Scot free.

My husband only realised last year (aged 42) that women have 3 'openings'. I made a passing comment about it in conversation and he looked utterly confused. I was pretty shocked - he's intelligent and has plenty of common sense. He just didn't know. I don't think that it's that uncommon for men particularly to not know.

Very small sample. Though I would not be surprised if a significant proportion of men had no idea about women's genitalia.