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Original poster

Not one mention of women or girls

59 replies

PaleBlueMoonlight · 13/09/2021 10:50

It is about dehumanising menstruators because they are not catered for properly at festivals. They don't seem to have noticed their own dehumanising language.

The erasure of any mention of women and girls and the replacement with the words menstruator and people with periods is the dehumanising language. It is being used to describe women and girls even when they are not menstruating, as women and girls who are not actively menstruating at this moment but have to plan for their periods are affected, girls who are not yet menstruating will be affected in the future and women who used to menstruate have been affected in the past. This means that they are not using these words to describe someone menstruating, but as words to describe our sex class. They are using them with the same meaning as the words women and girl have always meant. Its use in this way is an illustration of why we need words to describe a human sex class, but apparently the words we had are not OK and we have to use bodily functions to describe that sex class instead.

I know we have seen this to many times before, but it is so stark in this piece.

BBC: It's time festivals catered for people's periods

By the way, the title on the clicky link is what you see on the home page.

OP posts:
pollypocketlover · 13/09/2021 11:33

The BBC is completely captured and honestly it pisses me off seeing people referring to it as an 'independent source' when it is so obviously biased.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 13/09/2021 11:25

This means that they are not using these words to describe someone menstruating, but as words to describe our sex class. They are using them with the same meaning as the words women and girl have always meant.

This is definitely happening. The London Women's March (the same one that invited Munroe Bergdorf to speak) tweeted (now deleted) that in 1973 when we joined the EU there were x number of menstruators in Parliament. Now I very much doubt they knew the menstrual status of all women in parliament at the time, so they were just using it as woke shorthand for "women"

whyamisobored · 13/09/2021 11:15

I saw that. It really made me angry. Women exist! FFS. We are not offensive by our existence...or apparently we are and cannot be mentioned.

Imagine if they'd run the same article about people with IBS who need access to a clean loo and referred to them as "defecators"!?!

If they'd even said women and other people who menstruate I'd have rolled my eyes but got the point that they're trying to be inclusive. But to exclude and erase the lived reality and identity of so many people is just wrong.

EdgeOfACoin · 13/09/2021 11:13

I am one step away from cancelling my licence. I really am.

This stuff is making me think very very hard.

Artichokeleaves · 13/09/2021 11:07

We've become a dirty word.

Joystir59 · 13/09/2021 11:06

That term is so dehumanising. Girls and women. We are girls and women. We are so powerful, we bring life, and go through so much, and end up being named for a bodily function. So degrading. It makes me so angry to hear young women using this term.

Beowulfa · 13/09/2021 11:00

Yeah, total bollocks.

As an aside, at my GPs the other week I was heartened to note the waiting room flat screen explaining the different invite rates for age groups for cervical screening used the word "women" and only "women" throughout. This is in a scruffy, working class part of South London, so glad to see the wording was as clear as possible to reach the maximum audience.

TooWicked · 13/09/2021 10:59

Fucking BBC.

I wish they allowed comments on the article.

Clymene · 13/09/2021 10:56

That is such a weird watch. As a woman who has had periods for 40 years, I didn't even feel like they were talking to me. It felt like they were some niche subsection of people who have a medical issue.

Menstruators. FFS

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