#MarchWithMidwives and the erasure of 'mothers' and 'women'

I recently downloaded a menopause app. I deleted it when I realised that "people" was being used instead of women. If they can't even name the 50% of the population this affects then I would not feel confident using it.

‘Birthing person’ puts me in mind of ‘birthing cow’

As an aside is there any other group of people (other than women) being forced to accept terms used to describe themselves that they find profoundly offensive?

@Datun

Nicely worded post.

It's true, women are encouraging trans people because women like being kind. But in doing so, they are unwittingly participating in the erasure of the whole concept of 'woman'.

in their own rights erasure
My rights aren't being taken away from me just because trans people are wanting to keep theirs.

Or should we just ignore trans men?

It's nothing to do with transmen.

Anyone, particularly someone who works in maternity services, should absolutely know that a handful of women could never hope in a zillion years to affect policy change on this scale in such a short space of time. People simply don't listen to women.

It's not about being kind to a handful of women with identity issues. You could do that at the coalface, quite easily.

It's about a concerted effort to remove the definition of the word woman from having anything to do with her biology. In order that men can claim the word woman.

No man can ever be a woman, if a woman is defined as adult human female of or denoting the sex who bears eggs.

The word woman has to become a social concept, in order that it can be claimed by males.

Which is why actual women are reduced to being called cervix havers, menstruators and birthing people, whilst simultaneously being told that not every woman has a cervix, meantruates, or gives birth!

The biology has to be completely decoupled from the word woman.

Women who support this are colluding, albeit often inadvertently, in their own rights erasure under the mistaken apprehension that they are being kind to other women.

They're not. They need to look a little deeper.

@NoNotMeNoSiree - because only women give birth. Because all women who give birth are mothers. As Freddie McConnell has repeatedly been told by the courts.

'People' don't give birth. Only women do. It's kinda a sex-based thing.

Woah. I've just heard 'women and BIRTHING PEOPLE' on Woman's Hour from a woman representing midwives
Yeah, me too. Didn't hear too much after that as I was too busy seething; lost any sympathy I had.
Emma Barnett didn't pull her up on it, more's the pity. I suppose it was a case of pick your battles.

Woah.
I've just heard 'women and BIRTHING PEOPLE' on Woman's Hour from a woman representing midwives talking about the march yesterday. It's the first time I've heard it in the wild. I missed who she was but it really shocked me. This is madness.

I’m hugely thankful for midwives, they kept me and my babies alive through very difficult pregnancies.

But pregnancy is something that only happens to women and I just can’t support removal of sex based terms for something so intrinsically linked to our sex and the discrimination we face.

I’m so sorry to all midwives on this thread but I just can’t

I'm a mum also. And I have birth not birthing person. I. Am. A. Woman. And a mum

@RedDogsBeg that’s very dodgy. Not what you’d expect from genuine researchers.

[quote EndoplasmicReticulum]Not to derail thread but the survey has been posted now in the correct place (surveys board) if anyone's interested in seeing poor survey design in action:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/surveys_students_non_profits_and_start_ups/4406676-Survey-about-your-experiences-and-views-as-a-woman-only-UK-women-7-mins-to-complete-18[/quote]
and, rightly, deleted seeing as the people who are promoting the survey have been contacting MN posters via PM. Dodgy as fuck.

Thanks @EndoplasmicReticulum!

Not to derail thread but the survey has been posted now in the correct place (surveys board) if anyone's interested in seeing poor survey design in action:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/surveys_students_non_profits_and_start_ups/4406676-Survey-about-your-experiences-and-views-as-a-woman-only-UK-women-7-mins-to-complete-18

From what I've personally seen in a few bf and sling peer support fb groups is that a lot of women are "identifying as" non binary. In my own experience they're extremely angry about all this and get very aggressive when questioned.

You're definitely not coming at this with a neutral stance

They're researching conspiracy theorists and collective narcissism, not women's experiences.

I wouldn't have even bothered to check had they not attempted to derail several threads simultaneously with the same bloody survey.

Also, Kent Psych, if you are only seeking to know 'true attitudes' (to whatever) why have you put at the end of the survey 'If you want to know more about transphobia please look at...' then give links to sites such as Mermaids. You're definitely not coming at this with a neutral stance. Anyhow, this is derailing the thread.

[quote KentPsychMB]@KimikosNightmare we are hoping to get a measure of people's true attitudes and investigating whether these variables are associated with each other, hopefully if people are truthful in their views we will obtain a realistic perspective on how these concepts are related.

With regards to the item in question, this is from a well-established scale that has been validated internationally. Apologies for throwing you off with it but I assure you we are not attempting to skew the data with the use of this scale.[/quote]
I can't get past that question. I have grave concerns about the normalisation of pornography and prostitution. I am a pro- choice atheist.

Any answer I give means I have to lie. I either opt for strongly agree and lie on
2 counts (a) that I base my objection to pornography on religious grounds and (b) I am anti abortion.

Or I tell the truth about being pro- choice and lie about being anti- pornography.

Your explanation is disingenuous as your question is conflating views which have no business being conflated.

[quote KentPsychMB]@KimikosNightmare we are hoping to get a measure of people's true attitudes and investigating whether these variables are associated with each other, hopefully if people are truthful in their views we will obtain a realistic perspective on how these concepts are related.

With regards to the item in question, this is from a well-established scale that has been validated internationally. Apologies for throwing you off with it but I assure you we are not attempting to skew the data with the use of this scale.[/quote]
True attitudes to what exactly?

I’ve just clicked on the survey link, and emailed the department at Kent Uni to complain about how badly written it is, how inflammatory the questions are, how it’s steeped in gender ideology and that the Uni should be ashamed that they produce such inept students.
I think these students should stop believing the absolute lies they are being peddled and start fact checking when they read stuff on Twitter.