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Original poster

NI Civil Service removed 'mother' and 'woman' from maternity policy at Stonewall's behest

57 replies

SexNotGenderNI · 02/02/2022 13:53

Morning everyone - we had an FOI in to the NI Civil Service after they internally released maternity and paternity policies in which 'mother' didn't appear once, but 'father' appeared 10 times. They've responded, with Stonewall's 'recommendations' to remove 'mother' and 'woman' (remember when Nancy Kelley said on Woman's Hour they didn't want to do that?) - you can read it at www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/819001/response/1961120/

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SweetGrapes · 02/02/2022 14:20

Ffs. Never stops to astound me... where are the grownups? why are they not laughing stonewall out of the room?
Is it as simple as misogyny? So men go along because it benefits men and women go along because they want to please the men?

If this is it, then we are going to face this in some form or another every 100 years.

picklemewalnuts · 02/02/2022 14:15

So if they remove all sex based language, how do they plan to design policies/allocate resources? If some people are entitled to say 4 weeks paid leave when they become pregnant while others are entitled to 3 months paid leave? Some people are entitled to attend regular appointments during the pre birth window, others are not? How can we work out which one is which?

Helleofabore · 02/02/2022 14:09

Thanks for doing those FOIs and following up.

MarshmallowSwede · 02/02/2022 14:09

So is anyone still willing to argue that this is not an anti woman movement?

Would anyone still like to say that this is not driven by the pure hatred of women?

Would anyone like to counter that they will not rest until they absolutely erase women from society while men and men’s feelings are prioritized above the safety of women?

I will wait, because I would love to hear the counter arguments!

IncompleteSenten · 02/02/2022 14:07

This is bloody ridiculous.

We should be insisting they remove man and father too because it's funny how male, man, father, he etc is ok. Just like men's toilets stay men's toilets and it's women who lose our single sex facilities.

We need to make this something that pisses men off. I'd love to think our voices are enough but I'm not delusional. We don't matter. We need to use men's loos, join men's clubs and campaign for the removal of the words man and father and see how bloody quickly this shit ends.

🤬

Hestyo · 02/02/2022 14:04

Ffs. At least no one at Stonewall did Latin so maternity (from 'mater' meaning mother) was allowed to remain. Wonder how long before it becomes purely 'parental leave.'

Original poster
SexNotGenderNI · 02/02/2022 13:54

There are a load of documents there, so we screenshotted some salient parts and posted on our Twitter account: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1488815501094567936?refresh=1643809904

If you work in the NICS and want to get in touch, we're sending stuff to journalists at the minute. So angry.

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