How language has changed in 6 years

Erm, men wouldn't stand for that. Especially coming from a department that's probably mainly staffed by women. We'd be demanding to know who the fuck wrote this bollocks, and probably demanding to get some men in to do the job properly, and ditch all this "feminist" shit.

Course they wouldn't. It's only happening to women because we're conditioned (often with threats) to 'be kind' and silenced if we say 'hang on, let's talk about this'. Men would just say 'fuck this shit' and that would be the end of it.

As it ever was.

It's not about being inclusive. That mask slipped when women were told we need to say chestfeeding to avoid upsetting transmen. And you who are now allowed to use the term breastfeeding? Transwomen

It's literally about men stealing our words. Anyone who thinks this is about being kind to women who are struggling with their gender identity hasn't been paying attention

www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint/#/Complaint

I'll take all these claims of 'inclusivity' seriously when the NHS are using 'sperm producers', or 'those with a prostate' or 'ejaculators' on their materials and websites in the same way they are using 'those with a cervix'.

Erm, men wouldn't stand for that. Especially coming from a department that's probably mainly staffed by women. We'd be demanding to know who the fuck wrote this bollocks, and probably demanding to get some men in to do the job properly, and ditch all this "feminist" shit.

As a man, I'd be very wary of calling a man a 'prostate haver' or 'ejaculator' - I imagine it would take real guts as a woman.

From the other side I can kind of see why a woman author might feel fear at a mob of blokes going on about how "not all women have cervixes" etc, and want to say "alright then, I won't say 'women'".

Giving up your own language is somewhat akin to a "Fawn trauma response", as described in that thread about Sarah's rape crisis centre case.

The sex power imbalance really is thrown into sharp relief in the trans issue - people's sex is even more obvious when they start denying it.

Bergdof.... stupid phone!

The point of this is to be inclusive of trans men, none of this is about trans women

If this were the case then saying women and others who menstruate would be enough . However, that still associates the word women with female biology and we can't have that because it excludes males who identify as women. This is why pussy hats were banned from the Women's marches in the USA and Munroe Bergdog told the Women's Marchin London not to talk about topics discussing female health issues because it was excluding males who identify as women. All about the males!

@Wifwolf
> If it was really for the benefit of female transitioners, it would be the word “men” that was being removed from the language.

Ask any trans woman about this, and they'll tell you that they'd welcome trans-inclusive in "male" medical resources too.

Nope. Fuck this. The word 'woman' is a good and useful and necessary word. It's our word. It matters. They can't expand the meaning to include males; they can't erase it.

Women will still exist, of course, regardless of people trying to smooth us out of the language. We'll still be here, bleeding all over the place, inconveniently.

Life will just be that bit harder and more complicated and women's rights and existence will be that bit more difficult to fight for.

If that was true and it was all about 'inclusivity', then the same would be happening to language relating to males. It's not.

Prostate Cancer UK use men on their campaign materials because they are aware that direct language is necessary while NHS Scotland use the phrase 'those with a cervix' in their national cervical screening campaign. They're fine using men for prostate cancer material though. Strange that.

I'll take all these claims of 'inclusivity' seriously when the NHS are using 'sperm producers', or 'those with a prostate' or 'ejaculators' on their materials and websites in the same way they are using 'those with a cervix'.

Until then, I'll regard it as the bog standard, double standard misogynistic crap it is.

I’m so pissed off with this shit. I looked to see if there was a link t complain about it at the end but f the article. Does anyone have a complaint link. The BBC clearly don’t pay attention to our opinions on Mumsnet.

Person got another person to take their seed
They got the power, oh, they got the need
They spend their life through pleasing up their person
They feed them dinner or anything they can
They cry alone at night too often
They smoke and drink and don't come home at all
Only people bleed
Only people bleed
Only people bleed

It is disgusting to erase women in this way. However, I turned to my husband the other night and said, "Did I really just watch a whole news article on the BBC about shortages of menopause medication and the reporter spoke about women all the way through? No speak of menopausal people at all!" I was astounded that they had used the words woman and women. That shows how ridiculous the situation at the BBC has become that it was worth noticing.

But why use ‘people who menstruate’ instead of ‘women who menstruate’?

Women fgs!

Regressive institutional sexism that needs challenging.

What's wrong with menstruating wimen @PrelateChuckles?

I'm going to go against the grain here because the group of ppl in question - those who would legitimately require menstrual leave - are more accurately described as "people who menstruate" (or maybe "women who menstruate") than "women" or "all women" which is used in the 2016 piece.

All women wouldn't require menstrual leave, as we don't all have periods - pregnant women, post-menopausal, those on medication that stops menstruation.

I don't have a problem with using language that avoids referring to trans men as women. And all trans men won't have periods either. So "people who menstruate" does accurately talk about the demographic in question where "women" doesn't. The two are not directly equivalent.

Obviously to use the term to just refer to all women in a context that has nothing to do with periods is ridiculous, and I'd expect the equivalent usage when talking about male-specific issues.

I know I'm in the minority here but as no-one seems to even know what a woman is, it dodges that "confusion".

And I don't give a fuck who this is trying to accommodate, why do women never have concessions made or considerations given of how they might wish to be accommodated? We're just fucking disposable and of lesser importance, is why.

Oh, I just made a different thread about this. Yours is much more eloquent and useful.

They can all fuck the fuck right off, frankly.

The point of this is to be inclusive of trans men, none of this is about trans women

This is almost certainly not true. Those who most want the word woman removed from its common meaning of “adult human female” are the adult human males who want to insist that the word women should never be used in circumstances where they are not included. If it was really for the benefit of female transitioners, it would be the word “men” that was being removed from the language. As always, claiming a trans identity fails to remove the inherent sexism that ensures male people continue to have more power.

One of the saddest things about those two articles is that progress has been made in removing the word women (to benefit male people) but no progress has been made to help women with menstrual problems. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose…

Bloody depressing (pun intended). Woman is definitely the word which cannot be named

Emma Cox from Endometriosis UK, adds: "Anyone experiencing pain which means they need to be absent from work should expect to be listened to, believed, and receive support which is appropriate to the type and severity of symptoms they experience."

Is Emma Cox an advocate for women suffering endo or for all people suffering any pain. So a general pain management advocate?

That is how her statement reads to me.