New Scientist magazine and 'pregnant people'

Bill Tidy, the cartoonist who did Grimbledown Down, would've had a field day. He used to talk about 'nu-food', a forerunner of upf, I suppose.

Pregnant females

what like cats? Fish? Dogs? Rabbits?

Just like ‘menstruators’? Would that be a bat? An elephant?

Non-pregnant individuals

So everyone on the planet who is not pregnant? Is it relevant to everyone, or just to woman?

There is a reason why using language that the majority of the group you are communicating to needs to be absolutely clear who is being discussed. People could be harmed if they don’t get that message.

There are ways to do this without dehumanising women.

Seams like the perfect time to drop this brilliant paper about using sex based language and why it is important Gribble et al 2022

To be fair ‘New Scientist’ has never been a “proper” science publication. It’s the Grazia of the “science” popular publications world.

I’m not surprised by this sort of crap from them. Don’t waste your money on it.

Women. The word that can now only be used to describe a minority of men. And can no longer be used to describe those who are pregnant.

Holly06 believes that "woman" is a social role not a simple biological reality. Holly06 is a sexist.

New Scientist magazine does not deserve to use the word "scientist" in its title anymore. It us a disgrace to the word. I have a subscription and it will not be being renewed. It is so much dumbed down trite nonsense.

The crosswords are quite good though.

Do not understand how someone who doesn't want to be woman does the thing that is a completely and utterly woman's experience- gets pregnant. Totally accept they may have been the victim of rape. Whereby they need personal support and not for 51% of the population to lose their identity

@waitwhat23 🤣 yeah, I can imagine! It just reminds me of so many ineffective, arsey managers (usually women who genuinely think they're "kind" while hating everyone they know) I've witnessed in workplaces. People like that really think they come across as superior while everybody else is rolling their eyes.

No, thank you.

The day feminists start 'accepting where society is at the moment' is the day we lose everything and roll right back to being vassals of our fathers & husbands.

This. I won't be "accepting" being treated like a second class citizen whose feelings aren't important and it's considered fine to ignore my needs and concerns, to pander to a small group of self absorbed, confused female people and validate a group of entitled males.

compared with ... vaccinated non-pregnant individuals.'

Were those non-pregnant individuals men or women? There's probably much less point comparing pregnant women with men.

Well, as a previous pregnant woman, I really don’t think that if I was pregnant now that I would want to be dehumanised by being called a pregnant person.

As it was I was dehumanised by my employer at the time and by my GP as well. I really wouldn’t have needed other organisations doing it as well.

If other females have the need to be called something other than women, then organisations can make the effort by adding language rather than reducing it to ‘people’. And just because some posters might be very happy to accept that dehumanising, the rest of the female sex does not have accept it.

I'm still waiting for New Scientist to take a break from drizzling on about the latest fad diet and go interview some sports scientists and do a proper article about what the research says about the physical differences between men and women in sport, the effects of hormones, and so on. Even one. There's been a deafening silence from them. I don't know what they're afraid of.

Oh, do keep your passive aggressive smarm to yourself, we're not on a Zoom meeting with HR.

The smarm reminded me of a relative who did some sort of 'how to get on in business' training and did lots of hideously tedious smarm like staring intently (and somewhat creepily) at the person they were speaking to, lots of arm touching and lots of blue-sky thinking/touch base style language.

And this wasn't just at work. They did this during personal conversations as well.

They seem to have dropped it now. Probably got too many incredulous looks and quiet movings away to ignore.

Pregnant individuals
Non-pregnant people
Pregnant females
Non-pregnant individuals

🤷🏼‍♀️

Looks like I won't be buying New Scientist again

www.newscientist.com/article/2333320-covid-19-vaccines-in-pregnancy-not-linked-to-miscarriage-or-stillbirth/

www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(22)00426-1/fulltext

'Pregnant individuals have been receiving COVID-19 vaccines following pre-authorisation clinical trials in non-pregnant people. This study aimed to determine the frequency and nature of significant health events among pregnant females after COVID-19 vaccination, compared with unvaccinated pregnant controls and vaccinated non-pregnant individuals.'

It's so funny - I periodically make the mistake of engaging in these threads and then get soundly put back in my place.

Then I remember for a while not to respond/read them until they call to me again 😂.

I'll leave you all to your echo chamber and get back to my G&T, feeling thoroughly chastised.

They will double down. I expect they already have on other articles. Sigh.

It will always be a deep mystery to me how women who hate the term so much because they identify as men yet do THE most female thing and get pregnant and give birth.

Pick a lane, dude.

I think you just need to accept that this is where society is at the moment.

No, thank you.

The day feminists start 'accepting where society is at the moment' is the day we lose everything and roll right back to being vassals of our fathers & husbands.

I'd probably put "prefer not to say", depending on how the question was asked. If it wanted my "gender identity" for example.

I'm guessing 3% pregnant women put prefer not to say. But who cares how they identify in this context. A medical journal should know better.

Oh, do keep your passive aggressive smarm to yourself, we're not on a Zoom meeting with HR. "Society" at large doesn't think we need to pretend some women aren't women. A tiny, very vocal, quite bullying minority do.

And, as always, woman still means female. It is a sexed term, not "gendered", not "open to interpretation".

Sex is biological fact.

Yes. And every pregnant person is female. A woman is an adult female human.

Women who don't want to be women are still women. It's sad for those women if it makes them feel upset or angry, but it would be better if they could just accept reality rather than trying to force the rest of us to accept their fictional world view.

Tough shit about the word count. If they care about the word count it's pregnant women.