Lennie Pennie: Gender neutral language matters in the Herald

From the article -

I am a woman, and I menstruate, I am not a woman because I menstruate

You've got it backwards, poppet. You menstruate because you're a woman.

Oh ffs.

1. No, the language is not inclusive, it's exclusive. It just happens to exclude the 99% of the population who are seen as not mattering compared to the 1%, so that's supposed to be all right. Any claim to be doing this through care about people or inclusion or protected characteristics is obvious bollocks; only one group matters in this world view.

2. The reason for fucking around with the language and wanging on in increasingly bizarre theory worthy of a drunken group of philosophy first years is to try and separate women from biology. This is simply and solely to let a small group of men own womanhood.

Absolute garbage Pennie. No one shall compel my speech or thought, least of all intellectually immature people with mental health issues

Or they could be girls. But none of them are male. What she is arguing here is that being a woman has nothing to do with being female. Then, of course, 'woman' is meaningless term for which there would be as much need as everyone telling everyone in their letterheads what their favourite colour is etc. It becomes "liking pink, dresses, makeup, being submissive etc."

The irony is in the fact that it would be impossible to identify as any gender if sexes were not acknowledged to exist. So other people being sex-defined is a necessary condition for the gender identity ideology to exist.

She's clearly an idiot. Saying that it's women who menstruate or give birth is not the same as saying that all women menstruate or give birth. Nobody who isn't a woman menstruates or gives birth. And no, saying it does not define women by whether they menstruate. If anything does that, it's avoiding usung the word 'women' in favour of 'menstruators'. Honestly, what a load of utter horseshit.

She's a smug pain in the arse. Next.

It's Lennie, not Laurie! Unless I'm missing something.

I absolutely go/have gone through all of those things because I'm a woman. I'd have much preferred it if DH had done it all, but sadly that wasn't possible.

Laurie needs to try to grasp the concepts behind the Venn diagram

I agree with @Ereshkigalangcleg

You wouldn't even be considering getting pregnant, giving birth and breast feeding if you were a man. Not all women do these things but only women can do these things.

And to be honest I'm just getting fed up with this idea of not 'being defined by my reproductive system'. Being pregnant and nurturing my children has been the most beautiful and rewarding experience of my life. I have experienced this because I am a woman. It doesn't define womanhood, it doesn't lessen the experience of womanhood for any woman who does not go through this and it is not the only thing that defines me, but it is still my lived, female experience and I'm sick of it being diminished and the words woman and mother being amputated from something which ONLY women can do.

Very interesting segment on Women's Hour today. Featured an interview with a very knowledgeable midwife called Leah Hazard who has done research on and written a book about the womb.

Really interesting. But then she spoiled it somewhat by referring to "people's menstrual effluent"...

What the bloody fuck???!! [Pun intended...]

It’s interesting she says her friends don’t identify with womanhood despite being female ergo they aren’t women. I can totally see why women don’t identify with womanhood - like motherhood it has many negative connotations and is quite prescriptive and suffocating. But it’s just like saying you literally aren’t a mother because you don’t identify with motherhood despite giving birth! I feel sorry for these women that they don’t see humanity and personhood as being compatible with being a woman.

Infertility, voluntarily childlessness, inability to breastfeed or being pre or post menopausal doesn't make you less female, no of course not but menstruation, childbirth and breast feeding happen because you are a woman, that is the female reproductive contribution. The sole reason any of us exist. So it is a non sequitur to suggest otherwise.

Whilst you can say having children is not a condition of being a woman, producing milk and giving birth are a condition of childbirth, and only women give birth.

We are embodied.

Our bodies are either male or female.

Until the 1960s and reliable contraception, having children was a condition of having sex and not being infertile).

Having sex then wasn't always a choice. Having sex now isn't always a choice. If I choose to have a child I have to accept I will give birth and produce milk. I don't exactly choose to do those things, the choice i make is to have a child or to have sex or to use the milk I produce.

Ooops sorry. Need better glasses I think 😳😳😳

Laurie Penny is defo a knobber, but this is someone else.

Is Laurie pennie the idiot who claimed she got PTSD from a bad book review, and said the young girl who was flashed by the Wii soa pervert shouldn’t have been looking? Knobber

Womanhood is not some small insignificance precariously perched atop one word, entirely reliant upon its use or omission, it is an unshakable, immovable foundation upon which each and every expression of what it means to be a woman can comfortably exist.

As previous posters have said - having told us what it isn't, tell us what it is? Please tell us what womanhood is. Grief it is tedious and non sensical and naval gazing and boring.

Indeed.

Most women interpret 'woman' as sex-based: if they are adult female human beings, then they are women. A small minority of adult female human beings refuses the label 'woman' for them.

Therefore, genderism, to be inclusive of that small group, forces its interpretation of 'woman' on the vast majority. Just a feeling, it is now, being a woman, but nobody tells us what to do if we lack the belief in such abstract inner feelings of femininity. So we are being erased!

I know I'm just repeating myself at this point, but if you want to make the point that 'woman' no longer means 'female', then perhaps consider explaining literally anything about what it does mean, and should mean in future?

It's always "there are many ways to be a woman" - "name one? er I'm busy right now"

considering I am, at least the last time I checked, a woman myself.

Would genuinely be interested to know what criteria she checked against. I suspect she did not.

For someone who talks about the importance of language, does she not believe that words need to convey a meaning? Which meaning is conveyed by 'woman', other than 'person'?

😂
You're not wrong, @PriOn1!

The article is idiotic. Women can do/do do all those things because they are women. Functions of their sex. Identity claims are irrelevant. If they were relevant then how come declaring yourself to be aan makes no difference to your reproductive role or capacity?It's not just bad luck or illness or age which prevents menstruation in a man, it's the fact that he is a male-sexed human being and therefore does not have the equipment.

As for women being people, well duh. So are men. So that's no clearer, is it? Only women can menstruate, gestate, give birth or breastfeed.
Gender neutral/non sex-specific language is a nonsense when talking about functions exclusively found in one sex.

And of course women don't stop being women if they have parts of their reproductive system removed. I am always amazed when TRAs say this thinking it is a "gotcha" because it demonstrates the idiocy of their argument.
Women remaining women post-hysterectomy etc proves that "female" is their sex and that claiming to be a man has no effect on whether you actually are one or not. And it also demonstrates that sex characteristics are not (as Dr Emma Hilton puts it) a smorgasbord or pick'n'mix which randomly attach to a foetus. If you are female you develop characteristics from Column A, if male your characteristics come from Column B.

''To refer to women as people does not negate their womanhood, rather it emphasises their humanity''

So why don't we see this nonsense happening with men?

How does the term ''woman'' lessen our humanity? Holy internalised misogyny, Batman!

How is the use of practical, accurate, everyday language in any way related to “stereotypical femininity”?

I haven’t read the full article yet and am not sure I will, but there’s quite the aroma of male bovine faecal material about the quoted statement in WeeFree’ post.