Another breastfeeding one

What if English isn’t their first language? If I’d carefully typed a post in English and was asked to ‘make it more inclusive’, I might not have the faintest idea what was wanted.
My autistic kid would have steeled herself to post in a group- really been brave- and then to be met with ‘you’re saying it wrong’ would have devastated her and demolished her confidence.

It’s not inclusive to prioritise some people’s needs over everyone else.

#BeKind is such a superficial response to a complicated question. It’s a really easy, instinctive gut reaction to want to accommodate everyone’s preferences.
It’s only when you think a bit deeper about the implications that you realise it’s an absolute can of worms. You think it’s just about cost free language tweaks.

Who are you excluding when you prioritise inclusion? Why aren’t you stopping people referring to other things that might upset people with physical disabilities? Sight impairment or restricted use of limbs?

Who are you not making extra efforts to protect from feeling upset?

What are the eventual ramifications of the policy?

BeKind has led to men in women’s sports and prisons, increased opportunities for predatory men, and absolute shit show with statistics which will eventually impact provision of services, a general devaluing of women and women’s needs.

It’s normalised the mutilation of women’s and children’s bodies. Teenage girls should not be encouraged into binders, testosterone and mastectomies. And they are.

BeKind is actually #NotVeryKindAtAll.

And that's the inherent cruelty isn't it? Post partum women at their most vulnerable and exhausted being "greeted" with a lecture about language they must and mustn't use.

The most common, accepted and used language to describe women who have given birth - mother - is suddenly unacceptable and must be eradicated.

It's ironical that the words and behaviour of so many people who self identify as "be kind & on the right side of history" use words & behaviour that evidence the opposite. And as we see in maternity scandal after maternity scandal, so much of this toxicity towards women is enabled and funded by the NHS.

It's wrong because it's creating an in group and and out group. If I were trying to reach out to women having trouble with breastfeeding, I wouldn't start by trying to police their language, particularly in situations where no offence is meant. and it's very difficult to rationally explain why anyone should object to the language.

I dislike 'hey mamas' because I associate it with a particular kind of American online parenting which I find grating - but that is a me problem. I'm attaching meaning to a word that other people aren't. In reality 'mama' is just another word for mother, which is a neutral way to describe people who have given birth.

Please can you explain how the scientific term 'cis' relates to people.

It sounds very much as though you are saying there is a wrong and a right way to be female, but I'm assuming that can't be the case, because that is is just bog standard sexism.

I think a lot of people find ‘hey mama’ a bit cringe, but would not class it as transphobic abuse.

The group isn't for support from group members though. Were an admin led group so people aren't asking the entire group they're asking the admins. If they want a community group thats not us.

But I thought trans men were real men in the world of transness…

this lot want it all ways 🙄 ridiculous

When you're busy acting like the Thought Police, saying "a bigger boy made us do it", even if true, happens to make you look rather spineless.

To be completely 100% fair, I also find 'hey mamas' cringeworthy, but I'm just a curmudgeon on the internet, not trying to encourage women to breastfeed.

Quite.

I imagine that a very large majority of websites and Facebook groups that talk about offering breastfeeding support are aimed at biological women and the term/pronouns they use are also female.

I genuinely don't think anyone feels the need to amend their practice in order to accommodate a very small minority of breastfeeding "people" who don't class themselves as women, as their focus will be on supporting the huge majority of their service users, which are women.

All this angst is just a tick box exercise as the truth of the matter is that most 'people' who are breastfeeding are women and are happy to go by that term. If the person doesn't class themselves as a woman but are still seeking out feeding support they are probably in such a sleep-deprived, emotional and stressful post-partum state (never mind all the added trauma that BF difficulties cause), that they wouldn't even notice, or care, if they were referred to as a Giraffe, never mind as a woman.

Exactly

I bet if the admin started their own posts with 'mums/women/ etc and parents' then there'd be no problem.
Telling other women that they can't is putting a teeny minority belief and their (comparable to religious) identity above the reality based factual identity of the rest.

This is ‘erasing the existence’ of the female sex.

In practice though this is still censoring a wider variety of posts i.e. "how do other mums feel about xyz?" as it is addressed at all posters. It censors normal conversations and feelings of being in a female group.

Forgive me, but isn't your suggestion exactly what the group in the OP is doing?

It's called Breastfeeding and lactation support.

The moderator who joined the thread has confirmed women can refer to themselves how they wish.

The moderator has said that the rule is posts addressed to the whole group need to be neutral (i.e. "hi all").

I would bet the farm that the vast majority of the group will be referring to themselves as mums or a variation thereof in their own posts and discussions. So how much would "hi all" instead of "hi mums" when addressing the entire page really change things?

I agree the whole thing is silly but I do think some posters are rather over-egging the pudding with their outrage.

Imagine there was a tiny religion that adhered by the belief that babies weren't born from a woman's body but, through magic, appeared transubstantiation like.

The female followers obviously birthed their infants but dogma and scripture demanded they ignore that and proclaim that the children appeared in a cabbage leaf.

The rest of society roll their eyes or just ignore this and get on with everyday living. However, new mothers were chastised in support groups if they mentioned their labour, c-section etc at a very vulnerable time in their lives.

Mothers proposed that the cabbage god followers be included in being addressed but 'women who've given birth recently and cabbage baby mums' was rejected as 'erased and offended' the acolytes.

No one minded being polite to the cabbage lot but being told that these post-partum mums couldn't refer to themselves as birthing women as it excluded the tiny other cohort and their internal narrative.

The collective identity and experience of the women became taboo to mention in what was supposed to be a nurturing, supportive environment and were made to feel shamed and chastised for naming themselves and recognising others.

If the new mum group's leaders had added on the 'and cabbage mums' bit and not policed the language then a lot of problems would've been avoided.

It's the classic they are in the group they must agree with these rules.

Or more likely they just want breastfeeding help and support...

The vast majority of members are inclusive.

There is something quite delicious about excluding those who are not inclusive!

Just in case anyone missed it STMWBec clarified no transmen have asked for the removal of using words such as mums, women, ladies etc.

For all we know they don't care, don't want to be controlling others use of language or think it could have negative consequences for biological women. It's a large anon online group of thousands, not addressing them personally.

No doubt their gender dysphoria is off the roof having given birth and breastfeeding. I'd hope they'd get actual tailored specialist support like mothers with mental health difficulties do.

It does kind of remind me when the use of "blackboard" was decided to get racist...

Well, you have a group of 50,000 females (or whatever the number of active users is) on whom you have an impact, whether you want it or not. You can either choose to normalise the censoring of female-specific language, like you’re doing now, or you can do what is good for women - help ensure that we do not overlook female-specific provisions, we record correct medical data and statistics, we keep our female rights. The more we blur the lines/ language and create loopholes, the more it is the females who lose out.

You’ve chosen to help mothers - do it responsibly.

Sorry, but surely this argument works both ways in this discussion?

I’m wrong, about which bit?

You're wrong but ok. I won't be engaging any further
. It's very boring now.

So what if they feel uncomfortable. That’s life. Even children know not everything can be their way.

Imagine being so arrogant you think on a group of 57,000 people everyone who posts should use YOUR preferred words. I don’t bow to arrogant weirdos like that, it’s a shame you want other people to.

Granted mama is a weird word to call a grown woman but what is your problem with it per se?