Thread derailment

"Pregnant person" isn't quite like that because it isnt language I'd use to everyone. In fact, I've never had to use to anyone indirect communication. I've written it a few times. My students often use that terminology, too. I don't know how much theyve discussed what language to use in university.

As you note, language matters. Language changes the content of thought. It’s why Orwell so successfully made his point in 1984. Compel people to use different language and you change their thinking. Very powerful.

By using the term pregnant person, you (global, not individual) shift thinking of women giving birth to people giving birth. Despite the fact that it is always a woman giving birth. For now. It diminishes women (global use of the word) to remove them linguistically from the one act that forms the single biggest difference between men and women and is the biggest reason for the deeply entrenched patterns of patriarchal society. Now your students use that terminology as a matter of course and in a sleight of hand, woman is erased.

Pregnant person may start out as being ‘respectful to individuals’ but it ends up being immensely impactful for all women. Not in a good way.

When your language matters so much, you have to learn to change it so it becomes reflexive to use it.

Ah yes, I know the feeling! You are afraid not to use "pregnant people" here for fear of mis-speaking elsewhere. But then again surely the mothers of FWR who feel devalued by terms like "pregnant people" deserve just as much consideration for our feelings?

That is one of the things I value about discussion on the MumsNet. Because it's written down and because it's not quite as immediate as face-to-face conversation there is time to stop and think about the language we use. And to discuss it too.

She said a practical thing we can do is stop saying "risk of DS" and say "chance" instead.

Not everyone would agree with her reasoning but I think it's a good thing to use to everyone.

Hm, I wonder how many parents of children with Downs Syndrome feel the same way as she does. Do they all agree? DS is not neutral.

One lesson I have learned from "trans" but to some extent also from recent disability activism is to be cautious about over-generalising from individuals' "lived experience" and also to be cautious about relying on the preferences of self-appointed representatives.

It's simple. My brain just flips to "okay you're not a woman but you are pregnant". When your language matters so much, you have to learn to change it so it becomes reflexive to use it. For instance, once a woman did a talk on Downs Syndrome and the language we use. She is a mum if a child with DS. She said a practical thing we can do is stop saying "risk of DS" and say "chance" instead. So I changed my language and now that's what I always say for the reasons she said it was important.

Not everyone would agree with her reasoning but I think it's a good thing to use to everyone.

"Pregnant person" isn't quite like that because it isnt language I'd use to everyone. In fact, I've never had to use to anyone indirect communication. I've written it a few times. My students often use that terminology, too. I don't know how much theyve discussed what language to use in university.

This is something I don't quite understand. (I suppose my following question may be a thread derail but never mind! Let's get meta.)

You said someone gave a perfect answer as to why midwives like me may respect the gender identity of a pregnant person we care for.

Could you give an example of what you mean by a pregnant person who is not a pregant woman? What kind of person are you talking about? You can only be talking about female people because no male person has ever been pregnant.

I could understand midwives saying that they will respect the gender identity of a pregnant woman who they care for, even if the pregnant woman identifies as something else - as a transman, or a man, a non-binary, or whatever other identity label she has chosen for herself. And I can understand that this respect for a patient may extend to referring to her with neutral or male pronouns at least in her presence and perhaps also in some other contexts - though I can also see how easily wrong-sex pronouns could lead to confusion and medical errors.

What I don't understand is how an anonymous poster who is not speaking about an identifiable individual could feel the need to use the term "pregnant person" rather than "pregnant woman". Please could explain what you mean by "pregnant person" and how this is different from what you mean by "pregnant woman"?

Indeed.

You know, as a midwife, this is something ive bumped across a fair few times because the unit I am attached to has a fertility clinic and so we see a lot of same sex couples and a few surrogates. While I have never had anyone on my caseload that has said they are a TM, I have had cases where the woman who is pregnant isn't the parent who the same sex couple have planned to be the primary caregiver. However, they didnt account for the physical toll of carrying and birthing a baby and how that in part dictates why you need rest and recuperation as well as your biological urges to fulfil a specific parenting role.

What I mean by that is that the woman who is pregnant would think that she could just give birth and return to work as the core provider while her partner stays home and plays the role traditionally played by a lactating mother. It's actually just underestimating how pregnancy and birth truly affects you in just about every way.

Actually, there always used to be a few little sub forums, one of them being feminist chat, the other feminist activism I think, and there may have been another one. They were tumbleweed. I think originally someone suggested that these be got rid of and that discussion got merged with some other people complaining that there was too much focus on trans stuff when they wanted to discuss other women’s rights issues (and some of these people were broadly GC, or claimed to be, and others were TRA allies who wanted to discuss “inclusive” topics).

There was in fact consultation, I think several threads in site stuff, and it wasn’t a popular move, but ultimately MN’s solution was to streamline the board into the “sex and gender discussions” and the feminist chat topic.

Ooh! That is swanky! I like it!

I'm not sure the second part of the sentence is necessary:

feminism based on women as sex class that is oppressed by the male sex class.

Certainly you have to have women as a class. The core of the argument with male-trans inclusive feminists is that they think it is about a gender class, and there can be a few reasons they think that.

It's a really fundamental argument so no surprise it creates really very basic and in some ways bitter disagreements. But in general, both groups are trying to address issues of women as a class.

But do feminists have to see being oppressed by men as core to a feminist? I think most if not all would say that can happen and often has. But as a lens from which to interpret all the social and political issues that affect women, as if they are all about male oppression, I don't think that is necessary at all. Many contentious issues between men and women are about differences between the groups that materially affect their lives. The fact that women become pregnant an that affects them in many ways that do not apply to men, for example, is not at it's core about oppression. It would be the true even if all people had perfectly equal views about men and women.

See, my winter warmer is soda bread pizza.

The soda farl is your base. Slice it sideways because it's thick. Slap on plently of tomato puree, then add chopped onion and grated cheese - sometimes I like to make it a bit swanky with some olives - bung it under the grill until it's nice and toasty.

I have a lovely recipe for crackers with cheese!

Crackers. Add cheese. Microwave for 45 seconds or til cheese is melted (I like to aim for past-melted-going-chewy).

Sprinkle with salt (and pepper if you want, I'm not militant).

Voila!

You are welcome.

And on a thread dedicated to a conversation about thread derailment, @Squishedpassenger completely derailed it by turning it into an argument about the meaning of feminism.

Fucking well done.

ETA I stopped reading this thread at about 12:30 and it is possible that a miracle happened in the following nine and a half hours.

... Aaaaand there you go, doing exactly what @IwantToRetire has invested a lot of time and effort in explaining about.

She's politely answered the unasked question: "Why do you long-timers feel this way?"

Further questions nobody has asked in this thread: What does feminism mean to you, and why? What are your reasons for this understanding? Would you call this 2nd-wave feminism, or what? How do you see it fitting with newer versions of feminism?

I'd love to think this lack of interest or curiosity is because you all (critics) have a truly solid grasp of the answers. But I think I'm being reasonable to deduce it's more that all you really want to do is moan about perceived orthodoxy, rigidity, unfriendliness, or whatever "mean girls" phrases you individually like to chuck around.

Now I'm cross with myself for rising to it 😬

Which boils down to, threads are not proceeding in a satisfactory manner because we are dumbed down and don't have THE CORRECT THEORY.

Well, that's us told.

Perhaps it would be useful to have a pocket guide that we could consult when there's a danger of us deviating from orthodoxy.

It interesting that yet again in retelling what is in fact FWR history some are so determined to pick an arguement they dont even say well that's interesting I never knew that, or it might have started like that, but as time has moved on.

So I am going to try one more time.

There used to be Feminism and Women's Rights as a forum on MN.

But the ability to have a thread on the forum about women's sex based rights, paticularly at the time the Government was consulting on bringing in self id, meant that GC / sex based rights became a dominate issue.

And with that discussion about people who said they were trans, what it meant etc..

And at that time the combination of MNHQ being overly sensitive meant that lots of posts were getting deleted because they were being reported as transphobic, or whatever?

Without consultation and based on an idea a few had, but were never thought through MNHQ arbitrarily set up another forum called Feminist Chat (what that was meant to mean who knows) and renamed FWR which kept the url of fwr with a title that users didn't accept and MNHQ never explained.

But clearly indicated that it was okay to talk about sex and gender, and those who didn't want to had their own chat forum.

Where you would have thought anyone who wanted to talk about differnt strands of feminism would got to discuss as it was not under the MNHQ's banner of "Sex and Gender".

But the other part of the history is that, and those who were around for some time before that was that regular contributors to FWR had started to leave, some saying explicitly it was because they felt stiffled, and or didn't want to have to go back to rediscuss what to them were basics. Or even thought well that FWR had been useful but want to move onto something else. (Occassionally you will see on threads someone say I miss xxxxxx poster.) And it did feel that women with knowledge and experience had moved on. Or felt the restrictions made genuine exchange impossible.

So I do understand that if you weren't part of FWR at that time it isn't clear why and to what purpose MNHQ did what it did.

But on the other hand, because you didn't experience it doesn't mean you can deny it. That's like saying to someone your history is irrelevant to me.

So MNHQ's misnomer of "sex and gender" is or was taken as meaning on this thread you could be discuss women's sex based rights without someone having a fit of the vapours and running to MNHQ because someone had said sex is a biological fact, and that they are transphobic.

Effectvely the split by MNHQ was a reflection of the division that TRAs had created in real live, as much as in the virtual world that MN provided.

As as PP has said, great that a thread about derailment has become a living example.

And illustrated that it isn't just the derailer, but those who respond.

I dont have disdain, I just dont have to discuss in a way that isn't what I meant.

We could have a whole other thread that is about how OP titles can be so easily misinterpreted because those responding view it through their view of the world.

ie quite often the first of second post to an OP can derail the intent of the thread.

You imply I am in the wrong.

Has it ever occured to you that you could be wrong because you have decided what the thread is about?!

And in leaving a thread I am allowing others to divert the issue, rather than endless come back to argue about points I have no interest in.

The articles you post are often very interesting @IwantToRetire

But your obvious disdain for other posters and for your threads not proceeding in the way you had envisaged is tedious.

This again is the problem of the drift from core feminism.

ie feminism based on women as sex class that is oppressed by the male sex class.

At this point in history the most overt expression of that is TRAs.

But if that discussion is not grounded in a feminist analysis it just becomes a single issue campaign, and open to being coopted by the right.

But I think this is another part of the trend that has made the forum less feminist, more endlessly ground hog day discussions.

That's not "derailment". If the premise of the thread is "look, here's a feminist icon saying something important we should listen to", and a significant portion of the response is women challenging that . . . that's fair. These aren't trolls who have come in from outside to stop the conversation. They're just women who disagree. That's well within the bounds of healthy debate.

My complaint on there was the level of discussion.

It wasn't about lets all gang up with all the terrible things we can think about Margaret Atwood.

This has been part of the dumbing down of FWR. The issue was about is the fanatsy in the Handmaid's Tale about to become a reality.

That's what I mean about FWR becomeing twitterish.

Feminism is an issue.

The problem is, particularly on virtual feminism is it revolves around personalities.

So if those responding aren't being very interesting, why would I bother to read the thread!

It was boring.

This aggressive posting style is exactly what details a lot of the gender threads.

Then when it is called out they all start saying "I don't see any aggression" "who is being aggressive?" And so on with the gas lighting and my favourite "it's not aggressive, it's robust" 🙄

Then come the cake conversations and it's obviously behaviour designed to make posters feel belittled and to put them off engaging further.

Yes it is a reasonable interpretation but there are some things I'd want to clarify/expand on that I cannot at this moment due to time.

Correct me if I'm wrong, squishedpassanger, but it seems to me that you are walking a line between:

allowing that others may be having a substantially differernt experience that you don't have access to (I am not a woman,) on the one hand, and

saying that they are in fact the opposite sex in any way that is sensible/coherent/doesn't obliterate others experience.

So a kind of fuzziness in terms of allowing people to describe their own experience, without necessarily allowing them to simply define reality.

Is that a reasonable interpretation?

I think that pragmatically, that can often be a reasonable way to operate with regard to a lot of human issues. Particularly in professional settings where we may have to leave room for other people to think in ways we don't agree with without it becoming a focus.

It can also be most appropriate where there are real questions about what you might call the "facts" of the situation. If there are multiple theories that fit the available facts, or where you personally feel unsure you have a good handle on what is really going on.

I used to feel more than way about gender, but I think the medical questions are actually a lot better understood now, and there are some firm conclusions we can draw - the main one being that "tans" is not a special category of people, and it's actually quite a damaging idea for individuals medically, and society generally.

In particular, I think individuals thinking of themselves that way almost always have real underlying issues that are ignored as a result of that conceptualisation, and 100% of the time they would be better off if they did not think their problem was "being trans."

So I don't feel like I can or should leave room for that idea to flourish. But I don't think some level of what I'd call leaving room for fuzziness is necessarily logically inconsistent.

That I 100% agree with, it's a point I have made myself as well.

(Also aware we've derailed a thread on derailing - the irony!)

Another interesting outcome of this thread is that in looking back at my old posts, I realised someone posting at that time was almost certainly an earlier incarnation of one of the current me-railers.

It actually reassures me to look back at this and see my arguments are consistent regardless of who I may think I'm talking to.

Edit to add: That's not an oblique dig at anyone of this thread - I don't think the me-railer in question is on this thread.