AIBU to tell every mother on mumsnet...

[LastRoloIsMine]

We nearly lost the word mother and all that comes with it?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4176497-History-in-the-making-Watch-Parliament-Live-at-2-30pm

The maternity bill wanted to remove the word mother/woman and replace it with pregnant person.
Those words are important and women have fought for a century to be recognised yet we were nearly wiped out in favour of belief not fact.

I wont say "I am not transphobic" like some sort of plea! I dont actually have to I am just fighting for womens rights no need for me to explain myself any further.

Those people are still female because they can give birth. Listen to Robert Winston, HoL debate yesterday.

Did you not even read the rest of my post about XY people who are genetically male, but have a female phenotype and have gotten pregnant and given birth? You comment sounds like an article of faith more than science.

Yes I did and given the rarity of such cases and that around 640,000 babies are born in the UK every year are born from women it makes no difference.

You can still name it. It’s called pregnancy. Ta da! Protected.

And what about pre and post natal discrimination? Women who need to go to IVF appointments, women who are at risk of job discrimination because of their reproduction abilities, women who fear they may lose their jobs post-pregnancy, women who want to take extended mat leave, or return part time. There are so many factors that affect women and not men pre and postnatal, that's why pregnancy needs to be protected as part of women's rights not 'people's'.

@youvegottenminuteslynn Thank you!

Let's take another example for the importance of language. We'll use parent and mother this time.

Again the numbers are plucked out of thin air to demonstrate the point

A) During lockdown the burden of homeschooling has fallen on MOTHERS. 50% of MOTHERS have been furloughed or lost their jobs as a result.
B) During lockdown the burden of homeschooling has fallen on PARENTS. 25% of PARENTS have been furloughed or lost their jobs as a result.

Example A shows that the burden of lockdown is unfairly falling on mother's, and points towards sex based discrimination in the workplace. If the data was real it would show an alarming trend that mother's are being singled out based on a protected characteristic.

Example B which includes fathers in the data set, dilutes the experience and the burden falling on mothers. The language prevents mothers defining the discrimination. If you can't define it, you can't prove it

@fastwigglylines
Thank you for taking time to think and provide such a good measured response to my point of view/opinion.

I see you have compared sex to race and sexism to racism. However, are you also willing to take that comparison one step further and agree that like race, sex is also a social construct based on appearances? In a world where you can appear as a woman, but be biologically XY DNA (and vice versa)....how can we argue that sex is biology and that XX= always woman and XY= always man?

People used to argue race= biological differences. But now they know that there is more variation in DNA that we ever expected. The same is true of sex. Once you see that biology is more complex than traditional wisdom, you can see why we need to put sex in same category as race.

There are no laws regarding pregnancy that specify race are there? No laws regarding even crimes that specify race? Nope. It is all written in terms of “person”. Race neutral terms.

They just list protected characteristics in general terms, in a separate law...the Equality Act and that is enough for race and should be for sex.

You’re being ridiculous. Your experience isn’t defined by legislation. If you consider ‘mother’ to be the right word for you then use it freely, as is your right. Whether legislation is trans-inclusive it not doesn’t affect your ability to do so in the slightest

Typical woke bullshit from people who haven't even slightly understood the issue at hand.

It will spiral too. Im not on a deeper knowledge of this but the first thing i thought was ok... does that mean a transman that identifies as woman, will they acceot they could be effected by the pay gap... or will they still be a man when it comes to that....

@funnylittlefloozie

Any "person" who is pregnant is a woman, whether they identify as one or not. The language doesn't need bowdlerising to cater to a handful of people.

This This this this

Only women get pregnant and give birth.

Suggesting men give birth is ridiculous

Replace 'people' with 'men and women' and see how ridiculous it is

@fastwigglylines everything i was thinking but couldnt write it as well as you

You can still name it. It’s called pregnancy. Ta da! Protected.

And what, please, is the term for women's health, in a world where the term women includes males?

If I would like to start a Facebook group to advocate for funding for women's health (meaning health issues to do with pregnancy, menopause, menstruation, PCOS, endometriosis, abortion etc etc) - what should I call it?

Government has used gender neutral language in legislation since 2007 so this wasn't about 'erasing' language at all although there is a concerted effort by transphobic/homophobic people to get people outraged. Pretty much the same argument as the non story over Potato Head.

It's also given a cover for some of the most right wing Conservatives who've spent years defunding all women's services to appear as if they care about women's rights when they so obviously don't.

Also it's noticeable that 'feminists' who are so concerned about women's rights are not campaigning for this bill to apply to all parliamentarians - it only applies to ministers and there are many questions around maternity leave for other parliamentarians - but hey never miss a chance to have a go at trans people.

Any minute now the usual suspects will be along to say that I'm a troll or divisive or any of the other tactics they use to make them seem as if they are in a majority, when in fact it's clear that the same people are making an orchestrated attempt to present themselves as the majority by attacking and shaming anyone who presents evidence or disagrees. This has been noticeable on AIBU recently and the WhatsApp groups must be working overtime. As the GC lot like to say - 'we see you'

transphobic/homophobic

What exactly is transphobic or homophobic about a Maternity Bill?

@katrina11

That's a lot of words you have used there, but do you or don't you think the word 'mother' should be used on a legislative bill about maternity rights?

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]@LastRoloIsMine
Did you not even read the rest of my post about XY people who are genetically male, but have a female phenotype and have gotten pregnant and given birth? You comment sounds like an article of faith more than science.[/quote]
The one from "RARE diseases " ?

@PlanDeRaccordement there are only two sexes, however you dress it up. There are rare variations at times, but in all the history of all humanity (and mammals) females are the ones who carry babies and are historically the main caregivers. Within human society, this has only ever been used to against discriminate and abuse women. The least or laws and legislation can do to protect women is recognise them in the eyes of the law.

There are no laws regarding pregnancy that specify race are there? No laws regarding even crimes that specify race? Nope. It is all written in terms of “person”. Race neutral terms.

That has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand. Only female sex - women - can get pregnant and give birth. If only white people committed murder or only Asian people committed fraud, I'm sure the law would adequately reflect that . You're really scraping the barrel of your argument and coming up with nothing but whattaboutry.

But if you eliminate " woman" then "woman" won't be equal we will be pushed aside for men because if there is no such thing as a "woman" how can they be protected ...men will get all jobs as there will be no legislation to protect us ....the gender pay gap will widened but men will shout there is no gender pay gap because there is no gender ....to be equal we need to be recognised as distinct from men or we will never be equal ...

PlanDeRaccordement thanks, an interesting and very rare case where an xy person with swyer who does not produce ova and has some level of female (and male) reproduction structures, was able to give birth with donated eggs and HRT and considerable help from science. I don't believe this case is a reason however to remove all the language from around women, such as female, mother, particularly as legislation supports this person as a mother anyway.

@katrina11

Government has used gender neutral language in legislation since 2007 so this wasn't about 'erasing' language at all although there is a concerted effort by transphobic/homophobic people to get people outraged. Pretty much the same argument as the non story over Potato Head.

It's also given a cover for some of the most right wing Conservatives who've spent years defunding all women's services to appear as if they care about women's rights when they so obviously don't.

Also it's noticeable that 'feminists' who are so concerned about women's rights are not campaigning for this bill to apply to all parliamentarians - it only applies to ministers and there are many questions around maternity leave for other parliamentarians - but hey never miss a chance to have a go at trans people.

Any minute now the usual suspects will be along to say that I'm a troll or divisive or any of the other tactics they use to make them seem as if they are in a majority, when in fact it's clear that the same people are making an orchestrated attempt to present themselves as the majority by attacking and shaming anyone who presents evidence or disagrees. This has been noticeable on AIBU recently and the WhatsApp groups must be working overtime. As the GC lot like to say - 'we see you'

To be fair the purpose of the bill was to block a loophole in the legislation, previously junior ministers maternity rights were protected but senior ministers rights were severely curtailed. I think the expectation was that they were expected to resign . They now have the right to leave the post temporarily while someone fills in for them, but return after maternity leave.

I'm going to duck out - having only dipped my toe in.

Unfortunately we have a position in this country where the media like to position 'opposing views' as 'equal and opposite views'. In this case, they are not. I think that the activities of 'mothering' and 'fathering' as in the activities that individuals do to look after children, and the way they go about these, are actually a moot point, and not relevant here.

But it is women that carry and give birth to children. Women that, as a class, often experience discrimination because of this. Women, as a class, that require specific types of healthcare and social protections because of their female-ness.

Dress how you want. Love who you want as long as its legal and consenting.

But let's not ever lose the facts around what being female / a woman / a girl actually are.

I've often thought that you should try to tell a dog breeder that his or her prize bitch isn't female, or that the sexes of his or her best breeding pair are somehow on a spectrum. See how far that gets you. The difference there is, you can put a price on a breeding animal. Women have been seen as cheap and disposable since the beginning of time.

@LastRoloIsMine

Did you not even read the rest of my post about XY people who are genetically male, but have a female phenotype and have gotten pregnant and given birth? You comment sounds like an article of faith more than science.

Yes I did and given the rarity of such cases and that around 640,000 babies are born in the UK every year are born from women it makes no difference.

Of those babies, approximately 1 per day will have a DSD requiring specialist assessment. Many infants are surgically altered, it’s called IGM (InterSex Genital Mutilation) and then their actual state is kept secret from them. Even if IGM isn’t performed, parents often don’t tell their children they are DSD/Intersex. Not just female appearing ones like Caster Semaya, but the male appearing ones too. Take the Colorado man who went to hospital for a kidney stone and the scan showed he had a uterus, ovaries, everything.

The rarity in reported births from DSD is largely due to them being surgically altered in infancy and/or the stigma and secrecy. Not biology. I am sure anyone who understands the concept of total rapes being more than reported rapes can wrap their mind around this applying here as well.

And it’s disheartening to me that you think a minority is too “rare” or too small to deserve human rights. How many people would be enough? 1 million? Or a full 1-2% of all humans?

Scientists estimate that DSD is as frequent as red hair or green eyes among humans. Do ginger people then not deserve rights? Or those with the rarest eye colour of green?

@Erkrie

PlanDeRaccordement thanks, an interesting and very rare case where an xy person with swyer who does not produce ova and has some level of female (and male) reproduction structures, was able to give birth with donated eggs and HRT and considerable help from science. I don't believe this case is a reason however to remove all the language from around women, such as female, mother, particularly as legislation supports this person as a mother anyway.

If you take the time, you will find studies where women with Swyers have been fertile and given birth unassisted. The study I posted is not all there is on this DSD or all the cases of pregnancy.

Some people, not a lot, but some people who call themselves men get pregnant. Whether you like it or not. This doesn't mean that you can't call yourself mum or woman or mother or anything else. Women are people. Females who call themselves men are people. This allows all of these people protection under the law. Good.

Biological sex and gender are two separate concepts

@katrina11, its not transphobic or homophobic () to discuss the erasure of sex-based rights when it's happening (or attempting to happen) in the moment. Sex rights are different from gender rights, pointing that out is not an 'attack on trans people'. The fact that some trans people are actively campaigning for the replacement of gender terms over sex based ones can quite easily be sent as an 'attack' on women, but let's not regress this into some sort of war.

It's very simple, sometimes sex based rights are appropriate for equality and fairness, sometimes gender. The latter has no right to encroach on the former when it will cause damage to the rights of the former, and set precedence to further replace sex with gender when it is inappropriate to do so.

And it’s disheartening to me that you think a minority is too “rare” or too small to deserve human rights. How many people would be enough? 1 million? Or a full 1-2% of all humans?

Good job I never said that then isnt it.

Anyone woman who gives birth is protected by maternity rights. It doesnt matter what they identify as or what health condition they have. They are still protected.