We are now being called bodies with vaginas by one of the top medical journals in the land

[JustcameoutGC]

YANBU the word is woman
YABU shut up VAGINA haver

This will probably get shunted back to the naughty corner. But this is something women need to know. Coming soon to a GP surgery near you. As a vagina haver you may be invited for a cervical smear.

This is what the erasure of women looks like. Splayed on the front cover of the journal read by every medic in the land.

@Spiindoctor

Maybe we could be Exys - (XY chromosomes) - that's not too bad a name.

Sounds like out of 300. I like.

And what do we call girls?
'Young people with vaginas'? It sounds a bit creepy and porny to say that doesn't it?
'The young people with vaginas in our school have a uniform code as follows...' 'Hello Dr, this young person with a vagina waiting to see you is now in the waiting room'.

If you wouldn't say it about girls then don't say it about women.

Richard Horton knew exactly what he was doing when he selected that phrase - he did not care one whit that it would be offensive to large numbers of women. He just didn't care at all.

But it's not even 'people'. It's 'bodies'. So you'd be saying, 'could all the bodies with vaginas line up here to get their juice boxes please, and boys line up there'.

How on earth anyone can defend this is beyond me.

The bodies becomes irrelevant there really. The point is the vaginas.

Vaginas come here.
Boys go there.

Unusual sounding but men often use similar. They need to just call us cunts and be done with it.

I mean, that's true. But the fact that they can't even dignify us with 'people' adds insult to injury.

Bodies might not even be human. Might not even be alive! Who cares, we're just the ambulatory system for a vagina.

Just reflecting that when I grew up,no-one talked about vaginas. I didn't even know I had one until I was about twelve. No-one ever mentioned private parts. That hot topic right now, 'menopause', (so exciting there have to be workplace staff training days about it) was only mentioned by old ladies who whispered for the shame of it.

I don't want to go back to those days. I want my granddaughter to know her body and love it. But I sure as hell don't want me, her or anyone else to be referred to as a vagina, a body with a vagina, or a vagina-haver. We are women.

I emailed the head of the Lancet about the title, saying it was sexist and disgusting (I was a trifle annoyed) and CCd my Msp and this was the response from my MSP
'I quite agree – the world has gone mad. I would be keen to see any reply you get.'

Wow, that's a very forthright opinion.

I too emailed my Tory MP.

His reply - I hope you get a response to your excellent email. I’ve also sent a copy of my email to my friends & family asking them to write to the lancet & copy in their MPs. I said they could use mine as a template but to amend it to their own wording. I’m so angry.

I’ve also messaged Sheila Fogarty at LBC saying how on earth are people surprised by violence against women when we have the lancet referring to us as bodies with vaginas.

Let’s call men “dicks on legs” and see how they like it.

I cringe every single time I hear the word vagina.

I'm really looking forward to Andrew Marr asking a male MP how he feels about being called a prostate haver. I would love to hear the question receive a full and well thought answer too.

@Underamour

I cringe every single time I hear the word vagina.

That's a separate issue.

They don't call men bodies with a penis. Mind you that's because as women we know that is what most men use to think with. Clearly a body with a penis thought this up. Reality is only women have a cervix and you can identify as a unicorn for all I car but genetically if you have a cervix your a woman. Surely the term genetically female would be better. This body with a vagina shit is basically saying as women we are less important despite most bodies with vaginas identifying as female.

Fixed it???@ no, you definitely have not.

I'm happy with women and transwomen as terms. I am a woman, not a body with a vagina. It's an awful term

@HarrietsChariot

I don't see the problem, a woman is just a subset of the group of people whose bodies have vaginas. Transmen have them too, they are another subset. Just because a woman becomes a man doesn't eradicate their physical characteristics, so "bodies with vaginas" is the term to include both women and transmen (but not transwomen).

It's like with nationality, some people say they're English or Welsh or Scottish or Irish, another person might say they are British. The former are just subsets of the latter.

Crikey.

That's a step I haven't seen before.

Generally it's women is the whole group and that includes anyone who identities as a woman.

Then generally the idea is that transwoman is a subset of women same as black women disabled women etc.

Looking as it the other way then.

The name for the billions of female people in the world is people with vaginas.

And transmen are a subset, but I don't think there is a term for all the people with vaginas who aren't transmen.

Out of interest, how do you feel about female people as the whole group of people with vaginas? Ok, not ok?

On the reproductive system forming the basis of how bodies with vaginas are to be referred to. A few questions.

When it comes to vaginas (from the Latin term for sheath), generally and esp with stacks of men. The automatic association is sex. PIV. Hole for penetration with a penis.

What impact will it have on men/ boys and adult / juvenile vagina bodies? Having the term people with vaginas used instead of women and girls. Given social male female dynamics I think it would be damaging to vagina bodies.

Sorry posted too soon!

Couple more questions.

Do you feel that a headline saying eg.

People with vaginas in X country: Widespread rape due to civil war.

That sits ok with you?

And then. Ok I know I have a vagina (although loads of vagina people apparently call vulva vagina).
How do I know if I'm a menstruator? What does it actually mean? They stop and start due to loads of things. Is there a timescale? I'm in peri will I have another period? No idea. Am i a menstruator? What's the definition?
Person with ovaries, cervix. We can't see them. They are inside. How do we know if we have them? If we've not had a baby/ smear? If periods haven't started?

The language is unrelated to how people with fallopian tubes actually experience things, refers to things we can only assume we have.

We assume we have them (if we know what they even are) because we are women, girls, female.

So this approach references back to knowing what sex we are. And having a pretty decent knowledge of female biology. And then assuming we have xyz because we know our sex.

How is any of this better in any way?

@Spiindoctor

Maybe we could be Exys - (XY chromosomes) - that's not too bad a name.

XYs are the chaps.

Just because a woman becomes a man doesn't eradicate their physical characteristics

A woman cannot become a man, nor can a man become a woman. Mammals cannot change sex.

YANBU and have they apologised and demonstrated that they’ve understood why this is so offensive to women?
It’s undermining trust in the medical profession to be rampagingly misogynistic like this, all doctors have a collective duty to uphold public trust in the profession otherwise patients suffer from being deterred from seeking care when they need it.

The bit that gets me is that knew it was really extreme. And they did it on purpose to make a point about trans inclusion. When it was a piece about the global historical shit approach to women and girls- female. We were and are treated that way because of our sex. Trans inclusion has nothing to do with it. That's a separate topic.

It was a deliberate virtue signalling fuck you to women and girls through history and all over the world.

Bastards.

It shouldn't be "women and transmen", it should be "women, including transmen"

Would anyone who’s written a letter be happy to paste on here the key points to save time? This ‘bodies’ reference still bothers me. It’s excluding 51% of humanity from the definition of humanity, to refer to us as simply carcasses possessing that defining feature in the eyes of men, a vagina. Chilling to think as PP have said how little ‘bodies’ implies even sentience or even being alive.

I would happily write to the Lancet and copy in my MP as an example of how genderism’s misogyny is exacerbating misogyny in general with its dehumanising presentations of women being openly encouraged in some of the most well respected professional circles in the UK.

Knock on problem then being not only (obviously) offence caused and increased real life risks to women from entrenching and normalising misogynistic attitudes, but in this specific instance, this type of characterisation will result in erosion of trust in fair and appropriate medical care being available for women, which is not only extremely stressful and avoidable discrimination against us, but can ultimately deter female patients from seeking necessary care. I would also copy in the GMC because they shouldn’t be letting doctors think this is OK. Where’s their actively anti-sexist professional reminder to doctors?

The Lancet might set the (demeaning to women) tone but the GMC sets the actual professional guidance for how patients must be dealt with by doctors..

And good point Ilona

Gosh that demeaning. It’s lovely being a women right now…. Oh sorry, a living flesh light. That’s what we’re being defined as now right?

Our identities are shrunk and shrunk cinto one body part which only has value in it so much as it is of service to men.

Exactly WellThisIsShit much as I wish it wasn’t true.