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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think This Is Going To Hurt is awful to women?

390 replies

justanoldhack · 13/02/2022 13:39

Watching the show and can't help but shake a really uncomfortable feeling that its writer just...really doesn't like women.

I get that doctors are super overstretched, so tired, giving the job everything at the expense of their personal lives. I also get that it's a 'comedy' and not real, although it is based on his true life experiences.

But the way the women are portrayed as silly, a nuisance, stupid, battleaxes, or simply a vessel that 'covers his pubes in blood'... feels so off. These are women at one of the most vulnerable moments in their lives, but they're just props, the butt of the jokes. I can't shake the feeling that Adam Kay really, really doesn't like women. Definitely does not respect them.

Thanks goodness, I guess, that he's not longer practicing medicine. And not surprised either to learn that when he was younger he wrote 'comedy' songs about babies with Down's Syndrome and women from the North.

OP posts:
Toanewstart23 · 15/02/2022 15:39

Watching it now
Episode 5
Love it
And he’s brilliant with the patient who cuts her own labia

I think it shows doctors for who they are
Humans
Abs not the idealised Florence nightingales that the government and NHS have endeavoured to make us believe over the last three years

Goooglebox · 15/02/2022 15:55

Blossomtoes

Yes. Yes, he does.

cdba88 · 15/02/2022 15:58

Absolutely agree.

However I am more appalled at the advice given on reduced fetal movements and home dopplers.

I know it's set in 2006 but even then this advice wasn't standard.

Blossomtoes · 15/02/2022 16:32

@Goooglebox

Blossomtoes

Yes. Yes, he does.

We must have been reading different books then.
Toanewstart23 · 15/02/2022 21:10

We read the same book @Blossomtoes

Chimchiminie · 15/02/2022 21:30

@Blossomtoes

I’m a feminist (obvs) and am v much attuned to everyday misogyny, etc. I also read the book and like you, did not find it misogynistic. I’m not saying he’s not misogynistic – I don’t know. But he’s talking about patients the same way people in service or hospitality might talk about customers (having worked in retail).

The book is intended to be candid and humorous so obviously examples have been cherrypicked to make the book entertaining and a vehicle for the wider message about the NHS and junior doctors.

He worked in obs and gyn, so it happened that his patients were women. You might not like the way he presents his stories about patients but that doesn’t mean you can infer from them that he’s misogynistic. Perhaps there is some compelling example somewhere in the book but it haven’t seen anyone share anything convincing here.

Snoozer11 · 15/02/2022 21:43

@PandaDander

Yup makes me sick. Even the title is so disrespectful to women.
"This is Going to Hurt" is standard medical phraseology. It's really not disrespectful to anyone, and you know it.
Snoozer11 · 15/02/2022 21:50

In my experience doctors tend to be arrogant, particularly the younger they are, but obviously some are worse than others. I think you have to have that level of arrogance to do the job. I haven't seen anything from Kay that's much worse than the standard.

From what I've seen I find the constant commentary on the state of the NHS absolutely nauseating.

Everything along the lines of "Oh, the government have tried to fix things but they've just made it worse" and "oh, this hospital is a shithole, but bless, that's our NHS, chuck" just makes me want to pull my teeth out.

The level of sycophancy surrounding the NHS is fucking unbearable. And it just keeps getting worse.

Toanewstart23 · 16/02/2022 06:32

* I’m a feminist (obvs) and am v much attuned to everyday misogyny, etc.*

@Blossomtoes inference is… you’re not!

Grin

I laughed out loud. Something I’d expect to come out the mouth of my 13 year old niece.

Chimchiminie · 16/02/2022 08:31

@Toanewstart23

* I’m a feminist (obvs) and am v much attuned to everyday misogyny, etc.*

@Blossomtoes inference is… you’re not!

Grin

I laughed out loud. Something I’d expect to come out the mouth of my 13 year old niece.

The inference wasn’t at all that blossomtoes isn’t! We’ve both said we didn’t find the book misogynistic. Seems like you might not have read the comments very carefully? I was agreeing with blossomtoes.

I’m typing on the fly and just trying to add that I’m not blind to everyday sexism and normalised misogyny or trying to minimise that sort of thing. Someone upthread was talking about people needing to be ‘helped to see it’...

And what I definitely haven’t done is shown disrespect to anyone else’s opinions or viewpoint.

Saying it’s something your 13-year old niece would say just seems rude and condescending really, and, ironically, a bit of a childish level to engage on. I understood that correctly right, it was meant as an insult?

Toanewstart23 · 16/02/2022 08:34

Apologies
I thought you were saying he was misogynistic

timeforteaforyouandme · 16/02/2022 08:34

Have the critics here watched further than the first episode? I binge watched 4 episodes and think it's great, the tone changes a bit after the first episode

Toanewstart23 · 16/02/2022 08:37

@timeforteaforyouandme

Have the critics here watched further than the first episode? I binge watched 4 episodes and think it's great, the tone changes a bit after the first episode
It does, doesn’t it

I actively would want him as my doctor
Ok, so he’s not going to stroke my hair
But he’s going to do his best for my baby and me. And that’s my focus

Chimchiminie · 16/02/2022 08:57

@Toanewstart23

Apologies I thought you were saying he was misogynistic
No worries, thanks for the apology.
Nameandgamechange123 · 17/02/2022 08:51

Could not disagree more. I loved the book and am enjoying the series. I don't see how anyone could think that this is in some way misogynistic.

VestaTilley · 17/02/2022 09:39

YANBU. Misogyny writ large. I won’t watch it.

gingerhills · 17/02/2022 09:41

I actively would want him as my doctor
Ok, so he’s not going to stroke my hair
But he’s going to do his best for my baby and me. And that’s my focus

As long as he's not too busy texting his boyfriend or takes a dislike to you and sews you up in a way that amuses him but clearly will give you long term problems (dolphin woman. Yes she was horrible but that doesn't mean he has the right to mangle her flesh for fun.)

RemoteControlledChaos · 17/02/2022 10:09

Tbf I don’t suppose my midwife was delighted when I shat on her scrubs

Blossomtoes · 17/02/2022 12:27

@VestaTilley

YANBU. Misogyny writ large. I won’t watch it.
Presumably because you don’t want to be proved wrong. It’s as far from misogyny as you can get. It must be miserable to have such a closed mind.
Rhythmisadancer · 17/02/2022 12:47

I think anybody dealing with members of the public is entitled to let off a bit a steam, and take the piss out of the ridiculous ones a bit. Of course it would be unprofessional to do it openly.
Read the book years ago, and I think he says somewhere, that the reason he actually liked working in obs and gynae was that your patients are generally fairly young and healthy, and a lot of the time you can actually help with the problem / issue they came in with, and send them home with a positive outcome. That seemed to be a fairly good motivation to me.

WiddlinDiddlin · 17/02/2022 14:12

I am curious as to how many people swearing blind it is 'misogyny writ large' have actually watched the whole thing and/or read the book recently.

I was in two minds, I don't really LIKE Adam all that much and the first episode.. mm.

But I am glad I stuck with it...

Do people REALLY believe he sewed up someones tattoo as badly as that - I don't, for a second. Thats one of those things you wish you had done because someone was a vile person, but didn't actually do.

Books and, even more so, TV series like this are full of this sort of thing - they have to be because a book full of 'I wish I'd had my revenge on this vile person but I'd have lost my job if I did' don't sell.

Nor do tv series that are just 'woe is me/this is grim' and no shocking or funny stuff (not at the moment anyway and certainly not set in the NHS).

So.. its all aimed at women - well yes, theres not a lot of blokes giving birth, obs and gynae tends to be pretty heavy on women.

I think theres a lot of folk who missed the point, wilfully, and a lot determined to hate it becuase he wrote some unpleasant lyrics as a student a long time ago - presumably as students, you lot were all absolute SAINTS.

Lottapianos · 17/02/2022 14:15

'I think anybody dealing with members of the public is entitled to let off a bit a steam, and take the piss out of the ridiculous ones a bit'

Completely agree. In fact I think it's essential in order to stay sane

AnnaMagnani · 17/02/2022 14:52

The sewing up tattoos badly was an urban myth going round doctor's messes in the early 2000s around the time dolphin tattoos became trendy.

No way did he, or anyone else actually do it, but it definitely got talked about a lot as it was the first time young women had had tattoos in any number.

borntobequiet · 18/02/2022 09:14

I read the book a while ago and enjoyed it, but it was only after seeing the TV series I realised what an excoriating confessional it was from a man who had come to the realisation he was actually an unkind, entitled, selfish prick rather than a selfless medical hero. Yes there were clues as to part of the reason for that - Harriet Walter was very good as his mother - but Ben Whishaw portrayed Kay brilliantly. The TV series brought maturity and humanity to a story that had originally been sarcastically flippant in the way of many black humour medical memoirs. The script, direction and the rest of the cast were also excellent. It wasn’t misogynistic at all.

Toanewstart23 · 18/02/2022 13:12

Just read magazine interview with Kay and the actor

Not a whiff of misogyny. Not even a whiff