Menstruators!!! - What's Up, Docs? on Radio 4

[IdaGlossop]

This is an interesting programme on Radio 4. I have learnt that 1/3 of menstruators suffer period poverty. Interesting. I have learnt that the plastic in a packet of sanitary towels is the equivalent of eight plastic bags. Interesting. I have learnt that it is possible to make a 30-minute programme about the defining physical process of the female body without once using a female pronoun. Ludicrous and infuriating.

YABU = menstruators is an inclusive word to use to describe male and female people losing the lining of their womb each month

YANBU = menstruators is an absurd word that panders to the deluded fantasists who have persuaded themselves that a human being born male can lose his womb lining once a month for 40 years.

Firstly, women and girls don’t need the additions of “biological” in front of women and girls to correct describe them.

Every woman I know, whether she menstruates or not, is disgusted by this language. It is ignoring how female health concerns are so routinely ignored and dismissed - because they happen to female people, women and girls, not male people, men and boys. And men and boys are rarely if every subject to this kind of language.

And in the world of public health campaigns, it is playing with women’s lives. “People with a cervix” will not reach the largest number of WOMEN, thus saving more lives.

And please don’t think this is coming from women who ID as men. It’s coming from men who don’t want any reminder that they aren’t and never will be female, women, and they have no rights to our language.

No, it is used to separate womanhood from being female so men can colonise it. It’s not done with the welfare of trans identified females in mind.

Well, I am a woman and I am not disgusted by this language. I also think that the OP's own posts on this thread demonstrate why more accurate language is helpful. On the first page she posted "all women menstruate" - ie she herself has fallen into the misogynistic/patriarchal trap of equating womanhood with biological function, even she is obviously aware that many women never have a period, and even those who do have them only do so for 35-40 years of their lives (and later corrected herself accordingly). So in this case it would appear that traditional language has caused someone who presumably self-defines as a feminist to think in a sexist and regressive way.

If the term was designed to be sensitive to women, it would be 'women who mensturate' not people. It's not the inclusion of the word mensturate that's the issue, it's the erasure of the term women and the refusal to link sex specific biological processes to the appropriate sex based terms of woman and man. This isn't done to be sensitive to women who don't have periods, it's done to break the link between woman/man and biological sex.

"Women who menstruate" is also not accurate. I started my period when I was 11 - I was not a woman then! Unless you subscribe to the sleazy/sexist idea that starting periods = start of womanhood.

Women and girls who mensturate then.

I have no issue with saying "women and girls who menstruate". But I also have no issue with saying "people who menstruate" or even (in a clinical context) "menstruators".

Transmen are women. So using the word women would be clear.

If we want to be sensitive, we could use the word Female instead of Woman.

If you menstruate you are a female you can call your a tree doesn't make you one only females menstruate, unless there is something about biology i am missing?

The use of desexed language is not universally accepted and some academics and practitioners are concerned about the impact on effective communication

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877575625000266

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/global-womens-health/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full

This - it's to include trans men as well (in other words, people who were born female and still have periods)
Yes, yes I know that they have women's bodies and so therefore some people want them to still be called women then, but I just think if it means they feel included and more likely to seek help if they need it, that's a good thing.
It doesn't take anything away from me, I know I'm a woman and when I do and don't need sorting.
This said by a woman who is sick of the bastard sight of my periods and will be so glad to see the back of them, they're causing no end of problems

DoinFineIThink
Unfortunately as the research I’ve posted shows using unclear or desexed language to include trans men is likely to exclude others who perhaps don’t speak English as a first language, have learning difficulties or low educational attainment.

So whilst you might not be impacted the “inclusive” language may exclude more women than it includes.

But why would a radio 4 documentary need to use simple language to include people with English as a second language or with learning difficulties? I totally agree that public health messaging needs to be simply written, but the idea that every publication does is ludicrous.

Its all bollocks.

How come everyone else on the planet is allowed to be offended except women???

Because it’s the BBC. They are meant to be impartial but they are using activist language that dehumanised women. And documentaries are surely there to spread ideas and promote discussion, so I would say absolutely that clear, accurate language is essential. And even more so when female health is the topic under discussion.

Whether you are a man or a woman is biological. Not all women menstruate, but everyone who menstruates is a woman or girl.

This is about resisting a concerted attempt to divorce the meaning of the word woman from biology. Some people try to argue that women pushing back on the theft of our language is about biological determinism, saying that to be a woman you have to menstruate, or birth a child, or whatever. It's not about that.

What makes you a woman, if it's not your biology? You can't 'feel like' a woman, any more than you can feel like a lefthanded person or a brown eyed one. You just are, it's a biological fact. You can be any kind of woman you want, just as you can be any kind of brown eyed person. But what makes you a woman, is having a body formed around the production of large gametes - even if it never does. Biology is what makes you a woman.

It's infuriating.

What's a woman?

Still erasing all association with ‘woman’ though, in order to appease men (including trans men).

Not one inch of this biological sex ‘territory’ would have been lost had it been men instead of women whose life experiences were being co-opted by the opposite sex.
’Beard bearers’, (avert eyes here👉🏼) ‘erection experiencers’, er….etc. but can’t think of anything right now.
Of course, women aren’t any threat to men though. Neither physically nor in terms of deeply entrenched privilege, so a few trans men here and there don’t bother them.

Not all women menstruate, but all those menstruating are women.
I guess I understand including mention of trans men, but definitely not a blanket term intended to erase mention of women.

Pull the other one. They're saying menstruators because the BBC is STILL running scared of the possible consequences of not pandering to gender ideologues.
They could easily have had a sensitivity disclaimer at the start along the lines of 'we do recognise that not all women menstruate, for many different reasons'.

Spot on. Over and above one’s opinion about trans activism, transmitting health information is the principal imperative.
Fudged or euphemistic language is often dangerous, and if that small number of women around who wish to present as actual men are ‘de-validated’ by important information being aimed specifically at women….well, tough flipping titty, your feelings are not the most important point here, and to spare them through altered terminology may endanger the rest.

Excellently put.

it’s scarcely to be wondered at that there’ll be slip ups in hasty reactions to this broadcast and similar hogwash, since we’ve to be swatting away angry buzzing assaults on ourselves as women all the damn time. A gal becomes angry and frazzled, maybe careless.

Not as a noun we couldn’t.
At the moment that adjective used as a noun for us is a handy indicator that the person using it has a very poor opinion of women indeed, and should be given a wide berth!