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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Use of the term "hamburger" by sonographers to describe baby girl "bits"

331 replies

ahhhhhpushit · 23/02/2012 12:31

I've heard this term reported by mothers so many terms that it must by the term sonographers aee taught at sonographer school.

Anybody else feel uncomfortable by it?

Imagine it being said about a baby's bits once she'd been born!

Is it just me?

OP posts:
Beachcomber · 25/02/2012 10:24

If banana was being used to describe an area that was to do with the colour of the person's skin (a gland or something), something that was to do with their identity as a person of colour, then I would imagine that could be found crass. Although the banana imagery is less violent that the graphic images of women presented as dead meat (for men to wank over).

I think something like a flaming cross would be a better analogy.

Hamburger being used to point out joint problems = not crass.
Hamburger being used to point out something that identities one as female (the reason for one's oppression through the means of treating one as dead meat and publishing graphic images of that treatment for the entertainment of the group which oppresses you) = crass.

AitchTwoOhOneTwo · 25/02/2012 10:36

you're changing the goalposts, though, you earlier said that it would have been crass to use a hamburger shape to identify boys' parts as well. for me that was the clincher on how ridiculous this is.

Beachcomber · 25/02/2012 12:00

That isn't exactly what I said. I said;

"Thanks Aitch. Got you.
Yes I would think it was crass with regards to a male child.
Doesn't carry the same connotations as women/meat though.
But still crass, yes. ("See that bit that looks like meat and two veg/a hotdog")"

Notice I used examples of terminology which is used about male genitalia and I said, it doesn't carry the same connotations as women/meat.

In other words I would think it a lame way to talk about boys too but it doesn't carry the same weight of hugely negative imagery that forms part of a culture of violence against women, and centuries of gender based oppression.

Just as using crass words to talk about white people's colour of skin isn't the epitome of charm, but it doesn't carry the same connotations as doing the same to people of colour.

It's all about whether you're in the oppressed group or the oppressing group innit?

Standard feminist analysis AFAIK.

AitchTwoOhOneTwo · 25/02/2012 12:13

but a shape of a hamburger doesn't carry any negative connotation for 99.99999% of the population, though. it's really quite a stretch.
i saw those Hustler images years back and it's never made me think any the less of a hamburger...
so you do think that calling something a banana shape because it's shaped like a banana is also crass, in sonography terms?

Beachcomber · 25/02/2012 14:25

It isn't the shape of the hamburger though really. I get that lots of people don't know of those Hustler images. Even I didn't think immediately of those images, and they are something I have seen lots and read about.

The association I'm thinking of is women = meat. I don't believe that there are many adults who have never come across that association. And hamburgers are made from meat, right?

Why did Hustler present women in this manner in the first place? They weren't the ones who invented the women as pieces of meat insult - it existed already. They just 'played around' with it and took it to an extreme in terms of making no bones about what porn is about. They did it to shock and raise their profile, but they also did it because they are hardcore misogynists (although they think/pretend they are defenders of free speech).

They took the 'women as no better than a piece of meat' thing and actually ground those women up and turned them into burger patties.

They took the insult which started out as steak (bad enough as it is dehumanizing and invokes death) and cheapened it/took it even further by making it cheap disposable fast food meat product that women were being compared to (and they weren't wrong - this is what the porn industry has become like, they need an endless supply of disposable women).

Anyway, be that as it may, I guess it is an obscure reference for a lot of people. The legacy of that reference is the porn industry of today though.

But even people who don't know about the above surely know that in male dominated society;

women = sex
women = meat (and also chattel, livestock, etc)
sex + meat + female = crass.

Perhaps not. Lucky you if you are blissfully unaware. I'm not unaware so it bothers me. Like I say, not that big a deal but interesting to analyse and discuss anyway.

LineRunner · 25/02/2012 15:47

I've had crazy theories before that were ahead of their time Grin

Aitch, I really really get it that you are entirely comfortable with the use of 'hamburger' as a term to describe the genitalia of a female foetus.

But I'm quite confortable having a discussion about it, no matter how bonkers I seem. I may be wrong; I may not be wrong. But having a discussion is OK.

AitchTwoOhOneTwo · 25/02/2012 18:09

so that would be 'i have no evidence whatsoever that will demonstrate that this terminology has travelled from porn to sonography'.

in which case, you can all be as squicked as you like, if that's what you all desire, but it just doesn't make it real.

LineRunner · 25/02/2012 18:15

what's squicked?

Beachcomber · 25/02/2012 19:01

Aitch, I'm not making the point that this terminology has travelled from porn to sonography.

Because I don't think it has. And I think that would be a pretty ridiculous and random thought process. And I don't make ridiculous points and my thought process is just fine.

I think it is a pure coincidence due to the shape of the body part being examined. I don't think there is intention to offend AT ALL. Like I said, I'm not accusing sonographers as being tools of the patriarchy, oppressing unborn females with references to porny comparisons of pieces of meat.

It is still crass though.

And I feel like you are arguing against a point I'm not making.

I guess no-one is aware of the general women/meat thing then. It is very very obscure feminist knowledge.

LineRunner · 25/02/2012 19:25

There are lots of circumstance where artefacts, assemblages or cultural systems have shared attributes. It is rare that one crosses consciously and directly over to another. I don't think anyone has seriously suggested this on this thread.

More often, such attributes share an antecedent, a common idea, myth or symbolic system. Or are part of a shared zeitgeist. This is part of the discussion on this thread.

Sometimes it's completely co-incidental.

Even if it's completely co-incidental, if one becomes aware that another usage of the attributre is troublesome, that in itself might legitimately make somne observers uncomfortable about its use in an 'innocent' context. That is what is largely being discussed on this thread.

AitchTwoOhOneTwo · 25/02/2012 23:49

i wasn't replying to you, beachcomber, you've been perfectly clear throughout that you don't think it's come from pornography, and of course i agree with you. Dworkin 100% said it had and Linerunner... well, seemed to say that it had and then repeated it and then backed off from it while maintaining that stranger things have happened. Hmm

but then i still don't understand why it's crass to use any meat-based descriptor to point out a part of a body, male or female, that is after all made of flesh.

Beachcomber · 26/02/2012 09:46

Ok Aitch no worries.

Basically it wouldn't be crass if it wasn't about sex/gender. IMO. That is that bit that makes it unfortunate. And it isn't of the sonographer's making.

I blame the patriarchy for this one.

AitchTwoOhOneTwo · 26/02/2012 10:23

business as usual. Wink

ToothbrushThief · 26/02/2012 12:19

erm... regardless of the rights/wrongs of calling describing the ultrasonic appearance of vulva as hamburger, what do you intend to do as a result of this thread

a) carry on being offended
b) complain to the sonographer
c) formal complaint to the hospital
d) it doesn't bother me, so nothing

I know lots of sonographers and strongly doubt that a single one of them has a pornographic knowledge/association. It happens that none of them use this term (I have watched all of them work) but if they did, they would rather know, than be accused of pornographic conotations in their work (whilst probably thinking- what?????)

AliceHurled · 26/02/2012 12:45

E) have an interesting discussion contemplating this from a feminist perspective

LineRunner · 26/02/2012 12:54

Yes, I like the sound of (E).

AitchTwoOhOneTwo · 26/02/2012 13:08

bollock, if this is wrong, you have to complain, you can't just yak about it to your mates on the Feminist board. i'd be ashamed of myself if i thought that sonographers were using terminology derived from pornography that were going to upset a number of right-minded women and i did nothing.

AliceHurled · 26/02/2012 13:35

How is posting on a popular forum 'yaking about it with your mates'?

Feminist discussion is activism in itself. And this will never be high on my list of priorities so I'll focus my time on those which are high on my list.

I also have f) be glad that I knew before my scan so I could have my wtf moment now rather that when there's lots of other stuff going on

AitchTwoOhOneTwo · 26/02/2012 13:52

"How is posting on a popular forum 'yaking about it with your mates'? "

how is it not? Confused

Beachcomber · 26/02/2012 13:52

The terminology isn't derived from pornography.

It isn't porn terminology. It is an unfortunate turn of phrase given the patriarchal/porny association the misogynists make between women and meat. One that I would have thought most people would prefer to distance themselves from, be it in the context of a scan, the way we present women in the press, general everyday language about women, etc.

And that is where the battle lies IMO. And it is where I try to do my bit. I did before this thread and will continue in the same vein after. In other words keep up my little bit of activism which protests against women having subhuman status. Because that is where the problem lies. When women are treated as fully human, phrases like hamburger being used by sonographers will have no negative connotations and carry no weight. Bigger picture and all that.

Talking about these things is always good too. Exploration, development of analysis and thought, raising awareness, raising consciousness, etc.

So there you go, Toothbrush. I'm going to keep on exactly as before, questioning these things when I see them, whilst doing what I can to advance the position of women in society by doing my wee bit of activism and volunteering.

What about you?

AitchTwoOhOneTwo · 26/02/2012 13:55

toothbrush, btw apparently the OP's friend has put in a complaint about this.

AliceHurled · 26/02/2012 14:04

Erm it's public and a lot of people visit it and read the content. Chats with my mates tend to be rather smaller in scale, with people I know and in either a private space, or one where people don't tend to listen in on a particularly large scale.

Saying online discussion is a 'yak with mates' would be rather like saying attending a conference is 'yaking with mates'

ahhhhhpushit · 26/02/2012 18:52

Aitch - "complained" as in complained to me, our friends etc. Not "made an offical complaint". No idea where you got that from Hmm

OP posts:
LineRunner · 26/02/2012 19:25

urban dictionary is interesting, especially (2) and (7); but contra other definitions.

Beachcomber · 26/02/2012 19:32

Ah well that does confound matters slightly. Somebody did say upthread that burger was nasty slang for vagina.

That makes it very crass. Although I imagine most people are ignorant of this slang.