Germaine Greer doesn't agree with David Furnish being named as 'mother' on birth certificate

[Athenaviolet]

And neither do I!

www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/germaine-greer-slams-elton-john-5758530?ICID=FB_mirror_main

Is the word 'mother' just meaningless now?

I didn't even realise this was legally possible.

Devora, I have seen no "fetishing" of anyone here. Just a desire for accurate record keeping. Recording what is known about them at that time.

I don't think he should be listed as mother either, purely because he's not female and doesn't identify as female. Nowt wrong with there being 2 fathers, nor 2 mothers on a cert., but not relabelling one as parent of the opposite sex just because.

Assuming this is true...

I don't know why anyone cares. . As long as the DC concerned understand who is who what does it matter to anyone else. David Furnish can call himself whatever he wants as far as I'm concerned. As long as he is a responsible and loving parent I can't see how the terminology matters. I don't think I've ever looked at anyones birth certificate outside my immediate family.

I'm amazed anyone would be bothered by this other than Journo's desperate to cause a fuss.

Lots of kids in the UK only have one parent listed on their birth certificate - at least Elton and David's kids have two. Do posters who think that birth certificates must be biologically 'accurate' think that mothers should be compelled to include the baby's fathers name on the birth certificate. [

I have a birth child and an adopted child and have near identical short birth certificates for each, naming DH and I as parents.

I don't think it is true, and I feel David Furnish has been unfairly singled out.

But Germaine Greer seems to have been making a lot of other points about reproductive technology as an industry, the concept of motherhood, and what the reasons were for changing abortion laws (concern for rights of women or the needs of the medical industry for eggs and embryos).

I think the press has jumped on the David Furnish issue and largely ignored the rest, and the rest seems pretty important right now, particularly given the situation of the mostly Indian surrogates who have been either left in disaster zones in Nepal while their babies were airlifted out, or if pregnant removed to Israel for the birth, after which the Israelis intend to place the mothers in immigrant detention centres.

Short birth certificates don't give parents' details.

This is the feminism board, yes? The issue is not about the child having parents, adopted, biological or whatever - the issue as I see it is that a man (DF) is trying to take a title that technically can only belong to a woman. I'm pretty sure that's why it's been posted in here and not in AIBU.

Disgusting that two people of the ruling class (white men) can take advantage of a politically and economically disenfranchised group (women) and basically do what the fuck they want with their bodies. For some men it's renting orifices in the form of prostitution, for other men it's renting wombs.
Both prostitution and surrogacy are dangerous to women's health. Maternal death rates through pregnancy and childbirth are sky high in even developed countries, and are especially high in countries that practice c-sections.

But what's a little female death as long as men get what they want, eh?

Where I live (Canada) the birth certificate has for 'parent one' 'parent two' and in a few recent cases 'parent three'. I don't think that birth certificates were ever designed to be accurate documents on a biological front. Although I can totally see why that might be very important for the child.

One thing that I have wondered in such cases. What do the children call their parents?

If you have 2 Dads or 2 Mums, it would get kind of confusing if you call them both Dad or Mum. I know several adults with same sex parents - no idea what they call each parent - but I think that they married / formed a civil partnership when the children were older so the children knew their "original" mum / Dad (i.e. the one they lived with when they were born).

But now - you have babies in same sex families. Do these children know which of their mums / Dads is the biological one? Does it matter at that age? Do they call them both mum / Dad? What about school - we all know that schools are keen on telling their child that their mum is here to collect them and doing cards for mother's day etc.

Society is changing. But we still have systems and names for a heteronormative society. At least we are getting past the idea that all children need 2 married parents with a Dad who goes to work and a mum who must stay at home. But there is still a lot of catching up to do.

I don't think birth certs must be biologically accurate, but I think it is a bit rude to single parents to say that 'at least' these children have two parents. Ok, often being a single parent isn't a choice, but very occasionally it is, and as I understand it, the factor that discriminates is financial.

orlando - why do you wonder? Gay parents are fairly common, aren't they, and usually it's not beyond the wit of man to call someone mum and someone mamma, or whatever.

Orlando IME usually mummy and mama, daddy and papa, or sometimes daddy David and daddy Elton/mummy name and mummy name.

I hope "the more official" parts of bureaucracy catch up with modern families. It would be interesting to see how countries which are more progressive in such areas handle this "paperwork".

Calling David Furnish mother on the birth certificate (or mum day to day) wouldn't bother me. I don't feel like it takes anything away from my being a mother.

It's just my opinion though and I suspect it would bother most people in society.

I was just reading this article this morning OP and l agree. He is not the mother simply because he's not female.

IMO female = mother and male = father, regardless if it's biological, adoptive etc.

And to that poster who said some single families, the mother has to be both that and father l say you're wrong as the mother can't be the father, they can just be one person doing a two person role.

He is the child's mother.

And I'm a cupboard.

Words mean just what I want them to mean.

No more and no less.

If David Furnish wants to call himself a mother, that's perfectly right and proper. And if I want to call myself a laptop, or a shoe, or a door, that's perfectly right and proper too.

Who needs words to have meanings?

Wtf was that about Nepal? Got a link about the surrogate mother's?

While I have no issue with him calling himself "mother" and being named as such in the birth certificate, I hope for the child's sake that the biological mother is also named (or at least a record kept somewhere). The child may want or need to know in the future,

If the children were born in the UK the woman who gave birth is the person who is responsible for registering the birth. She is named as mother and the father will follow from her marital status.

www.surrogacyuk.org/legalities

Just had a Google, Nepal thing shocking. On device at no so can't really post easily.

sakura don't exaggerate - maternal death rates in developed countries are not sky high. Planned Caesaeran births in developed countries if anything are safer than natural birth.

I am deeply uncomfortable with this. I also am uncomfortable with the way motherhood is being diminished, and once pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding is out of the way then anyone can crack on at it. I think we ignore basic biology at our peril, no matter how much that may upset feminist principles.

Every time I see something like this, it just feels like something is chipping away or enroaching on, women's relationships with their children. I can't always put my finger on it but it feels like people (men?) muscling in on the positive roles, whilst, yet again, women are left with the crap, except someone has run off with the spoils of motherhood.

If someone is filling a role that normally has a gender attached we are just being heteronormative if we dislike the concept. Find it strange that on a board that is normally trying to destroy gender roles we can't accept that someone filling the role does not have to be of a that sex to fill the role. Got a hangover so may not be making sense but whats new?

No filling the role is fine.

Saying that if someone is filling that role then they must be X is gender stereotype.

eg DH is much more maternal than me, I am the enforcer. Our roles are reversed to the norm, that is fine. The suggestion though that he should be called "mother" and I should be called "father" is ludicrous. The names are linked to sex, they are not and should not be linked to expected stereotypical behaviours. Just because I act more like the stereotype "dad" doesn't mean I'm not their mother. Obviously.

So it's not destroying gender roles at all it is removing the sex component and basing them entirely in stereotypical or perceived behaviours.

Well in this case I expect it's just because the form didn't have enough options but that applies to the wider conversation.