I just say with a head teacher and argued with her that her fanny diagram was incorrectly labelled - and it's all the fault of you harpies..

[ProudVulvaOwner]

MyY2 child had their 'correct names for body parts' lesson today - all about labelling the external genitalia. We were forewarned they would be learning new words - penis, testicles, and vagina.

As a longstanding mumsnetter and part time feminist, I emailed in to ask how they would be labelling vaginas on pictures of external bodies - surely they would be labelling vulvas? (For avoidance of doubt, I was and am happy for my child to learn all the correct words and what they bits they refer to 'do', but today's lesson was specifically on the outside bits')

Anyhow, I was told this was the wording on approved DfE materials and they had to use it.

So like the true feminist mumsnetter I am, I queried this and asked to see the materials. Sure enough, some plonker at an organisation called 'Jigsaw' who supply DfE approved PSHE materials has labelled all external girl bits as a 'vagina'. Boys bits were correctly labelled.

So I made no progress at all in changing the vocab in the lesson, and have had shared several unforgettably minutes with a nice, but entirely bemused Headteacher looking at a fanny diagram and arguing that it was mislabelled and yes it DOES MATTER. It was not 5 minutes either of us will forget 😳. Thanks for that, Jigsaw 😡

There was a thread on here a year or two ago about daft things you just don't know. Exactly where we pee from was very popular.

It has to be the fault of the education system. Which is being perpetuated!

To be fair, unless you know or get intimate with a mirror, it's not exactly obvious.

This is from the link upthread.

Though, a friend pointed out to me recently, “I don’t think anyone’s going to want to say vulva.

Which I do believe. We go all coy on it.

I wondered if it was because vulva sounds sexual and we don't want introduce that to children. But thinking about it, I don't think we use vulva in a sexual way either. We just don't say it.

I have no idea why it gets so euphemistic.

And although it may be that way for boys too (willy), it's nowhere near as bad. Penis trips off the tongue a lot easier (as it were).

However since I've been debating all the trans stuff, I can trot out vulva and vagina at the drop of a hat.

My Y2 DS1 recently learnt to name body parts and was taught "vagina". I didn't correct him at the time as I was aware he might then correct the teacher. Now realising I should have.

I just asked DS23. He knew exactly where the urethra was. But vulva? Um, er...

He maintains they were never taught. I'll ask DS19 (who took biology A level).

DD1 has SN and goes to Special school and they've just had their sex education. When we were shown the videos they referred to the vagina I asked about anatomically correct teaching and pointed out that she has a vulva, etc. The teacher said that they would not be teaching that, and they would simply be teaching two words: Penis - to cover the penis, testicles and scrotum, and Vagina - to cover the vulva, vagina and clitoris.

The reason she gave was actually quite interesting, and probably not relevant for the neurologically typical, but she said that if a vulnerable person with LD had been assaulted, and they approached a police officer/responsible adult, then being able to remember the word 'Vagina' would instantly get an appropriate response of sufficient proportion. If they were caught up trying to decide 'which bit' was touched and what it was called, etc., they may not make the report, and it may not be recognised as so serious when it was made.

I remember being taught in year 4 that girls has xx chromosomes and boys had yy chromosomes - I stuck my hand up and asked what happened if you got one of each, teacher fudged something about one overriding the other, and for years I thought that's why people were gay, until I got to secondary school and was retaught the actual biology.

On the '2 holes' thing, my husband somehow thought this (believing all waste came out the bum) until a few years ago when he said something in passing and I pounced on it and interrogated him. And he knows his way around a vulva so god knows how he'd come to that conclusion.

Twitter link @JigsawPSHE

Ha I just saw this on Twitter: twitter.com/exposingtrans/status/879243374703763456

Well done OP. We're all with you. Shocking that wrong information is bring taught.

Different topic, but it reminds me of the children who had been taught that when you multiply a number by 10 you just pop a zero on the end. As a maths teacher and tutor I have to get them to un-learn this. Its ridiculous that these things are unnecessarily taught wrongly in the beginning.

I wondered if it was because vulva sounds sexual

Nonsense, it sounds like a sensible swedish car.

I'm wondering though, if 'vulva' is not used much simply because it's not really a specific organ, just all the external bits of female genitalia. If the kids are being correctly taught the external male urogenital organs then I'd have thought that the female diagram should have clitoris, labia, urethra and vaginal opening. Sure, teach them 'vulva' as the word for the whole lot and don't worry about whether they can spell everything else or test them on it, but at least provide the accurate names so that any kids who come across them aren't confused or think their parents are contradicting teacher.

I remember being taught in year 4 that girls has xx chromosomes and boys had yy chromosomes

Either you misremembered that, or your teacher was terrible.
If you have one of each, you're male: XY.
YY doesn't exist as far as I know.

My little one already knows the term vulva. I wonder what would happen when she starts correcting them. Would they tell children they were wrong?

shared several unforgettably minutes with a nice, but entirely bemused Headteacher looking at a fanny diagram and arguing that it was mislabelled and yes it DOES MATTER. It was not 5 minutes either of us will forget

I laughed a lot at this.

I didn't know the vulva/vagina definitions until I read it on MN some years back

Um, yeah deydo, it was a comment on the bad teaching. I'm fully aware of the biological facts now thanks.

Indominus: I see. That's pretty shocking.

I knew women had bartholin glands and that if these were damaged during childbirth (or cut by episiotomy) then lubrication would be an issue forthwith for the rest of a woman's life. This from my older sister who was a nurse. Put me off childbirth for most of my twenties and thankfully I had easy births.

Sil is a doctor and when her first daughter was born was adamant that she would learn the anatomical names for her body parts from a very young age. So one wasn't allowed to refer to her navel as a bellybutton but an umbilicus etc etc. Sil didn't have any words when I pointed out that she'd taught her daughter to refer to her labia as her vagina which was incorrect. She is a dr ffs and it hasn't even occurred to her the importance of females being able to describe their genitals correctly. I was a bit

Why has my hmmm face turned into a gin bottle?!?!

Also when my children were born 2 girls and a boy, each were identified by their external genitals, vulva girl, penis and testicles boy. The vulva was inspected for any abnormalities (none) and I was told that sometimes baby girls (newborns) do bleed due to the hormones passed through the placenta and this happened with one daughter and it was very slight. My son had only one descending testicle at birth which thankfully resolved itself when he hit puberty he did have it watched though.

Why has my hmmm face turned into a gin bottle?!?!

You must be the mums net messiah!

Vestal, DD is 5, not fifth DD. Also I'm her father rather than mother, so she probably has a better reason for not believing me, I don't actually own these organs after all.

Fair enough, that explains it. Especially if her mother refuses to talk about it.

I'm on the fence about whether "front bottom" is worse than "vagina" ... I mean, it is a horrible "euphemism" (although it sounds like you have an arse in the front, so perhaps not really an euphemism), but at least it is a general term and not the term for some specific part.

YY doesn't exist as far as I know.

I think it would be lethal. Not sure it even occurs in fetuses.

I have always wondered how single X comes about - I mean, triple X or XXY is explained by the chromosomes doubling and that process being somehow interrupted, but can a whole chromosome just vanish?
YY would require the X chromosome, which is much bigger, to somehow completely vanish, which I think is even more unlikely than the single X.
(Single X might come about by the two X joining to each other and then not doubling, perhaps?)

Sil is a doctor and when her first daughter was born was adamant that she would learn the anatomical names for her body parts from a very young age. So one wasn't allowed to refer to her navel as a bellybutton but an umbilicus etc etc. Sil didn't have any words when I pointed out that she'd taught her daughter to refer to her labia as her vagina which was incorrect. She is a dr ffs and it hasn't even occurred to her the importance of females being able to describe their genitals correctly. I was a bit

It doesn't at all matter whether you say "bellybutton" or something else, because everyone will know what you mean.

But if you go to a gynecologist and tell her your vagina hurts, and only after you mention that peeing hurts she finds out you mean your urethra ... that's a bit more of a problem!

But, well, I guess we have to be grateful women no longer try to explain to a doctor how there's a medical problem in their upper leg, when they mean vulva.

I have always wondered how single X comes about - I mean, triple X or XXY is explained by the chromosomes doubling and that process being somehow interrupted, but can a whole chromosome just vanish?

I think it's because after the doubling and then splitting, although theoretically that will make four haploid cells, in females, only one actually goes on to become a fully formed egg, because it's needs all the cytoplasm, mitochondria etc from the original cell - the others I believe get reabsorbed. In contrast, four sperm cells get made from each division.

Sorry, didn't finish. And thus, if one of the other potential cells end up with two Xs, the one that ultimately survives, could have none.

Other possibilities might include various genetic abnormalities which might normally cause infertility, but not always (mosaics etc)