Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Yoga with Adriene - Redo of PMS Video

307 replies

ThePawtriarchy · 20/10/2019 06:36

I’ve just seen the message in my inbox from Yoga with Adriene saying that she’s done a redo of her really popular ‘Yoga for Cramps and PMS for Women’ video to remove the reference to ‘Hey Ladies’ etc and make it all gender neutral, to be inclusive.

I actually just feel really sad now. I feel excluded as a woman, there’s nowhere that’s safe where I don’t have to consider men first.

OP posts:
Heismyopendoor · 20/10/2019 14:35

I got a reply from her, didn’t think she would have seen my message. Not sure what to reply really. There was more to my message at the start.

Yoga with Adriene - Redo of PMS Video
Michelleoftheresistance · 20/10/2019 14:56

Anything, anywhere, labelled as being specifically for women, will get piled on by messages from folks pointing out how excluded they are by language that centres women. Because this is the point: they want women decentered. They want women erased, covered up, hidden away, put into a group where biological females can't be a recognised class, that is the end game. Every facility or group everywhere (including medical, illness and disability support groups for illnesses occurring in biological females only) have been targeted to erase their language and ensure females as a biological class are shoved deep into the closet. It isn't innocent. It isn't inclusive.

Women AND people experiencing periods. Women AND folk who menstruate. Women AND those experiencing menopause. Pick whatever flaming language you want for the 'and' bit, but half the fucking human race is born with female biology and have fought for centuries to be able to talk about it. It's been thrown away for less than 1% of the population who range from spectacularly egocentric to actively and aggressively misogynistic.

Inclusion is not inclusion when it excludes biological females.

MarshaBradyo · 20/10/2019 15:01

If she has both up then that’s fine for me

QuaterMiss · 20/10/2019 15:12

I don’t find Women and a comprehensible use of language. Anyone who menstruates is doing so as a function of their female biology. They are definitively, biologically women. Regardless of what they think/feel/present or want other people to acknowledge.

Michelleoftheresistance · 20/10/2019 15:35

I agree, Quarter

But if biologically female people are so distressed by having to acknowledge the reality of their sex that they are politically strangling the reality of the entire female half of the human race out of sight then I am happier to go for the highly irritating linguistic hoops to say women AND than I am for biological females to be vanished.

Compromise. Meeting everyone's needs. Balancing needs. Actual inclusion as opposed to women-hating erasure.

Michelleoftheresistance · 20/10/2019 15:39

And that also pushes it to the wire.

Is this a harmless thing about inclusion, recognition, acknowledging the reality of people/people's right to identify themselves?
In which case 'and' does the job just great.

Or is this about acknowledging the existence of biological females is so threatening to a political ideology that it (and biological females with it) has to be pushed under the rug?

RuffleCrow · 20/10/2019 15:41

Agreed. One of the reasons i loved her videos until today is that she had such an awareness of anatomy. I get sciatica a lot so that was essential.

However, if she genuinely believes there's a sector of non-women who menstruate she loses all credibility in my eyes. It may be that some of the emails she received were threatening or intimidating but sorry Ade, you'll have to stand your ground like the rest of us sooner or later. These people don't stop after you capitulate to them.

TequilaPilates · 20/10/2019 15:51

Heismyopendoor

I think her reply is great. So everyone is catered for now.

RuffleCrow · 20/10/2019 15:56

Everyone was already catered for!

TequilaPilates · 20/10/2019 16:12

Everyone was already catered for!

Well, clearly transmen didn't feel that they were.

I thought this was the whole argument on FWR - don't take away but add.

So don't take away women's sex segregated spaces - if trans men and women require facilities add in a 3rd space. This is what's happened. 2 videos. Choose the one you prefer.

What exactly has been lost?

womenspeakout · 20/10/2019 16:14

Everyone was already catered for!

Exactly.

I just don't get it. When you're on your period, it's confirmation of who and what you are, you're a woman, so someone saying they're a man or non binary, They are surely more offended with their own body and their period then the fact of Adriene saying girls.

I don't know how they can also equate yoga with their situation. It seems to be at cross purposes.

TequilaPilates · 20/10/2019 16:18

womenspeakout

If you're offended by the new video then just watch the old one, surely?

She's creating choice. She isn't taking anything away from you.

TequilaPilates · 20/10/2019 16:18

I don't know how they can also equate yoga with their situation. It seems to be at cross purposes.

Why?

Merename · 20/10/2019 16:26

I also think her reply was great. Inclusion means making options that make everyone feel included. How are women excluded when there is a ‘hey ladies’ option and a ‘hey everyone’ option? I genuinely would like to understand as this doesn’t make sense to me.

womenspeakout · 20/10/2019 16:26

*If you're offended by the new video then just watch the old one, surely?

She's creating choice. She isn't taking anything away from you.*

It's more about the email for me anyway.

In ways insinuating saying girls and ladies was in any way wrong.

Lumene · 20/10/2019 16:29

My view is if she’s offering two options, fine by me. Would have been nice to make that clear in her original email or to do so with a follow up message. But fair enough.

Floisme · 20/10/2019 16:53

It looks like she's thought about it and is seeking to strike a compromise. I think that's good to see. I assume though that she didn't make it clear in the original email / tweet that she was keeping both videos up? If so that's quite telling I think. Why wait until there's a risk of losing custom before you spell it out?
There are a number of deletions on this thread so I'm guessing this story is attracting attention and I have a feeling it might not turn out to be quite the solution she was hoping for. But she probably needs to learn this for herself, as we all do.

RuffleCrow · 20/10/2019 17:08

It's probably down to being in the US. The tone of the trans debate is very different there. Because of bloody Trump.

Lamahaha · 20/10/2019 18:09

"I don't know how they can also equate yoga with their situation. It seems to be at cross purposes."

"Why?"

Because if you're practicing Yoga you cannot simultaneously harbour thoughts that are in direct contradiction to your body. Yoga means listening in to your body, not rejecting it and listening instead to your thoughts about your presumed identity. Body dysphoria of any kind is about as far away from the ideals of Yoga as you can get.

TequilaPilates · 20/10/2019 18:15

Lamahaha

Lots of people don't participate in the spiritual side of yoga though. I looked at the YouTube channel that you linked to earlier - it is exactly the class that we do in our yoga class - in our local authority sports centre. There is no spiritual element to it at all, it is purely an exercise class.

I can't see why that type of class would be unsuitable for any person who felt uncomfortable in their body.

I myself have a disability. I've done yoga for about 10 years now, believe me I don't feel at ease with my body in any way shape or form and I very much reject it. Is yoga not for me either?

womenspeakout · 20/10/2019 18:16

Lord knows I don't like Trump, but I don't think he has anything to do with this.

MarshaBradyo · 20/10/2019 18:17

Maybe yoga helps someone overcome some of that discomfort.

womenspeakout · 20/10/2019 18:23

I myself have a disability. I've done yoga for about 10 years now, believe me I don't feel at ease with my body in any way shape or form and I very much reject it. Is yoga not for me either?

It doesn't sound like it is TBH.

I have multiple disabilities, and yoga has helped me on my way to accepting the body I am in and it's limitations and capabilities. It made me accept my conditions much better then many things I have tried before or since. It taught me to be where I am.

Lamahaha · 20/10/2019 18:23

Maybe yoga helps someone overcome some of that discomfort

Yes. Trying to define Yoga is a purely physical exercise regime is exactly why I'm so sceptical about the new age appropriation of the word. Then call it something else. You will never get the full benefit if you think it's just about getting a fit body. It's body AND mind. Together. Harmonised. That's the whole point. Understanding how they work together, in oneself.

CharlieParley · 20/10/2019 18:40

Yoga is very much about working with what you have. Yes, it can help you improve, get fitter, stronger, more flexible, but listening in to your body, pay attention to how it responds to the asanas, to every breath as it flows into and out of your body, to focus your mind on your body as it is in the moment of your practice.

I've done yoga classes with teachers who treat is as nothing but exercise. And I agree with Lamaha and the others that is not yoga. I also believe it's more dangerous done that way.