Ms Magazine - gender and organ inclusive terms

[SunsetBeetch]

Saw this tweet from the brilliant Filia:

twitter.com/FiLiA_charity/status/1267701983806459904?s=19

"This nonsense is antithetical to Feminism @MsMagazine

*We propose a new gender-and-organ-inclusive use of the word which means “some combination of vagina, vulva, clitoris, uterus, bladder, rectum, anus, and who knows maybe some testes.”

t.co/yAC1uHKy4B "

Organ-inclusive?

Have they any idea what absolute twonks they sound?

Anyway, we already have an absolute shit-ton of words that encompass the entire area covered by one's pants. My grandma favoured "undercarriage". We really don't need to be widening the bandwidth of female-specific downstairs terminology to encompass willies.

I don’t think there’s much danger of this taking off. It’s the stuff of satire.

Err, yeah "privates"

Am I lost or is that not inclusive enough??

I'd say it was way beyond self-parody... except that some people do actually take this shit seriously.

May I suggest "twillius" (a portmanteau of twat, willy and anus)? Covers most of the bases.

On a slightly more serious note, I'm not convinced that "pussy" is that great a choice for an inclusive-to-all-women word.

Maybe it feels inclusive for women who habitually use the word in reference to their own genitalia, but I suspect I'm far from alone in associating the word with pornography (and the associated degradation, exploitation etc) because that's where my familiarity with it comes from.

Growing up, it was a fanny. It still is, when I'm talking to local people in the real world. I'm told that means "bum" in America, so it would be a far better choice for an 'inclusive' word encompassing the entire general area.

Not entirely convinced it's possible for us to reclaim words that our oppressors still routinely use to dehumanise us (and each other). Presumably Ms Magazine have given this a great deal of thought and have got an explanation for how it's supposed to work?

Quite a lot of people in the replies on the twitter thread have made a similar point, Tyro, and I agree with you - "pussy" is irredeemably pornified. My go-to slang word is also fanny (and part of the fun is that it confuses the hell out of Americans).

In the US at least Pussy is the most commonly used mysoginistic insult by men towards other men. As in “don’t be a pussy”. Because of course being female means being mentally fragile and weak in men’s minds.

While I understand “reclaiming” it would be great I’m really not a Fan of using by far the most used misogynist slur as a self-identifier. Maybe in 20 years. Now, no.

Also my “anus” is not part of female genitalia. Wtf? Might as well add belly button.

What does Ms stand for ?

“Privates” isn’t inclusive of people who like to wave their bits about in public though, is it?
We have to include the flashers and exhibitionists as well.

By a similar token I fear we will have to rule out "unmentionables".

Undercarriage?

Shouldn't it me called "Mx Magazine" though? Bit exclusionary...

I agree with Tyro there about the use of the language of (American in this case) pornography which has been readily adopted here, including by women. Remember the fuss when Donald Trump used the word in reference to grabbing women yet mainstream broadcasters such as Sky's Sophy Ridge actually kept repeating it on air like so many parrots as if it were a perfectly respectable term and the only way of articulating the story. I was disgusted by that. Yet we see this seemingly unthinking obedience in language all the time.

I agree about the word pussy and also query what the need is to have a collective term that refers to everything external between your legs and the internal organs that attach to them (incidentally, where is the cut off? Why no large intestine or fallopian tube or ovaries?) in order to be inclusive of women who have had a hysterectomy or who were born without a uterus, because when would we need to use such a word in circumstances where "woman" doesn't cover it? However, are they not referring to testes because some women with DSDs have internal testes?

May I suggest "twillius

I quite like that, it has a romantic sound. It could be very useful in poetry:

Their amazingly complicated twillius
Was so unusually pileous,
It made me feel quite bileous.

We, Pussypedia's founders, are cisgender women. The origins of the site are in our own curiosities about our genitals and a serious lack of accessible, accurate information about them. The site’s focus on genitalia aims to address this specific information gap, not to suggest that this part of the body defines sex or gender. To be clear, our pussies do not make us women. Many people with pussies are not women, and many women do not have pussies. As bad as the information out there is for cis women, it is way worse for trans, non-binary, and intersex people. What we have created to date is just a beginning and in no way encompasses the range of perspectives and experiences out there. Nor does the 3D model, in its current form, reflect the diversity of genital anatomies that exist. We hope to one day have one that does! People can have lots of different combinations of parts. And we consider a lot of those combinations "pussies."

It's a shame because in my experience it's true that it can be very difficult to find out information on women's reproductive parts. I don't know if it's better now, but when I was at school we just didn't learn about this stuff. I learned next to nothing from my parents about things. I only found out what "vulva" meant and what a "vagina" actually was on Mumsnet, and I didn't join Mumsnet until I was 26 and pregnant. I did well at school, including an A in Biology, so I don't think it was stupidity, I just wasn't taught this stuff. Even when I've had to go to the doctors about stuff down there, doctors themselves don't always use the correct terminology which has left me confused at times and I've had to scramble around the internet. An educational resource would be a great help, but it doesn't seem like this is that.

@Lordfrontpaw

What does Ms stand for ?

Ms: when women back in the day didn't want a title that referred to their marital status. You could call yourself Ms whether or not you were married. I remember the changeover very well.

Ms Magazine used to be great. I was a subscriber back in the day.
And then they suddenly changed the title to "Working Woman" and that's what it was about from then on. I didn't realise they'd changed back to Ms.
When they started sending me Working Woman instead of Ms I ended my subscription. I was a SAHM be decision and very resolute in that decision. I did not feel that I was a lesser kind of woman, but Working Woman was all about -- well, working women. Not about my kind of work, though.

Oh yes, and it was founded by Gloria Steinem.

I feel very strongly about this ridiculousness

Lets just forget that a huge part of consciousness raising in the history of feminism was to give women words for and knowledge of their own anatomy and physiology, to have female anatomy (and pathology) studied and taken seriously, to have the language to describe their experiences and the confidence to use that language when important eg in reference to their own bodily experiences, in relationships, in medical situations, to remove the stigma of shame in referring to female anatomy and its functions, to be published in books and taught and read about.

Not to mention that many women in the world still lack the ability to discuss, define and name their anatomy alongside the various stigmas associated with childbearing & menstruation, menopause. Many women across the world have significant physical problems (eg menstrual issues, vaginismus, infections, prolapse, fistula, cancer symptoms) that they do not seek help for due to shame, embarrassment, cultural and social stigma, or simply by not having the language and knowledge of their own anatomy and physiology to discuss them or know when to seek help. Women and girls still suffer FGM and unconsented gynæcological interventions. Many of the colloquialisms for female genitalia carry overtones of shaming or schoolboy sniggering or are outright used as swearwords or insults.

I mean, seriously? We propose a new gender-and-organ-inclusive use of the word which means “some combination of vagina, vulva, clitoris, uterus, bladder, rectum, anus, and who knows maybe some testes

Who or what does it serve to reduce the reality of female anatomy and multiple functioning organs into some sort of nebulous sexless, functionless, all-inclusive pornified euphemistic whole anyway? (pun intended)
Not women and not feminisim

Lamahaha oh I know that (been a Ms since 1980s) but I’m not quite sure they are using it in the traditional manner...

What about “area” accompanied with stage whisper and circling hand gesture...

That illustration perfectly sums up how they see women's bodies though. I mean, there's a welcome mat and everything.

(And no, "pussy" is not in any way inclusive because it's firmly rooted in porn and general misogyny, and the anus is not part of the genitalia.)

I would like to submit the charming old term scut if we have to have a euphemism, though mostly these days it is used to refer to hares

Or ‘wimmins - you know....(mouths random words)’ like Lea Dawson when he dressed up as a woman in his act)

“I wanted to make this project because I realized after googling ‘whether or not all women could squirt,’ that the quality of information about our bodies on the internet is generally terrible,” said Mendelson. “I ended up reading medical studies that were very hard to understand, looking up almost every word and then the words in those definition. It’s not okay that it’s that hard to access reliable information.”

"I wanted to help women understand their own bodies via the medium of the porn that the men around them are obsessed with", says useful idiot.