UN Women - people who menstruate

[Itsmemaggie]

This has enraged me. It’s women. Women menstruate. If some women don’t want to be defined as women because they are non-binary or trans men then good luck to them, I hope those choices make them happy, but could they please bear in mind that by refusing to use the word women in relation to periods they are dehumanising a large section of the world’s population.

Would the UN dare tout this gender idiocy in countries where FGM exists? Or should we rename it vulval genital mutilation so as not to trigger the trans community?

Since I have clearly not expressed myself properly I will try again.

Women are women whether or not we menstruate at this exact moment.

Just because we don’t any more for whatever reason doesn’t make us less of a woman.

I would have preferred it if they had used the word Woman in the advert rather than People.

I had no intention to offend anyone. Apologies if I did.

@WrongKindOfFace

It’s surely less inclusive to use terms like people who menstruate, cervix havers, birth givers - imagine trying to provide info to women with ESOL, or a learning disability about the importance of a smear test or a rubella vaccination if they can’t be told the info only applies to women/girls.

It is more important that they satisfy the narcissistic wants of a small section of the transgender community that the needs of women to access healthcare and be safe during their periods.

I hold them partially responsible for the violence menstruating women experience. They literally have our blood on their hands.

Not literally, obviously!

I find it astounding that some people are so traumatised by the word woman but yet are willing to be pregnant for nine months. There is no other positive life experience in my view that so completely ties you to your biological sex in terms of changes in the body, hormones, vulnerability etc and this is not to say that any woman who cannot or chooses not to have children is any less of a woman for those that equate the word woman to exlude women whom no longer menstruate

It’s surely less inclusive to use terms like people who menstruate, cervix havers, birth givers - imagine trying to provide info to women with ESOL, or a learning disability about the importance of a smear test or a rubella vaccination if they can’t be told the info only applies to women/girls.

^^This.

And yes, it's baffling that for decades we had no problems at all in the UK with anyone understanding who were women regardless of hysterectomies, but we currently seem to have raised a generation who run around like headless chickens saying they can't tell what a woman/man is, unless language is absolutely specific and personalised to every eventuality. And it seems to come with age; the average three year old doesn't have these issues. These muddled people are never going to get their heads around additional complexities like 'cervix haver'.

Much as I have every sympathy with those who have had cancer, you'd have to be being deliberately obtuse to make that kind of comment Elieza

Cross posted.

I think it's less TM who have pressured for this change than TW because it ties the concept of woman to a biological function and they wish to wholly separate the two to ensure biologically male people are counted as women.

That this hurls away the reality of female being wholly and only to do with biology, and demands to hide the whole basis of female oppression such as the issue the UN is trying to raise awareness of without ever mentioning female, woman or biology or who is doing the oppressing as if this is something that happens randomly by chance?

No, they don't care.

I just Googled UN women facebook, and the blurb under the search result said -

"UN Women is the UN agency for gender equality & women's empowerment."

I would have thought it has lost its sense of priority.

I find it amazing that the TWAW brigade will say that women defending sex are reducing themselves down to their genitalia, yet be totally cool with terms like menstruator, period-haver, bleeders, etc.

Also, I will now campaign for 'men' be referred to in the same way. Prostate-haver, ejaculator, those who have testicles, etc. It seems we are not having these same conversations in relation to men? Why is that?

Eighth I'm shocked you'd use an exclusionary term like ejaculator, which discriminates so harshly against people with difficulties involved and is so outcome specific. Wankers, please.

Wasn't it UN Women who ran that campaign a while ago saying that hetsex men who won't date TWs are transphobic?
We live in strange times when the UN women's org spends its resources on trying to persuade hetsex men to shag other males.

@Michelleoftheresistance

Eighth I'm shocked you'd use an exclusionary term like ejaculator, which discriminates so harshly against people with difficulties involved and is so outcome specific. Wankers, please.

I do beg your pardon!

Shouldnt they rename themselves as UN menstruators and non menstruators

@ThePurported I think this article deserves a mention.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/some-women-have-penises-if-you-won-t-sleep-with-them-you-re-transphobic/amp

The bottom line is basically that if you don't consent to sex with a trans person you're transphobic. Which pisses all over the concept of consent because of feelz.

In that case I am proudly transphobic for being a cis-het woman solely attracted to cis-het men. It's not because I don't support trans people (third spaces), it's just because it simply doesn't make my fanny gallop.

Nor do incels. But then no one other than incels have an issue with that. Not even the hyper woke.

The normal trick to understand bias within an international organisation is to look at funding. Funding buys influence viz WHO and China.

The head is a black South African woman which would seem reasonable given a likely policy focus in Africa (funding often buys effective nomination rights). Top donors are Sweden, UK, Japan, Norway, Switzerland and Finland. Not unreasonable. Sweden has a stated feminist foreign policy, the UK similarly is likely to be supportive of an organisation that perhaps educates against FGM or supports women led small business initiatives in very poor societies. All these countries are likely to support UN organisations that are effective in their delivery. (Not all UN organisations are, and the UK has pulled funding from one or two that do not deliver well.)

So what is happening. My guess is that UNWomen is not keeping up and has not realised that public opinion is shifting in Sweden and the UK.

Perhaps, given the recent leak, the solution is to write to whichever Minister is responsible for Aid and ask why this rubbish is being funded. Women supported by this organisation deserve clear messages. Calling them people who menstruate is not clarity.

Didn't JK Rowling work for the UN once long ago? 🤦‍♀️

All sorts of people 'work' for the various UN organisations, but member nations call the shots.

Un Women appear to have deleted this tweet.

So they have 👍🏻

Only women can menstruate
Only women can give birth
Only men can rape
How is this even a problem.

I’m choosing to look at this as a positive, many many ordinary men and women who up till now have ignored or not noticed the trans issues because it’s only a small amount of people or they think it doesn’t affect them personally will see this and think ‘hang on, I’m not a menstruator’ or ‘I don’t want to have to refer to my daughters as menstruator s’ or just In don’t want my language changed like that for a few people’ and take an interest in the whole debate.

Jesus fucking christ. I just lost myself in the rabbit hole of their Facebook page. How can an organisation whose goal is to "accelerate progress on meeting the needs of women & girls worldwide" be so wilfully blind to what WOMEN are telling them time and time again on their own fucking facebook page. They are a disgrace.

The thing is, in countries where this is actually happening, where women and girls are not allowed the bathe or go to certain places, is the whole 'gender identity' thing even a thing? Are these girls solving the problem of not being allowed to touch food whilst on their period by simply 'identifying as men'? Are girls being offended by being called 'woman' or have they got more important things to be worrying about?

Sorry, I'm not articulating myself very well here, but it kind of feels like UN Women (that's quite an unfortunate acronym when you put it together isn't it?) is sort of projecting a Western privileged viewpoint on this. I'm sure these women and girls don't give a fuck about being referred to a as 'woman' and probably wish that those purporting to help them would spend less time worrying about what to refer to them as and more time actually helping them!