Decision to 'Move away from the use of the term 'mother'

[Silvetmoon]

Long-time lurker, first time poster.
I've learned a lot from you ladies, but I'm too angry to formulate my thoughts. I'm in Australia, so Aussie mums particularly welcome to reply. Received this email in my inbox the other day from our breastfeeding group, and I'm livid. 'Mother' is a term they are considering moving away from. There's opportunity to give feedback but I. Am. Too. Furious. To. Think. Any suggestions for what to write would be most welcome.
Thank you. And thank you all for getting it.

The email itself:

The [Group Name]'s mission is to create a breastfeeding-inclusive society. In order to do this, we understand the importance of using inclusive language. It has been policy to use gender-inclusive language for a number of years, for example using the term ‘partner’ rather than ‘husband’.

The WHO defines gender-inclusive language as:

Speaking and writing in a way that does not discriminate against a particular sex, social gender or gender identity, and does not perpetuate gender stereotypes. Given the key role of language in shaping cultural and social attitudes, using gender-inclusive language is a powerful way to promote gender equality and eradicate gender bias. Source: United Nations (www.un.org/en/gender-inclusive-language/)

Recently, some members have been in touch to ask whether there are plans to change language, in order to better meet the needs of the LGBTIQA+ community. While there has been some discussion about this, we confirm that no decision has been made to make these changes to our language.

Other community members are concerned that [we've] ...made the decision to move away from the use of the term, ‘mother’ to the more generic term, ‘parent’. Similarly, there has been no decision made about this. We use the term ‘mother’ or ‘mum’ in many contexts such as ‘Some mothers experience mastitis’ while the term ‘parent’ is appropriate in other situations e.g. ‘Parents are welcome at our Breastfeeding Education Classes’.

We do feel that this is an important issue. We plan to conduct a broad community consultation with Australian parents to understand the needs around gender and LGBTIQA+ inclusive language. We would love to receive your feedback and thoughts on this issue at: [email]. All responses received will be included in our consultation process.

I hope this clarifies [Group's] position at this stage, and look forward to updating you on the outcomes of the broad community consultation.

Kind regards,

I'm cynical too humanfemale1

"Speaking and writing in a way that does not discriminate against a particular sex..."

It is not discrimination to use correct, factual language.

Parents of the female sex, who are exclusively the people who will be doing the breastfeeding, are MOTHERS, regardless of gender identity*. Erasing a word that will be the literal definition of every breastfeeding woman in the group is offensive and sounds far more discriminatory, misogynistic and exclusionary than any supposed problem they claim to be addressing.

*The Freddy case a PP mentions above may be useful as a reference

Ask them who they think is going to criticise them for continuing to use the word mother? What sex were the people who brought this issue to them? Were they mothers/breastfeeding mothers?? Saying that they wanted the very word that describes them to no longer be used??

Well, and this might be considered "whataboutery", what about those who are not members of the LGBTIQA+ community and feel offended and excluded if they can't call themselves mothers? Yes mothers are also parents, but parents are humans and humans are mammals. How far do you go? We are going to end of losing so many words and language will become less imprecise which makes if more difficult to discuss things.

Silly example: if you want a bed, but you can only order "a piece of furniture" from IKEA and they turn up with a bookcase your need for adequate sleep will not be met!

At least they are asking!
Hi OP. I understand your frustration but at least they are listening to concerns and asking for feedback, unlike many orgs that just make the change and tell everyone they are ‘phobes if they disagree.

In my opinion, mother = female (sex) parent and is therefore already fully inclusive of all gender identities. In addition “mother” as distinguished from the gender neutral “parent” is more specific. For example if someone says “breastfeeding parents” I am unsure if they are addressing an entire couple in which the mother has chosen to breastfeed (important for some communications), or if they are referring only to the mother / female parent (important for different communications). Clarity should be key here. Note that referring to the non-breastfeeding parent as “partner” is entirely fine because it really does not matter what sex the partner / support parent is in this context. Otoh the breastfeeding mother is by definition a female adult.

I would in your reply at least hit 2 other points, one is that using body parts to describe individuals can feel dehumanizing. Secondly, if no other context is given, it excludes people whose first language is not English and for whom complex medical terminology may be difficult to grasp or otherwise unfamiliar (“cervix-Havers”).

You may also want to point them to studies showing that certain other gender neutral terms when applied in a top down way are extremely unpopular with the groups they are applied to (only 3% of Latinos and Hispanics in the USA accept the term “Latinx”). Is it worth alienating 97% of mothers to (supposedly) better include

I would write back saying the language needs to be simple to help the service be useful to those who

• have English as a second language
• are not highly educated
• are not neuro typical

Accessibility for these groups being a goal no doubt for these services as they often need more help and support.

I would suggest they

• stick with mother when they mean female who gestated the baby.
• use partner or parent where it doesn't matter, e.g. how to bath a baby class.
• use father where there their inclusion might not be obvious, e.g. breastfeeding classes, fathers are welcome to attend except on Tuesdays when the sessions are women only.

I'd have a link to a separate inclusivity page on their website that states their definition of mother, that it includes transmen and non-binary etc. What they mean by partner which could then reference gay couples, unmarried couples, singletons with a family supporter like a sister or best friend etc. On this page they could say they use the simple language to ensure the max number of people can understand and access the information.

Not really sure what I think about the whole trans debate - I've seen posts on both sides that sound reasonable and sincere.

But as an autistic person I find unclear language really hard to decipher and it would potentially stop me getting support. I think as a new mum I'd have spent ages looking at leaflets, websites etc that used this gender-neutral language and wondering whether this referred to me in any way, and so would the support be available to me. I am biologically female, and sometimes I have needed services relating to that biology - breastfeeding support, support in labour, smear tests, breast scans, etc, and I've needed to understand the language used to signpost that support.

There's been a positive move for years to make language use as clear and straightforward as possible in official and informational documents. I do appreciate the need to be inclusive, but we also need to understand that moving towards gender-neutral language can involve a cost in making language less clear. For neurodiverse women like me it could mean I don't ask for support if I can't see the very clear terminology that identifies who I am and what I need, like the wording 'breastfeeding mother' on bf support information.

I wonder exactly how many non-mother breastfeeders they are hoping to include with this? I'm not sure that wet nursing is still a thing?

I thought the ‘inclusive’ term was chest feeding, not breast feeding.

I never understand this one. Biological men can get breast cancer, hence biological men have breast tissue. There's no need for the ridiculous phrase chest feeding to be used. It doesn't matter how you ID, breasts are breasts.

Part of me likes the idea that mother means the person who gave birth and can be used as a unisex term, so a transman would still feel fine about using the word mother, it doesn't denote gender.

Posted to soon
...so there is no need to use the term birthing parent, as the person who gave birth is the mother regardless of gender.

Part of me likes the idea that mother means the person who gave birth and can be used as a unisex term, so a transman would still feel fine about using the word mother, it doesn't denote gender.

yes, in the same way that a man can be a midwife and (I think) a matron in the NHS.

Hi OP, do you have any idea about the demographics of the group? How many women from backgrounds where English might be a second language? Any women with SEN who might need language to be specific? And what proportion of trans and non binary people are part of the group? Can you ask?

I also read it as they don't want to do it but are being pressured and the only way they can counter it is enough sensible people respond to the consultation and say they should stick with 'mother'. So definitely worth a calm response pointing out why it's not inclusive to do this.

As an aside, I'm at a complete loss to understand how a trans man can be so sensitive that they find the word mother distressing and yet they are completely fine with the actual act of getting pregnant and breastfeeding which is genuinely the most female thing you can do?! I can't get my head round that at all, how do you still convince yourself that you are a man in that situation?

It confuses me too malloo, you'd imagine that there's be so many parts of the process that would be triggering, not least the giving birth through a vagina bit. But the word 'mother' oh no. This may well give the lie to suggestions that there's as much if not more pressure to protect transwomen from feeling left out.

I think where you are discussing a biological function (lactation, mastitis, vaginal bleeding etc) the language should be biologically accurate and sex-specific therefore include the word mother, woman, female.

Where you are discussing a non-biological function (helping baby sleep, making formula safely, dealing with reflux) the language should not be biological or sex-specific and can refer to parents and carers (to include fathers, partners, grandparents, foster parents etc).

I don't think I'd be angry about this at all. They seem to have received questions about their use of the word "mother" and are asking for feedback.

That is just what they ought to do.

The [Group Name]'s mission is to create a breastfeeding-inclusive society.

True, it's not just women who feed their babies via their nipples. Females of all mammal species do the same. Why are wombats and kangaroos being excluded? Does this group think wallabies buy formula milk for their babies? Do bandicoots hire wetnurses?

So to be truly inclusive, the group should admit that all species have mothers. The only common feature is that they are all female.

I remember being at my SSs end of school concert once and moaning to my husband about the term 'mother' because it excluded me as his 'step mother' and since I dont have kids of my own actually completely excluded me...

Makes me feel silly now :)

@malloo

As an aside, I'm at a complete loss to understand how a trans man can be so sensitive that they find the word mother distressing and yet they are completely fine with the actual act of getting pregnant and breastfeeding which is genuinely the most female thing you can do?! I can't get my head round that at all, how do you still convince yourself that you are a man in that situation?

Me too (but also they can’t produce sperm so other than harvesting the eggs, how else can they have their own biological child?)

This is a very good point: “The ruling was that mother IS "gender-inclusive". If you think "woman" or (even "female") is not tied to biological sex then you are mistaken to think that "mother" = "woman" by your definition. Clearly men can also be mothers, if you think that females can be men.
It is remarkably odd that those who insist that everyone else has old-fashioned concepts of gender can't understand this new rainbow world properly. If some men menstruate, then some men are mothers.”

Thank heavens for small mercies though, that they didn’t just implement new rules though, I guess.

I’d be saying that I would be utterly horrified, angry and insulted to not be referred to as a mother but as “birthing body” or some such and I would leave/not join (do you have to pay for it?). I would understand if others wanted to have some other words/terms used IN ADDITION but I would not tolerate the removal of the word mother.

Remind them that the WHO uses the term mother whenever talking about the person who can give birth!

www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/maternal-mortality

www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/family-planning-contraception

Thank you so much for your replies! This is all very helpful.

As an aside, I'm at a complete loss to understand how a trans man can be so sensitive that they find the word mother distressing and yet they are completely fine with the actual act of getting pregnant and breastfeeding which is genuinely the most female thing you can do?! I can't get my head round that at all, how do you still convince yourself that you are a man in that situation? confused

Yep, this.

I assume this is ABA?

I was a group leader/counsellor for about ten years. Outside of Newtown in Sydney and whatever the Melbourne equivalent is, 99.9% of people needed breastfeeding support are women who consider the word 'mother' describes them perfectly well.

It's a diverse word already. We had white, Asian, indigenous and brown mothers seek support. Straight, gay, bi mothers. Rich mothers, poor mothers, immigrant and descended from convict mothers. Differently abled mothers, mothers who were fully breastfeeding, partially so, bottle feeding, express feeding, tube feeding and weaning. Mothers with positive, neutral and negative experiences of breastfeeding. So many different styles of mothering represented. Religious, secular atheist. Left, centre, right.

It was truly inclusive of all women, provided some targeted support for fathers and other family members while retaining a focus on breastfeeding.

Removing the word mother from their literature will, ironically, include those who have no need of breastfeeding support, and exclude many mothers, particularly from NESB.

Echo pps - they are gently but firmly saying they will not be pressured into moving away from 'mother' when they are referring to the mother. Masterclass of tact but taking no shit in my opinion.

If I was still a counsellor/leader, I'd refer to an individual transman seeking breastfeeding support as a parent, not a mother, in individual situations. If I had a transman in my group, I'd use mothers and breastfeeding parents when in the group. But that's it. I'm not going to use female erasing language because breastfeeding is a female-impacting experience.

I'll withdraw my donations from ABA if they go further down this route.