MENSTRUAL HYGIENE DAY - need some support out there

[Iootraw1]

My DD Told me it was covered in her secondary school today and that they had been called ‘Vagina Havers’ and termed ‘People who menstruate’.
I have just sent he Head Teacher a forthright email pointing out just what I think of dehumanising my daughter a d other girls by referring to them as mere body parts.

Daughter not happy with me and for some reason husband doesn’t support me either. No longer going to pub with me as planned.

I lost it and knew I had to send that email to make a stand against this insane anti-woman/girl environment we currently find ourselves in.

I just am so upset that it’s now reached our local school and we as parents are supposed to just sit back and take this?

Need some supportive words everyone - I know I needed to send that email and don’t regret it but my family are not my allies 😩

and .

Don't underestimate the mental toll of standing up and speaking out against an aggressive ideology.

(That goes for your DD and your DH, as well as you. It can be a bit horrifying if one thinks social standing might be threatened - humans are sociable creatures and we don't like to feel the fear of being othered or ostracised).

You've been brave and spoken up, for yourself and for others who don't have the voice or the ability to do so.

Thank you.

Thank you ArabellaScott. I don’t mind much about my social standing - no friends to lose around here anyway and no job to be threatened.

Just can’t take it anymore.

I’m going to support the women at speakers corner next month. It’s got to be done. Women I realise through this latest assault on our rights are way down the list of priorities and it seems we are easy targets to oppress and crush. It’s time to stand it has to be now or never. I can’t let my daughter have to face this S**t in the future, I just can’t.

You're a star. Plenty women on here right behind you. More all the time.

Ask your husband how he would feel if his daughter was told her father was an ejaculator?

It may be that your daughter doesn't want to have attention drawn to her rather than that she doesn't agree with you.

I would have done the same thing OP. The incongruence of insisting that people can 'ignore' their biological reality while insisting that woman are reduced to their biological parts and functions is too hard to support.

Good luck.

Vagina havers? Jesus, I would have kicked off big time as well.

@334bu

Ask your husband how he would feel if his daughter was told her father was an ejaculator?

Indeed. Or a penis haver, good idea @334bu

Well done for challenging it OP

It's one thing grown women having to put up with this shit, but defining children by their genitals is just It's grooming them to accept being dehumanised, as if porn culture isn't doing enough damage right now.

Good for you.

Ignore your ignorant partner. Bet he’d be pissed off if he was called a person with a prostate and an ejaculator.

Did your daughter tell you about it? How was her tone when she did? Was she pleased to be called those things? Or is it that she is embarrassed because her Terven mum has outed herself to the school?

Anyway, thank you so much for making a stand. If nobody does, then we will be stuck with this dehumanising language and our daughters will learn that girls are less important than boys, who almost certainly would never be referred to in an equivalent way.

🥃

Full support here. I would have done the same. It’s a disgusting and dehumanising way to refer to women. Your daughter and husband are likely more embarrassed about drawing attention to themselves.

Good on you for taking a stand. I’d suggest asking the Head if they will be referring to boys as “penis havers” (such appalling grammar for a teacher, even my phone doesn’t want to type it!) or “people who ejaculate”, but according to the delightful likes of Charlie Cragg, you can have a “lady dick” and demand to be called a woman, On the other hand, if you’re one of those pesky “vagina havers”, demanding to be called a woman is discriminatory.

If they want to be inclusive they can say, women, girls and trans-men and -boys.

But never ever reduce girls to their genitalia.

My DD is increasingly learning that being a girl or woman isn't something to feel good about and it's sad and worrying.

And with all the sexual assault by boys on girls that we know occurs at school, do they really want to be referencing and emphasising girls' vaginas?

How would your husband like to be described as a penis haver or the ejaculating parent? Good on you OP.

Jesus, is it this level of crazy in schools now?

Well I'd go to the pub with you. And buy you a drink.

Well done for pushing back. Don't doubt for a moment that you did the right thing.

Yep I'll stand you a pint. I would go straight to the governors with that. Is the head a man or a woman?

Stonewall are coming for our schools. We have to fight this shit every time.

OP.
Well done.

I just thought of a thing. Someone I work with refers to women+ as shorthand for women plus people who are transmen or non-binary but female sex. It adds rather than degrades.

What do people think?

Standing with you proudly 🥃

Your daughter is too young to understand she'll be grateful when she's old enough to ask what you did in the war

Well done OP. Every small act of resistance is important.

I'm so furious for you. I do wonder if your husband would like to be referred to by his component body parts or bodily functions? Is he a jizzer, a meat and two veg smuggler, a ballbag human, a penis person, prostate haver, erection owner...?

I suppose we'll never know how men feel when it's done to them because it's never done to them, is it?

And even if it was, it wouldn't really matter because the one with dangly collection of genitals is still the default human.

Anyway, stand firm and continue to fight the good fight

"Menstrual Hygiene Day". What a horrible title. It implies "unclean". There is no need for this in schools - at all. It is just a way to embarrass and humiliate self conscious teen girls. Can't we leave them with a shred of dignity? What's next "bowel movement hygiene day" or ejaculation hygiene day?

@MrsTerryPratchett i like that! If it's good enough for LGBTetc+, why not?*

*honestly i think women or female is sufficient but will make a compromise if it doesn't erase women who know they're women aka almost all of us

@JustcameoutGC

Yep I'll stand you a pint. I would go straight to the governors with that. Is the head a man or a woman?

Stonewall are coming for our schools. We have to fight this shit every time.

The head is a woman.

This is three weeks after the girls protested in the school about a sexism matter.

Courage calls to courage everywhere

just thought of a thing. Someone I work with refers to women+ as shorthand for women plus people who are transmen or non-binary but female sex. It adds rather than degrades.

I imagine most people would take it to mean males as well, would be my only concern.