Guardian: people unable to identify or name women's genitalia

[Lettera]

The cognitive dissonance beggars belief

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/may/30/most-britons-cannot-name-parts-vulva-survey

Interesting article from the Guardian as their journalist got it wrong earlier in the year.

Not only the reporter but all the other people who are supposed to read and check copy before it goes to press.

I've just been for a stay in hospital and I was pleased to see a poster on the wall that showed a drawing of what you see when you look at yourself in a mirror with everything labelled, next to the sort of cross section drawings showing uterus and ovaries that you tend to see in biology books. It said something like, learn about your body in order to look after your body ...I wish I'd taken a photo of it (although the nurses might have thought me a weirdo!)

They’ve amended the graphic now.

I have to say that I’d struggle to relate that nicely coloured neat little image to anything I could actually see with a mirror.

@JellySlice

I had a colleague who returned from her maternity leave. She told me that her baby came early because she had "a water infection". I asked whether it was a urine infection or the amniotic fluid. "I don't know," she replied, "the doctors just said it was an infection in my waters."

It's no wonder that young people swallow the nonsensical claim that biology is irrelevant.

At least 25 years ago doctors I saw were almost unanimous in referring to urine infections as a problem with your 'waterworks'. Why couldn't they say urine in a doctor's exam room FFS?

I recently had to fill in a form that asked about my 'water works' and if I had any problems with them. WTF are water works!

Apologies, being a bit childish but started imagining this as a picture round on “Countdown”.. !

@UnkindlyMay

They’ve amended the graphic now.

I have to say that I’d struggle to relate that nicely coloured neat little image to anything I could actually see with a mirror.

This comment took me back to being a young teenager. My mum had bought me an otherwise very good book about women’s bodies, and I spent quite done time worrying over a similar diagram, and particularly the labia. Everything was so neat and easy to see in the book, but not in the flesh - I was quite concerned I either had too many or too few ‘folds’!

I wonder if I’d have known some of the things on the quiz without that book, because I certainly don’t remember learning them at school. It was all Fallopian tubes and ovaries there, as the article mentions.

'Waterworks' - yes, I remember that, too.

What got me about my colleague was that something had gone wrong in her body, something potentially life-threatening to her baby, something she didn't understand, yet it didn't occur to her to ask for clarification.

It was also even more unclear than 'waterworks'. At least that was understood to mean the bits of your body that 'make water' (an old euphemism for peeing). So a "water infection" meant a UTI. But "waters", particularly in reference to a pregnant woman, always referred to the amniotic fluid.

So how was this woman to know where she had an infection if the doctors used both terms ambiguously?

Language matters!

Oh I’m glad they’ve fixed it. I mentioned this story to DH who’d also read it and was very cross, not out of righteous feminist ally rage but due to the shallow desire to test himself and prove himself better informed than average.

I know why they did it like that originally - they thought that having even the most stylised of representation of the external female genitals was just too shocking, so a cross-section of the vagina was more acceptable. You will note that while the cross section picture was right up at the top of the page, the new diagram has been moved to halfway down where a random browser can’t see it and the top picture is now “kindly nurse reassures worried older female patient.” There’s a world of semiotics in all that if you can be bothered.

DH is still disappointed that it wasn’t an interactive point and click quiz.

Hang on, did I just read IN The GUARDIAN, that women have three holes. Wonder what LOJ has to say about that. Transphobes.

@Aposterhasnoname

Hang on, did I just read IN The GUARDIAN, that women have three holes. Wonder what LOJ has to say about that. Transphobes.

Indeed. It is shocking they don't include penis and scrotum in their description of women's genitals

'Why couldn't they say urine in a doctor's exam room FFS?'

Because lots of people don't understand words like 'urine' and 'faeces'. Or 'vulva' for that matter. Yes it's depressing, but it's more important that people understand what the doctor is asking them

To be fair I wouldn’t have got Monis pubis that’s not something I’ve seen since school. I know all the correct important parts but I would called labia inner and labia outer not Minora and Majora so I guess I would be % of those who failed!

“I'd the upbringing a nun would envy and that's the truth. Until I was fifteen I was more familiar with Africa than my own body.”

As Joe Orton wrote in the 60s.

@Lottapianos

'Why couldn't they say urine in a doctor's exam room FFS?'

Because lots of people don't understand words like 'urine' and 'faeces'. Or 'vulva' for that matter. Yes it's depressing, but it's more important that people understand what the doctor is asking them

I agree it's important that people understand which is why I was flummoxed that they said 'waterworks'. I had no idea what he was talking about, nor did the vague euphemistic language used help me to understand my condition.

Which begs the question - why do so many of us not ask for clarification? Why do we accept not understanding?

I can accept that some people are squeamish, or perhaps completely uninterested in the workings of their insides, even if that attitude is totally alien to me.

Agree with Nicknames that there's a bit of an unpleasant element of sneering at the uneducated here. But why expect anyone to know this stuff if no-one teaches them? Or if it's taboo to talk about female genitals?

Interestingly, Lynn Enright believes that TWAW. I read her book, she's quite sure that hashtag-be-kind is the first step.

So, yes, interesting article from the Guardian.

I can think of two occassions off the top of my head where I have had inaccurate information entered in my medical record or been treated incorrectly due to unclear language used. On both occasions I answered the question based on my understanding of them and even in retrospect I would say I answered the questions asked correctly.

Tempus023 Think you might mean Pointless? In which case that deserves applause. 👏 Think you'd have to go for mons pubis for best score there.

I remarked to DH that our baby had a bit of nappy rash on her vulva and he asked me what the heck a vulva was? He said he'd never heard the word before.
He's an intelligent widely-read 38yo senior manager with a masters degree so it's not a matter of education, just of general society being coy about correctly identifying female anatomy.

I mentioned this to dh and he reminded me that during one of our midwife appointments when I was pregnant with dc1, she talked us through a diagram of the female anatomy. I had felt patronised, but he later admitted that he hadn't known that women have separate openings for for wee and for sex/babies. He had assumed that we did both through the same hole ' just like men'. Another highly-educated man - a scientist!

I'm sure it's all covered in a couple of science or PHSE lessons somewhere in KS3, but then never referred to again. Unless you happen to be the child of a family that values these sorts of discussions - and I don't think that attitude is connected to class or money.

'Interestingly, Lynn Enright believes that TWAW'

Or at least she's prepared to pretend she does for woke cookies. How very tiresome

My DP thought that wee comes out of our vaginas too

That might explain why some men think we can control period blood in the same way as urine flow.