The lancet on periods “bodies with vaginas”

[Theeyeballsinthesky]

twitter.com/thelancet/status/1441372277786951681?s=21

For fucks fucking sake!!! Incidentally heard the prostate cancer ad about half an hour ago “what a creature is a man” funny how men are not bodies with penises innit

My vagina feels very included. The rest of my body less so.

Just imagine if were all as fearless and brave as the Lancet. We could replace that stuffy old greeting from stages and of "Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen" with the new, improved unisex greeting "Welcome Bodies with a Rectum". 😁

But yes, it is completely dehumanising which is heartbreaking when there is so much violence and murder already. Even if they don't want to refer to us as women, they could use females for goodness sake. We don't need to be a dead collection of orifices for men/bodies without vaginas to fuck.

I think the reason for the phrasing of the quote is that it comes in the context of a discussion about the exhibition “Periods: A Brief History” at the Vagina Museum.

Equally, the choice of that quote and its display on the cover, might indicate MRA or TRA dominance being announced in public. The Lancet is colluding in the erasure of women as a sex class despite the dire history of medicine in providing appropriate care to women.

Dear lancet:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR1EV8ThXPUqgOjInazPBa8vP8fEYiGXW2PdKtslWucwbYymm_SJHi4xGYQ&v=8JfJhJWxB9Q&feature=youtu.be

Fuck me, this is horrific. I emailed the editor, seems to have reached his inbox - I included some cc’s and got out of office replies.

Have drafted a Facebook post and now trying to find the courage to post it. It’ll “out” me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were to lose me my job.

Looking across all the usual suspect TRA twitter outlets, there is absolute radio silence on this.

So even they are not able to twist this one to try and gaslight us!

@EmbarrassingAdmissions
I've started a separate thread on the topic but I'm curious if your DD is a pronoun declarer? If so, does this give her pause for thought?
Not so far as I know - my feelings are known on this topic though so perhaps she wouldn't tell me. She is only middling-woke, not full-on blue hair, and does find a blue-haired friend 'tiring'.

@EmbarrassingAdmissions to clarify, I meant she doesn't declare her pronouns as far as I know.
I think it may have given her general pause for thought - bloody well hope so!

“This isn't political correctness. If it was they would never use the word man. It is all directed at women.”

They absolutely would change the way the word “man” was used if some people found it exclusionary or offensive or thought that language marginalised them in some way. Especially if the group complaining was a small, marginalised or vulnerable group.

The culture war is all but over, the left have won. Congratulations if you’re on the left I guess. Conservatives should stop fighting this and fight the political battles that are still winnable. They should argue for lower taxes etc...

Thanks Warrior for that YouTube clip😂

Women with fuck holes... yeah, we get it.

Now if they had called us "The Cliterati" on the front of The Lancet I might have been happier to roll with it.

As they went with "sex dolls with fuck holes" "bodies with vaginas" however...

Cross out failwwwhhhhyyyyyy?

Haven't RTFT but isn't it possible that someone senior at the Lancet is GC and has done this specifically in order to peak the medical profession?

@NotBadConsidering
This is the ideology you’re always advocating for Helen so I don’t know why you think it’s a shame.

I’m not sure what you mean. In some contexts I think it makes sense to refer to women, in some it makes sense to refer to a specific issue, function or body part. In this case I’m not sure the quote is the best one to represent the tone or focus of the article, and it was inevitably going to spark a barrage of angry criticism, and therefore distract from the interesting and important content of the article.

@WomaninBoots

Cross out failwwwhhhhyyyyyy?

The " " marks interfere with the strikethrough. If you put a space between the quote marks and the dashes, it should work. '' hello WomaninBoots ''

I don’t know how anyone can say that saying ‘bodies with vaginas’ is something that makes sense in any way, to anyone. Which is why it stands out so boldly.

It’s a powerful sentence - one that feels quite violent to any woman!

It doesn’t just distract from the article. I renders the article void. It shames and cancels women and their biology. Nothing in the article is worth reading with that sentence as the focal point. Nothing!

@EmbarrassingAdmissions

Equally, the choice of that quote and its display on the cover, might indicate MRA or TRA dominance being announced in public. The Lancet is colluding in the erasure of women as a sex class despite the dire history of medicine in providing appropriate care to women.

None of us know why they chose that quote. It feels relatively unlikely to me that the main motivation was using language in a way that is inclusive of trans and non binary people, because it was clearly going to be counterproductive in that regard. But then it could have been someone who is not fully aware of the current controversies. It might just have been someone who thought it was a bold, attention-grabbing quote.

Well it's grabbed attention very successfully indeed.

I’m not sure what you mean. In some contexts I think it makes sense to refer to women, in some it makes sense to refer to a specific issue, function or body part.

In which case as well as being misogynistic, they’ve had a pretty basic biology fail. If it’s truly important to refer to the body part, in relation to menstruation, then the vagina is hardly relevant. Surely they’d refer to the uterus, or ovaries, or Fallopian tubes, all of which are much more functional in terms of a woman’s menstrual cycle. My vagina doesn’t just randomly decide to bleed every month.

I don't give a flying fuck why it was used an in what context or any such bollocks.

"Bodies with vaginas" is not an appropriate way for a serious publication to refer to women.

No.

Just fucking no.

No fucking thank you.

They absolutely would change the way the word “man” was used if some people found it exclusionary or offensive or thought that language marginalised them in some way. Especially if the group complaining was a small, marginalised or vulnerable group.

Absolute tosh. It is always the words and protections for women that are attacked. The lancet were using the word man only 5 days ago. Why then is the word women so offensive to transgender people but the word man isn't. The are both descriptors of people of one sex or the other.

As for 'small marginalised group', it's astonishing how much power they actually have, wiping away language used to describe 51% of the population.

@Awkwardy

Haven't RTFT but isn't it possible that someone senior at the Lancet is GC and has done this specifically in order to peak the medical profession?

Ordinarily an article would have had to pass the scrutiny of the editors (I gather a Senior Editor wrote the article) and peer reviewers. This is a Perspectives piece (no paywall by the way) by Sophia Davis.

Davis has such an embarrassing lack of citation for published work with The Lancet that I wonder if this was done to garner altmetrics for some research exercise or other. For clarity, Davis is not medically trained but is qualified in biological natural sciences etc.

www.thelancet.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Davis%2C+Sophia

twitter.com/SophiaDanielleD/status/1433683607374155782?s=20

Excusing, minimising, gaslighting women for their completely justified disgust at this use of language?

No thank you.

Whatever their potential reasons, were they landed on an incredibly offensive phrase on the front of their journal. Just imagine if such an offensive phrase was used for Jewish people, black people or disabled people?

[quote Helen8220]@NotBadConsidering
This is the ideology you’re always advocating for Helen so I don’t know why you think it’s a shame.

I’m not sure what you mean. In some contexts I think it makes sense to refer to women, in some it makes sense to refer to a specific issue, function or body part. In this case I’m not sure the quote is the best one to represent the tone or focus of the article, and it was inevitably going to spark a barrage of angry criticism, and therefore distract from the interesting and important content of the article.[/quote]
A tad disingenuous. This is the end point of the ideology you support and espouse on this forum on a regular basis. You help this become a thing. And you’re more bothered by the quote misrepresenting the article than the inherent misogyny in the quote, the use of the quote, and the ideology behind the creation of such language which you vocally support. So I think you know what I mean.