How language has changed in 6 years

[Plasmodesmata]

Compare and contrast these two news reports, one from today, and the other from 2016.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61477168

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37606726

It is disgusting to erase women in this way. However, I turned to my husband the other night and said, "Did I really just watch a whole news article on the BBC about shortages of menopause medication and the reporter spoke about women all the way through? No speak of menopausal people at all!" I was astounded that they had used the words woman and women. That shows how ridiculous the situation at the BBC has become that it was worth noticing.

Person got another person to take their seed
They got the power, oh, they got the need
They spend their life through pleasing up their person
They feed them dinner or anything they can
They cry alone at night too often
They smoke and drink and don't come home at all
Only people bleed
Only people bleed
Only people bleed

I’m so pissed off with this shit. I looked to see if there was a link t complain about it at the end but f the article. Does anyone have a complaint link. The BBC clearly don’t pay attention to our opinions on Mumsnet.

If that was true and it was all about 'inclusivity', then the same would be happening to language relating to males. It's not.

Prostate Cancer UK use men on their campaign materials because they are aware that direct language is necessary while NHS Scotland use the phrase 'those with a cervix' in their national cervical screening campaign. They're fine using men for prostate cancer material though. Strange that.

I'll take all these claims of 'inclusivity' seriously when the NHS are using 'sperm producers', or 'those with a prostate' or 'ejaculators' on their materials and websites in the same way they are using 'those with a cervix'.

Until then, I'll regard it as the bog standard, double standard misogynistic crap it is.

Nope. Fuck this. The word 'woman' is a good and useful and necessary word. It's our word. It matters. They can't expand the meaning to include males; they can't erase it.

Women will still exist, of course, regardless of people trying to smooth us out of the language. We'll still be here, bleeding all over the place, inconveniently.

Life will just be that bit harder and more complicated and women's rights and existence will be that bit more difficult to fight for.

@Wifwolf
> If it was really for the benefit of female transitioners, it would be the word “men” that was being removed from the language.

Ask any trans woman about this, and they'll tell you that they'd welcome trans-inclusive in "male" medical resources too.

The point of this is to be inclusive of trans men, none of this is about trans women

If this were the case then saying women and others who menstruate would be enough . However, that still associates the word women with female biology and we can't have that because it excludes males who identify as women. This is why pussy hats were banned from the Women's marches in the USA and Munroe Bergdog told the Women's Marchin London not to talk about topics discussing female health issues because it was excluding males who identify as women. All about the males!

Bergdof.... stupid phone!

I'll take all these claims of 'inclusivity' seriously when the NHS are using 'sperm producers', or 'those with a prostate' or 'ejaculators' on their materials and websites in the same way they are using 'those with a cervix'.

Erm, men wouldn't stand for that. Especially coming from a department that's probably mainly staffed by women. We'd be demanding to know who the fuck wrote this bollocks, and probably demanding to get some men in to do the job properly, and ditch all this "feminist" shit.

As a man, I'd be very wary of calling a man a 'prostate haver' or 'ejaculator' - I imagine it would take real guts as a woman.

From the other side I can kind of see why a woman author might feel fear at a mob of blokes going on about how "not all women have cervixes" etc, and want to say "alright then, I won't say 'women'".

Giving up your own language is somewhat akin to a "Fawn trauma response", as described in that thread about Sarah's rape crisis centre case.

The sex power imbalance really is thrown into sharp relief in the trans issue - people's sex is even more obvious when they start denying it.

www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint/#/Complaint

It's not about being inclusive. That mask slipped when women were told we need to say chestfeeding to avoid upsetting transmen. And you who are now allowed to use the term breastfeeding? Transwomen

It's literally about men stealing our words. Anyone who thinks this is about being kind to women who are struggling with their gender identity hasn't been paying attention

Erm, men wouldn't stand for that. Especially coming from a department that's probably mainly staffed by women. We'd be demanding to know who the fuck wrote this bollocks, and probably demanding to get some men in to do the job properly, and ditch all this "feminist" shit.

Course they wouldn't. It's only happening to women because we're conditioned (often with threats) to 'be kind' and silenced if we say 'hang on, let's talk about this'. Men would just say 'fuck this shit' and that would be the end of it.

As it ever was.

It's literally about men stealing our words. Anyone who thinks this is about being kind to women who are struggling with their gender identity hasn't been paying attention

Yes exactly, Clymene. "People" don't menstruate, get pregnant and go through the menopause. Women do. At the very least, female sex people do and I wish they wouldn't try to pretend that trans people have changed biological sex. I'd rather be called a "female" than a "menstruating person".

Fucking hell how many times does it have to be explained that “inclusivity” doesn’t mean including everyone in all the things all of the time

im childless I am not a mother but I don’t go around demanding the word mother includes women who don’t have children

The word women includes all women ALL of them even the ones unhappy enough with biological reality to decide they are men

the word women does not include men however they identify the same way that the word child does not include adult and the word cat does not include dog

ffs

Ask any trans woman about this, and they'll tell you that they'd welcome trans-inclusive in "male" medical resources too.

Your quotes around "male" are hilarious. You do realise that it's not actually possible to change your biological sex?

It is disgusting to erase women in this way. However, I turned to my husband the other night and said, "Did I really just watch a whole news article on the BBC about shortages of menopause medication and the reporter spoke about women all the way through? No speak of menopausal people at all!" I was astounded that they had used the words woman and women. That shows how ridiculous the situation at the BBC has become that it was worth noticing.

They don't often put this batshittery in all its glory on TV as they know the reaction it gets.

TheEyeballs there has been a campaign in The US this year to include childless people in Mother's day celebrations.

BTW it will always be too early for this shit.

I don't care what transwomen think, want or feel about how the word 'women' is used in language. I care about what women think and want and feel.

I'm sick and tired of it all.

Women have periods.

I find this desperate push to remove the word woman from everything related to women really scary, we really don't know how much men hate us do we? They seem to be teaching us though.

Yes I know some in the childless community are very much “there are many ways to be a mother” therefore we should be included. personally I’ve no time for that. Words have meaning however much sometimes we might not like it

"I know I'm in the minority here but as no-one seems to even know what a woman is, it dodges that "confusion"."

Everyone knows what a woman is unless they are a clinical moron. There are groups that are happy to pretend that the word woman can mean anything but even they know the true meaning. If you want to play along with their social engineering games, that's your decision but please, do not pretend that "woman" is some sort of open category that men can claim membership of or that women can opt out of.

I wish people purporting to champion Transmen would consider what it must be like to have gender dysphoria and endometriosis.

I would imagine they would prefer to be treated with empathy and dignity, not used as someone's gotcha.

But of course it's never about people who actually have the condition is it?

@Cuck00soup
> I would imagine they would prefer to be treated with empathy and dignity, not used as someone's gotcha.

Yes, and being treated with empathy and dignity includes not referring to them as women when they explicitly ask you not to.

Cool, then the word 'cis' can be dropped when referring to women who have specifically said that they do not like/agree/identify with the term?

It must go both ways, surely?