Verso Books are breaking the ratio record

[achillestoes]

This independent publishing company thinks referring to Indian women as ‘womb carriers’ on Twitter is acceptable language to use when talking about women being forcibly sterilised. I think they’re about to break the internet. Piers Morgan and Andrew Doyle are on it.

It might be the straw that breaks this dehumanising trend’s back. Certainly worse than any other phrase I’ve come across.

Has anyone asked the surviving women who were victimised and deprived of their bodily autonomy in this way, whether they want to be referred to as "womb carriers"? Especially the women who were sterilised by having their uterus removed?

the egregious abuses of their freedom that are coming in right wing America

Is this a real thing though? There’s some backlash in the US about sports and about child transition, as there should be. There’s nowhere near enough backlash yet about men in women’s spaces. What’s going on in American prisons is devastating.

So what freedoms do they think will be infringed upon? Freedom to play women’s sports? Or an actual human right? I haven’t seen any signs of the latter being under threat when it comes to trans identified people, though women’s human rights in the States are being attacked by a left-right pincer movement.

‘Is this a real thing though?’

Yes. The Texas GOP recently published a platform supporting the denial of (I think k state funded) transition to anyone under the age of 21. Right wing extremists are not going to stop there, and I oppose that. But there’s no way I’m standing with these sexist loons.

They’re not even Indian ladies being insulted, turns out Verso’s women-hating PR mean Native American girls and women.

Apparently Indian is an insult in the US for N.A, cf. Cowboys and Indians.

Verso are cowboy publishers, they’d know.

I've heard of Verso books before, and I suspect not in a good way. Have they done something like this before?

EaselArt, it refers to the ratio between supportive and critical comments.
Getting “ratioed” means the vast majority were critical - or as MN would call it, getting one’s arse handed to one!

It's even simpler than that: if a tweet gets more comments than likes, you can guarantee it's because people are disagreeing with it.

Form: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/2391748-Verso-Books-and-the-problem-with-TERFs

Ah, thank. What

Yes, particularly when your name and the name of your tribe is fundamentally integral to your identity, as it is with Native Americans and First Peoples. Names matter, a woman’s identity matters.

Womb trending with 22.7k tweets.

Twitter have titled it ‘People react to a Tweet from Verso Books that uses the phrase ‘womb carriers’

Fair play to Twitter for being impartial and stating the facts clearly. Perhaps they can sense the tide has turned and have decided to start slow paddling.

Christ, that was me, seven years ago. I posted this:

"I don't ever want to have to talk about this again. I'd rather live my life quietly, too. This isn't good for my stress and my anxiety levels. But I have to act, I have no choice in it if I don't want the my rights cut and the spaces carved out for women to be taken away."

And here we are, seven fucking years later, still having to plug away, defending women.

I am just aghast at the idea someone - anyone - thought it OK to refer to Native American women as "womb carriers". A real person typed those tweets and hit "post" without curling up into a ball of shame and regret. I really struggle to wrap my head around the fact that they did this, and don't appear to be ashamed of it. Not only do Verso appear not to have learned a fucking thing in seven years, they seem to have doubled-down by adding racism to the mix.

They are taking a sledge hammer to their own position. Hardly anyone thinks this is okay.

So when the 'womb carriers' were forcibly sterilised by having their wombs removed, what did they turn into? "Non womb carriers"? Disgusting language, which is a sad reflection of how such atrocities can happen in the first place.

Current ratio:

1,575/68

(comments/likes)

It's Owen Jones' publisher...

Another of their tweets:
"Stripping our womb-carriers of their ability to have children is the continuation of over 500 years of misogynistic violence against Indigenous peoples."

I wonder how they know it's misogyny?

‘It's Owen Jones' publisher...’

Ooooo - let’s see if he’ll stand with women now.

There's no such thing as bad publicity. Looking at previous tweets this was deliberate.

No such thing as bad publicity for an attention seeker, but there’s such a thing as bad publicity for an idea.

Click on either the sign up/log option (doesn't matter which) which brings up another window of options, that window has an X to close it in the top left hand corner. You can close it without either signing up or logging in, Twitter then returns to the usual screen. The sign up/log in window may appear intermittently but there doesn't seem to be a limit to the amount of times you can con it.

Wow. Just wow.

In case anyone needs a smile, this tweet in reply to Verso was excellent: 'Did a jizz-propeller write this?' )

Twitter have titled it ‘People react to a Tweet from Verso Books that uses the phrase ‘womb carriers’. Fair play to Twitter for being impartial and stating the facts clearly.

perhaps I just lack imagination, but I don’t see how they could spin it! How would you summarise this in a TRA-biased manner?

'evil women complain again'

I could so work for Twitter.

'bigoted dinosaurs moan about inclusion'

'harpies shriek about trans-friendly language'

I'm starting to think if you stare into the void for long enough ...

I agree there's no positive spin, but it's a short trend description so is likely automated rather than manual.

I don't agree there's no such thing as bad publicity. They are taking things to such an extreme that even the most die hard lovers of 'inclusive' language would struggle to justify this.