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.

Not sure what your point is. I said "female" - referring to the biological reality of sex. Deerinwater's article refers to something that can only happen to persons of that biological sex. Deerinwater is of that class of person.

Oh ye gods and little fishes I see in an earlier post I referred to this person as "woman" . Oh mea culpa.

I'm a don't however feel sorry for Deerinwater.

Was ‘two spirit’ (as reported on Wikipedia) invented in 1990?

Apparently it replaced another term that’s regarded as derogatory, but the term meant in any way non-conforming and apparently included gay people. It doesn’t replace biological sex.

2 spirited may mean different things in different tribal cultural context. Saying "Native American" is the equivelant of using "European".
I have seen some NA get cross on Twitter with the Canadian "werwolf / other kin" types calling themselves that. For them an equivelant christian faith term would be like a shared lifeforce / an internal god guide as part of a soul / guardian angel which would be represented by an animal from their natural environment. So 2 different NA faiths could have a different meaning.

Ah, well spotted. Parsing the bio on the author's website, hir preferred arrangement may go as follows.

Subject: she

Object: [unknown]

Possessive adjective: hir (but I saw a her used in this grammatical role too)

This writer claims Cherokee heritage - lots of people suggesting some people do that even when they’re white. I have no idea, though.

I have no reason to doubt the author's heritage.

But I do find reason to doubt that the author's own linguistic preferences reflect the preferences of women and girls who were abused by the medical profession in the 1970s. Especially as the women abused would have all come from different tribes. Ms Deerinwater seems to see hirself as a "womb carrier". That's hir choice for hirself. Referring to all female humans everywhere by their organs, though? That's a bit more presumptuous, and it looks especially distasteful here.

‘That's hir choice for hirself.’

Are you seriously using these invented words?

Whatever Deerwater's choice of words for themselves, no corporation, including Verso, should be using offensive terms for women in a corporate statement. This holds true for any potentially offensive term for any marginalised group, and is also my objection to, for example, places like Tate Britain or the Museum of London using offensive terms like "queer". It's one thing for individuals to describe themselves like that (though I'd argue that many people that describe themselves as "queer" are appropriating a word that isn't theirs), but a corporation using "queer" to describe anyone is automatically in the wrong.

Exactly, Annie. I think that Verso is pursuing the plausible deniability route here, as so many businesses do. It's very shabby behaviour.

Some black people have reclaimed the n word and use it to describe themselves and friends. Does that make it ok for a corporation to use it to refer to black people and claim it 'came from a quote'?

One member of a group using a word themselves does NOT make it acceptable for a corporation to do so.

They may ‘claim it’. But they wouldn’t call their granny it would they?

I'm just waiting for the film adaptation of her (sorry, hir) book: Dances with Wombs?

Well we can get deleted and a strike for "misgendering" I'm not sure on Mumsnet policy on neo pronouns.

I don't care if this womxn (ffs) is a minority, or all the minorities, that's just mitigation not an excuse. Verso can fro too.

Whatever Deerwater's choice of words for themselves, no corporation, including Verso, should be using offensive terms for women in a corporate statement.

Agree. It's disingenuous of Verso, if they promote misogynistic concepts they need to provide a disclaimer that the words aren't theirs, or not promote misogynistic concepts.

I agree, Icake, it's entirely irrelevant to whether women are offended by misogynistic terms for women.

‘Well we can get deleted and a strike for "misgendering" I'm not sure on Mumsnet policy on neo pronouns.’

I’m not using bun/bunself. Red line.

According to Twitter (you couldn’t make it up) the management of Verso, a so-called ‘radical publisher’ are suppressing Union activity as well.

Like The New York Times, then.

Oops, meant to include a link: www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/01/leaked-messages-new-york-times-anti-union-strategy

If womb carriers is fine, I say let's start using "penis-havers with bolt-ons"

and "vulvas-havers with strap-ons"