Lennie Pennie: Gender neutral language matters in the Herald

[WandaWomblesaurus]

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What is she on about? We have hardware apparently. Or we don't. Or something.

Also we are people.

But biology matters or doesn't matter if you feel secure or not.

Laurie Penny is defo a knobber, but this is someone else.

Ooops sorry. Need better glasses I think 😳😳😳

Infertility, voluntarily childlessness, inability to breastfeed or being pre or post menopausal doesn't make you less female, no of course not but menstruation, childbirth and breast feeding happen because you are a woman, that is the female reproductive contribution. The sole reason any of us exist. So it is a non sequitur to suggest otherwise.

Whilst you can say having children is not a condition of being a woman, producing milk and giving birth are a condition of childbirth, and only women give birth.

We are embodied.

Our bodies are either male or female.

Until the 1960s and reliable contraception, having children was a condition of having sex and not being infertile).

Having sex then wasn't always a choice. Having sex now isn't always a choice. If I choose to have a child I have to accept I will give birth and produce milk. I don't exactly choose to do those things, the choice i make is to have a child or to have sex or to use the milk I produce.

It’s interesting she says her friends don’t identify with womanhood despite being female ergo they aren’t women. I can totally see why women don’t identify with womanhood - like motherhood it has many negative connotations and is quite prescriptive and suffocating. But it’s just like saying you literally aren’t a mother because you don’t identify with motherhood despite giving birth! I feel sorry for these women that they don’t see humanity and personhood as being compatible with being a woman.

Very interesting segment on Women's Hour today. Featured an interview with a very knowledgeable midwife called Leah Hazard who has done research on and written a book about the womb.

Really interesting. But then she spoiled it somewhat by referring to "people's menstrual effluent"...

What the bloody fuck???!! [Pun intended...]

I agree with @Ereshkigalangcleg

You wouldn't even be considering getting pregnant, giving birth and breast feeding if you were a man. Not all women do these things but only women can do these things.

And to be honest I'm just getting fed up with this idea of not 'being defined by my reproductive system'. Being pregnant and nurturing my children has been the most beautiful and rewarding experience of my life. I have experienced this because I am a woman. It doesn't define womanhood, it doesn't lessen the experience of womanhood for any woman who does not go through this and it is not the only thing that defines me, but it is still my lived, female experience and I'm sick of it being diminished and the words woman and mother being amputated from something which ONLY women can do.

Laurie needs to try to grasp the concepts behind the Venn diagram

I absolutely go/have gone through all of those things because I'm a woman. I'd have much preferred it if DH had done it all, but sadly that wasn't possible.

It's Lennie, not Laurie! Unless I'm missing something.

She's a smug pain in the arse. Next.

She's clearly an idiot. Saying that it's women who menstruate or give birth is not the same as saying that all women menstruate or give birth. Nobody who isn't a woman menstruates or gives birth. And no, saying it does not define women by whether they menstruate. If anything does that, it's avoiding usung the word 'women' in favour of 'menstruators'. Honestly, what a load of utter horseshit.

Or they could be girls. But none of them are male. What she is arguing here is that being a woman has nothing to do with being female. Then, of course, 'woman' is meaningless term for which there would be as much need as everyone telling everyone in their letterheads what their favourite colour is etc. It becomes "liking pink, dresses, makeup, being submissive etc."

The irony is in the fact that it would be impossible to identify as any gender if sexes were not acknowledged to exist. So other people being sex-defined is a necessary condition for the gender identity ideology to exist.

Absolute garbage Pennie. No one shall compel my speech or thought, least of all intellectually immature people with mental health issues

Oh ffs.

1. No, the language is not inclusive, it's exclusive. It just happens to exclude the 99% of the population who are seen as not mattering compared to the 1%, so that's supposed to be all right. Any claim to be doing this through care about people or inclusion or protected characteristics is obvious bollocks; only one group matters in this world view.

2. The reason for fucking around with the language and wanging on in increasingly bizarre theory worthy of a drunken group of philosophy first years is to try and separate women from biology. This is simply and solely to let a small group of men own womanhood.

She and her "friends" have a pretty limited view of womanhood if they don't understand that stereotypes aren't what defines a woman.
And quite possibly they are a bit thick too.
I'm always interested in what these idiots think womanhood means exactly and why they then applaud men for appropriating the same stereotypes.

From the article -

I am a woman, and I menstruate, I am not a woman because I menstruate

You've got it backwards, poppet. You menstruate because you're a woman.