Did anyone see the ITV News piece about of water bills on customers?

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https://twitter.com/PaulEmbery/status/1674332639921045505

Yes this is the feminism board. Paul Embery clipped it but I wonder if anyone saw it in full? He says the piece was about the impact of soaring water bills on an everyday mother. The voiceover calls the person a customer but the customer calls themself a mum. On the Twitter thread someone points out that the customer works for the TUC and is an economist who has been published in the Guardian. I think it’s fair to say the customer is neither a mother nor an ‘everyday’ one.

Posted too soon. However, the he thing that they have in common is being women.

Because other posters have defined mother as the one who carries and gives birth. Which excludes an awful lot of mothers.

You can believe what you like.

You don't get to dictate what other parents call themselves in everyday conversation, any more than I get to dictate what you call yourself within your family.

@Flickersy - it's not 'my' definition. It's the legal definition. Which explains why it's not just anyone's word to use and why it matters.

In my opinion, all women who mother children are mothers. But no men are.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

As Georgina Orwell said 😉

But clearly it is anyone's word to use if numerous women who don't meet the legal definition use it every day without consequence. Otherwise we'd be saying that foster mothers can't use the word etc.

So by your logic, you also use the term 'mother' people who fall outside the 'legal definition' of mother that you posted?

So - 'it's not just anyone's word to use'? Or are we free to use it for mothers who do not meet that definition? They can't both be true.

Just so long as they're not males, Tea. It's pretty straightforward.

Well glad we’ve cleared that up then. Female parents in all forms. Not men.

All mothers are women @TeaKlaxon. Just like black women, disabled women, tall women, short women, white women, older women, infertile women and younger women are all women.

Transwomen are men.

I wonder why people are spending so much time detailing this thread on semantics. It’s pretty obvious that ‘not men’ is the point. Actually I don’t wonder, it’s as plain as day.

I’d love to see him trying to express breast milk with that pump

Not if you're going to insist on the legal definition of "the one who carries and births the child" it doesn't. It excludes a lot of female parents.

Well ITV got exactly what they wanted! making it nothing to do with water bills everything to do with trans ideology and getting plenty of people's backs up . I'm surprised they didn't have Philip Schofield in a dress bitching about how difficult it is to pay the bills now he's lost his job !

If you're going to define "mother" as "the one who carries and births the child" and insist that no-one else can "appropriate" the word or give it away, then you'd better be able to back it up when others point out that excludes an awful lot of legitimate mothers.

@Flickersy - a lot of people have explained this to you repeatedly. I'm not sure what further information you need?

‘It would mean that a foster carer who calls herself a mum would be hauled over the coals. Or a gran who is raising her young grandkids who might sometimes describe herself as a mum to reflect that she's actually raising them, not just a typical granny.

Let's face it, no one here thinks those people's use of words should be policed.’

I believe that licensed foster carers have fairly stringent guidelines on what they encourage their fosterlings to call them, and ‘mother’ would not be used by most temporary carers, because it would be confusing to a child who might well be returning to their birth mother, or be adopted by a woman who then becomes their legal mother. I presume that even in these enlightened times, AMAB who encouraged a foster child to call them ‘mother’ might not make the cut.

I can’t imagine a grandmother calling herself a child’s ‘mother’ ( sometimes posters protest when this has happened albeit temporarily and it is generally condemned as either ‘creepy’ or ‘batshit’. Still more if the carer was the child’s biological grandfather.

2/10.Must try harder.

Yes it covers all women but not men ! Men cannot be mothers . It ain't difficult .

No, defining mother as "the one who carries and births a child" does NOT include all women who are mothers.

You can't throw out one definition which is not fit for purpose, say that "mother" is no-one elses to use or give away, and then when challenged move the goalposts and say "oh but I meant ALL women who mother".

The point here is men cannot be mothers End of !

I can accept that person as a mother slightly more easily that I can as a woman. But still hardly at all, not least because I'm guessing that in this case there's a very real mother lurking somewhere in the back- or foreground.

I posted the legal definition @Flickersy. I'm sorry you find that difficult to parse. I can't help you with your reading comprehension I'm afraid.

I did see that news item and did wonder, and TBH I'm more furious that this person isn't just a normal cost-of-living struggling person, they are the climate spokesman for the TUC (so hardly poor and likely politically biased).

Wonder how they got on ITV? Not really a neutral party!