Line managing someone who talks about "pregnant people" - how to gently tell her to use "woman"?

[LittlePrecious]

I am line managing someone on a project about pregnancy.

She keeps using the phrase "pregnant people" and it turns my stomach.

What I want to say is "Pull yourself together, get a fucking grip, and use the word woman". But I feel I need to be slightly more tactful than that. But I'm not sure what to actually say because its such a blindingly obvious thing to have to say.

I work in academia where things are fraught. I don't want this backfiring on me.

Please do you have any suggestions for how I can phrase "just fucking say woman, its not a dirty word" tactfully and without putting myself at risk? I may need to commit this phrase to writing as well so there may be a paper trail.

Thank you!

Sorry, I hadn't read all the thread and see the paper has been referenced.
It's brilliant paper and covers everything.

I was delighted to meet Jenny Gamble who gave a great talk about it.
She was so funny too.

Mentioned an academic who had been criticised about their language and advised to make changes. She said she would think about it. Later when publication time came and she was asked what she had done about the language she said "I thought about it".

An excellent technique.

This is absolutely my plan.

Thank you.

Thank you. Absolutely MN at its best. I was hoping for a few well-crafted words. I've come out with well-crafted words, supported by academic papers and royal colleges, and a strategy for ongoing verbal interactions.

I love MN.

Also the term "people" includes men. So she's factually incorrect.

'People' includes whatever the preceding condition determines. I.e. male people, pregnant people, adult people.

It sounds really bloody silly, though, when there's a perfectly good word you could use instead (men, women, adults).

No need to complicate things - if there’s a word which has a clearer meaning then use it for all the reasons already given.

Cazpar

Female mammals, pregnant vertebrates...
Why is it so important to you not to use the word which means female human beings?

It isn't important to me not to use it. If you'd read the thread, you'd see I agree that "pregnant women" is clearer.

But it's false to say that "pregnant people" is an incorrect usage.

"Not all mums are the birthing parent"- but the vast majority are! It's what mother universally meant until very recently.

Why is it more important to cater for this tiny minority than the vast majority of women who are horrified at being dehumanised like this?

Why don't we matter too?

Why don't non English speakers matter?

(Edited for clarity)

Not all mums are a birthing parent, but all birthing parents are female. It's the common denominator.

Sometimes in life, especially in research or in legislation, we need to refer to specific groups.

That's not too say a word describing a 'super group' would be 'incorrect' as such, but it isn't always going to be as specific as it needs to be.

For example, if you were drafting legislation relating specifically to motorbikes, but used the word 'vehicles' instead, it is indeed correct to say all motorbikes are vehicles. However, not all vehicles are motorbikes. The effect of this code of language would be that your legislation had an impact on all vehicle use, not just motorbikes, which isn't what was intended.

Similarly if you were doing research into something specific to children, perhaps incidence of asthma diagnoses, it wouldn't be incorrect to refer to children as 'people', but it would be misleading as the study was about a specific subset of people, under 18s.

Can you see where I'm going with this?

Of course, women are a subset of people so you could substitute the word 'people' and it wouldn't be wrong as such, but if you are doing research or writing legislation relating specifically to women ie female bodied people, it wouldn't be specific enough to accurately describe what you meant.

Crazy that we're at the stage of having to point this out.

Pregnant women covers all those women too, and is more precise.

But that doesn't answer my question.

I'm not talking about your perceived correctness or otherwise of the word.

I'm asking why the majority of women's feelings don't seem to matter (after all, the only reason the language we were all happy with until recently is being changed at all is to accommodate the feelings of a tiny minority).

Your logic doesn't make sense:

Group A doesn't like word x so we need to change it to word y.

But group B don't like word y (and they're are a lot more of them).

So? Word y is 'more correct' and therefore group Bs feeling are irrelevant.

But if feelings are irrelevant, why make the change in the first place?

Can you see the breakdown in logic here? Unless I'm missing something, it's just pretend logic to try and force people to agree with you.

Being a mother is important to me and to a lot of other women. I don't want that taken away from me.

And if you're going to try to tell me it's only a word, it doesn't matter, then we can bloody well keep 'mother', thank you very much!

You have redefined 'mum' to mean 'female in parent role' - which isn't what most people understand by 'mum'.

Which is fine if you're applying to to people who don't mind, but some of us do. Why don't we have the right to define ourselves?

Or is that right reserved only for special people who are 'more equal than others'?

Ok, let me rephrase.
What is the value or point of using the phrase "pregnant people" rather than "pregnant women"?

Will be interesting if anyone actually admits that its 'because their feelings are more important than you boring old fashioned normal (in the mathematical sense) women'

You've completely misunderstood me.

And OP if you don't want to get into circular arguments about 'pregnant females/birthing parents/birthing bodies/blah blah blah', just make sure any published materials follow what is being funded and don't get involved in lengthy discussions about the redefinition of words and what they mean or don't mean and who they include or don't include.

The funding is for women, who are pregnant.

Please stick to’women’. I have just been involved in a charity for ‘pregnant people’ and it is SO confusing. Each time ‘pregnant people’ is mentioned you have to do a sort of head search and think, .. ‘ people? Oh yeah, that means ladies that want to be men, women, and…’
I would REALLY like to know how many trans men (even that term is a head f**k, get pregnant each year, and how many actually care about what they are being called. Tbh, If you are giving birth, I’m not sure you give two hoots what you are called, because suddenly, you know what? It’s a little bit more serious.

This is more cr*p foisted on us by TRAs . I f they go in and attack and confuse everything, like a tsunami, even if the wave withdraws there will still be a lot of flotsam and jetsam and they will still have moved their ideology on.
We are all being conned by big pharma , and self interested misogynists.
rant over. Coffee!
good luck with the work x

Yep this is soo true. Tell her it's pregnant women and girls

And another thing! The other charity I was looking at is for testicular cancer. NO WHERE does it say ‘people with a penis’ it says, guess what? Exactly.

OK, good, I'm glad that's not what you meant.

Can you clarify?

I find this really interesting because surely people with a penis would include transwomen? Would that not be preferable?