Men that don't know what a cervix is

[biddyboo]

So David Lammy is probably the most well known example, but the whole boxing fiasco has been quite illuminating in illustrating how many men don't have a clue what a cervix is (whilst arguing with absolute conviction that IK has one). Some men also seem to think that it is something that is checked for at birth 🙄

Here is the latest example I've seen

https://x.com/OkayBiology/status/1825174768460673063

For those not on X, it's journalist Benjamin Butterworth mansplaining about cervixes to two exasperated women.

I must ask my oh when he gets back if he knows what a cervix is. I suspect he has a vague idea. Do the men in your life know what the cervix is?

HoppityBun · Yesterday 21:13

Cervix does in fact mean neck. That’s why we all - men and women- have a cervical spine.

Yes, it's simply Latin for neck.

Omlettes · Yesterday 22:34

Does the womb have a view?

I know a song about that... GBH. I won't post it here, as it's totally sexist.

I had to Google Buttergasp too (MN is very educational) and that is seriously bad acting. I mean seriously. There are pantomimes that would reject that guy for being too hammy.

Agree. Bit silly, though. And fuels some culture's blaming a woman for not producing sons - blame dad, it's him!

Ths would be funny if it wasn't so serious.

Greek.

Medical terms usually come from Greek.

Usually, but cervix is Latin!

I stand corrected.

I did Human Biology O level, way more interesting than plants and stuff, and despite being in my 60s I have retained enough knowledge of my body for my consultant to say 'you obviously have a medical background...' - no I just have an interest in my body, doesn't everyone?

I was never ever taught the word 'vulva'. Not in any science lesson, in sex ed. It was always vagina, cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes.
They never discussed labia or the clitoris either bar maybe mentioning it once.
My mum taught me the name for the vulva was vagina?! So it would be vagina, and 'inside the vagina'. Not very accurate at all really?!

sashh · Today 10:36

I stand corrected.

No problem, I asked Aunty Google, as I thought I must be wrong. I know lots of medical terminology has Greek roots, along with geology.

😂😂😂

My first partner went to independent boys school . He had no clue about his own biology let alone any woman’s. He also couldn’t see on a button.

I’m glad you have you facts clear. I find it pathetic and irresponsible for so many men to know so little - most of them can while away hours watching porn but it wouldn’t occur to them to swot up on reproductive anatomy 101 with a 2 minute wiki search.

I work for a man who went to one of those schools and last year had to teach him how to sew on a button. Before that I needed to teach him how to thread a needle. He was 60. His mum had died a few years beforehand and still sewed his buttons on for him.

To be fair - I am female and I have no idea where the prostate is or what it does. So.
I don't think not knowing what a cervix is is a particularly big deal in the average man who has no particular reason to know.
But if he has a reason to know, in whatever way that is, and obv arguing about whether someone has one or not would be a reason to know first, then there is no excuse for his not finding out.

It's a good point, my understanding of what the prostate does is vague at best. I think it has lots of nerves/pleasure receptors and maybe it produces hormones? And if it swells up it can block the urethra?

But, crucially, I wouldn't dream of lecturing a man about it with my uncertain knowledge, and certainly not on air.

I just googled it, it produces liquid for semen. I didn't know that...
Tbf though I wonder if men generally know. I'll ask dh later

He looks like he's wearing safety glasses. Always good to wear ppe, biological reality is so dangerous.

In girls not knowing they have 3 holes , are there that many girls not curious about their own bodies? Do they not explore?

quantumbutterfly · Today 16:48

He looks like he's wearing safety glasses. Always good to wear ppe, biological reality is so dangerous.

😂

that gasp is hilarious

Just asked DH and after thinking carefully he described a cervix as the junction between the uterus and the vagina. I love the fact he used a plumbing term 😂

(Honestly, he was a fantastic birth partner, and the man stood and helped me catch all the blood clots during a miscarriage, so I won't hear a word said against him.)

No not a gotcha, clever or otherwise. Of course the word 'cervix' used alone is most often taken to refer to the neck of the uterus. Men don't have a uterus (!) so they don't have that sort of cervix.

But language is a tricky beast. And, for example, I imagine that fellow Lammy explaining, some time in the future, that ("of course"!) he has a cervix; he always meant 'cervix' in the sense in which it's used to refer to the neck through which his spinal cord passes. We all have one of those cervixes, women and men alike. (He didn't mean that; he's just ignorant. But he's smart.)

Be careful with claims depending on meaning and sense. Just saying.

(No need to Google stuff you know already, btw. And also I advise other search engines, ones that don't track their users so assiduously.)

I don't think, even in medicine, the neck is ever called the cervix. It's the "cervical spine" or words like that. In the phrase "cervical myelopathy", the cervical and myelo go together to mean cervical spine.

So if David Lammy ever claims that he meant a man has a neck, he's still wrong, and I don't think he's very smart either.

A smart politician would try to pass the buck, claim he got it wrong because he was badly briefed.

My ex and father of DCs wondered about this too!🤦🏻‍♀️