Not allowed to run a women's health event at work

[Iamsorryyes]

And I work in a hospital!

I'm a HCP and currently have to work alongside our Equality and Inclusion Team. My colleagues are putting the brakes on an event for women's health because the title isn't inclusive and want to change the name to something else that is non binary. What can I say? Help me form my argument please?

I'd email EI lead stating the point that womens health is significantly poorer than male health and one of the reasons for this is authorities determination to default to 'human' which in effect favours males because of the emphasis.

I would state that being prevented from calling it a women's health event was indirect discrimination on the basis of sex and that where appropriate it is totally fine and essential to highlight the sex element of the issue.

I would refuse to hold the workshop despite a stated need unless it contains the word woman as it would otherwise undermine the entire purpose of the excuse and being a betrayal of patients.

As a health care professional talking about sex related issues you should not be forced to be inclusive because the point is it's about sex. It's the entire point of the workshop. The need to differentiate between sex and gender is essential to avoid confusion and the exclusion of certain higher risk groups who are significantly larger than gender identity. Also it is important for those with gender identity to recognise their own sex for health purposes and doing things at odds with that is counterproductive as it enables a harmful state of denial. As a health professional you need to be able to talk about these issues using sexed languaged not gendered language in order to be clear and accurate. Put a tiny disclaimer that counselling is available for idiots who are triggered by the word woman.

This is anti-science and anti-women and has no place in medicine. There's no way they would be requesting a name change for a male health event because they would say it put of the key target group because using the words men and transwomen would make men stay away.

Frankly I wouldn't attend a serious science talk on womens health if it was given a bollocks title because Id think the person running it was going to spend the entire talk using word salad and missing the point. It set expectations that the talk will be a gender woo lecture.

It would alienate me. I'm your fucking target audience.

Will attendees be expected to find this conference by searching or finding it on a website? If so how can they find it. Perhaps show what searches for ''women's health's show up and what searches for the DEI leas's preferred term show up? Test this with service users. Show how familiar the terms are to different user groups. This is bad DEI advice motivated by politics. Good luck.

If it's menopause and smear tests can you title it "menopause and smear tests" or "health clinic: menopause and smear tests" or similar.

I hate this.

@PlumpCatIsBestCat we had mandatory a menopause session for all staff. Really interesting and the men asked as many questions as women. Really great session.

Well perhaps men should attend because, though rare, they most certainly can get breast cancer. They’re highly unlikely to know this and almost certainly don’t do a check for lumps and if they did notice a lump they’d ignore it, believing that… men don’t get breast cancer.

Unless I am reading this wrong mem can get breast cancer I know it is not politically correct to mention it but is possible

Sure men can't give birth, have a womb etc. But thry can get breastfeeding cancer

Women don't have to be involved in men's breastcancer but I can't believe don't realise it is possible biological for me to actually get it

So it is not just men that have to learn things

What an utter joke.

"But apparently the language needs to be inclusive and calling it women's health will exclude people who believe they are not women but are still experiencing the health conditions that are being talked about. "

I'm confused.

1. who is stipulating that the 'language needs to be inclusive', HR? Senior management? And what does that even mean?

2. what health conditions are you referring to? Which health conditions could a man experience that only women are supposed to?

"FFS the world's gone chuffing mad - fanny chat next Monday"

Women's health open to all is the best option. I don't think we should change the name to ensure that women who think they are men or men who think they are women will come at the expense of women who think they are women.

It is insane but almost everything has to get the green light from Equality and there is a political agenda to it all.

What you say is that this is direct sex discrimination as outlined in the Equality act.

Yes men can get breast cancer but they don't need to examine their breasts or have a mammogram so no they should not be included.

It's so sad that op is even facing all this!

It's open for all these people to attend, but it's not ABOUT all these people.

God this is getting more and more infuriating.

Tell your 'equality lead' ie jobsworth to come on this post and read the opinions of the very women (sorry, cervix havers) he/she is supposed to be serving.

I'm with @Retiredfromthere on this. If you rename it to various bodily parts then not only is it pretty offensive, it also excludes women who do not speak English as their first language and people with learning difficulties.

Clearly your EI team are naice middle class women who have drunk the TWAW koolaid but don't give a stuff for those genuinely struggling with language.

Could you compromise on Women's Health: An event for women, trans men and non binary people?

We have menopause events at work that includes men, so managers can support women staff or male staff members can support their wives. Puts me right off attending.

So it is open to both sexes anyway...

Hang on... there are only two sexes? Be careful you don't offend your EI lead with such statements. 👹

And if it's open to both sexes, then a simple "for women and men" is inclusive of every adult human on the planet.

Before the NHS gets an extra penny of funding these ridiculous diversity jobs need to go. Someone is being paid taxpayer money to oppose a women’s health event.

This.

It's indirect sexism.

I like to defend EDI because so many NHS units I've worked at have been institutionally racist and ableist. The cost if training a health care worker who ends up unable to work or progress due to racism is huge. This sort of shit is 'easy' because it's making things worse, not actually improving the difficult stuff.

By not allowing you to call it “women’s health” they are discriminating against:
• many ESOL women
• women with learning disabilities
• women whose literacy level is at or below the national one (which is reading age of 9)
• older working class women
• asylum seeker & refugee women

So they’re discriminating against the protected characteristics of age, disability, race & sex; disadvantaging huge numbers of VERY vulnerable women; & prioritising the feelings (not actual needs, unlike the above groups) of a small group who do not wish to acknowledge the reality of humans inhabiting sexed bodies. Your EDI person might be better off at Stonewall or Mermaids as they don’t seem to have got the memo there are multiple protected characteristics…

I mean, that’s clearly ridiculous but could you try womxn? I’ve seen that as a thing. Our hospital still has a women’s centre. I’m wondering how long that will last as its title honestly.

I wouldn't engage with a workshop using women because I would consider it more bothered about gender woo than women's health.

If you want a pithy one:

An Event for Women+'s Health!

Small print at the bottom: Women+ refers to women, and transmen.

An organisation near me uses it and it's short but inclusive. They just specify the + depending on the event.

So done with this nonsense. 😡
I feel for you OP.