BUPA being rediculous avoiding the word woman

[desiringtoremainsane]

A bupa ad in my linkedin feed.
Most people huh? Did anyone tell the men?

Eh?

you realise menopause is the cessation of menstruation and that this only happens to women?

Och behave

They don't say "most people" go through the menopause (i.e. 51% of people vs 49% of people), they say "most people will spend about 1/3 of their lives in menopause", which clearly can only be true if we are just talking about women, since not all women will spend 1/3 of their lives in menopause, making the percentage of "people" that this happens to rather less than 50%.

Indeed.

It is, of course, completely inacurate even if one is being as deliberately obtuse as is humanly possible.

I don’t think 51% is “most” though. It’s a “majority” but not “most”. Also sadly lots of women die either before menopause or earlier than the average which must have been used to formulate this stat

@Jessie1259 I don't think it is really about inclusiveness or people not being left out, because the word "women" is already inclusive of all people who experience the menopause.

The reason language is being changed in this way is because a small group of people started to claim that because they don't identify as X (despite objectively fulfilling all the relevant criteria for being considered X), the word X doesn't include them (even though it is only their definition of the word X that doesn't include them, everyone else's definition does include them). Having then deliberately self excluded from the X category, they are now demanding that we come up with other words for X and use them so that they can be included.

At some point surely they just need to be told that their demands are unreasonable and they cannot expect the rest of us to accommodate this.

I accept that, for example, some trans men may, through no fault of their own, need an abortion, a smear test, or treatment to alleviate menopause symptoms. The solution for this is not to rewrite healthcare communications aimed at the general population, but for healthcare practitioners to use sensitive language when dealing with trans patients, and perhaps for the NHS to produce alternative versions of this information with modified language which can be used specifically for trans patients. This would actually be in their best interests because they may have different needs anyway. For example, a 26 year old trans man going through menopause following a hysterectomy and oophorectomy may well need slightly different information to a 50 year old menopausal woman anyway.

Most women don't spend 1/3 of their lives in menopause. Most women go through it and spend the rest of their lives post menopause. Some women can take 20+ years but it is not most women. Some women go through menopause later and don't live another 25 years to spend a 1/3 of their lives in menopause.

Average age for menopause is 51, average length of menopause is 7 years. If they are the averages, using most is incorrect.

If you think that men can have a menopause, are you saying this happens after their periods stop? Do you think that men have periods?

And you also will likely not spend a third of your life in it.

By 'in menopause' they mean 'no longer menstruating'.

They've chosen 'people' because they're obsessing about edge cases (trans people, people with DSDs, women who for medical reasons didn't experience menarche).

But they already covered that with the 'most', so they made it confusing for no reason.

It's a crime against language.

Menopause - female, cessation of menstruation.
Andropause - male, fatigue and a decrease in libido.

HTH.

Menopause is one day: the date 12 months after a woman’s last period. You can’t spend a third of your life in one day. It’s inaccurate even before you get to the statistics and gender woo nonsense.

But you remain the biological sex that you were born as, and your desire to identify in a different way should not replace clear language around medical issues.

☝️☝️☝️ This. Arguing otherwise is so self centred, arrogant and exclusive. Language has to work for the majority.

I'm being very pedantic here, but technically it's not. It's the definition of "more" or "a majority" but statistically speaking "most" would need to be somewhere between 80%-95% of people. So Bupa definitely wrong with the statement.

Pot meet kettle.

With this forced language It's like we've learned nothing about decentring, theory of mind and cultural relativism - as if the 20th century just never happened.

They may need to get rid of the silly cake though to fit all the words on

the cake is the best bit!

I don't think I'm allowed to clearly state why I think you've said that but if you are pregnant, you are biologically female and a woman, whether you identify with the label or not. As you have proved, saying I'm not a woman has not stopped your body from gestating life in a way that ONLY HUMAN FEMALES can do.

And Congratulations, I hope everything goes well with your pregnancy

Is purple cake significant?

Is it meant to be a bubblegum or grape flavoured cake?

YES I AM IN FUCKING MENOPAUSE AND THE WORD IS WOMEN YOU FUCKING IMBECILES!!!!

Sorry, couldn't resist!

You’ve put me right off that now helle 😶

Maybe its ‘when i am old i will wear purple’

Now that, after centuries, NB has started to be used by some to mean something other than 'nota bene', that might actually just confuse them even more!

That might make your current identity obfuscation more pitiable, but it will have no effect on anyone else's ability to recognize your sex

No, it's because in many organizations the new thing they are being told to do is avoid words like "woman" and to substitute "people" and that this works because there is no real difference - there is nothing unique about women.

Someone has done that without thinking about the fact that it doesn't work when you are talking about a statistic that refers to a particular subset of people - the ones whose reproductive role means they likely menstruate.

If you use the whole group, people, women and men, the statistic is probably not true. Even though women are 51%, there are women who don't spend 1/3 of their live in menopause.