Sick to the back teeth of “people with ovarian cancer” etc

[HaveYouActuallyDoneAnyWashingThisWeekMum]

One of the most insidious effects of the creep of gender wang into everyday life is the replacement of “women” or “woman” with “people”. Just heard Amol Rajan talking about “people with ovarian cancer” on the Today programme; last night the (otherwise watchable and interesting) Sky special on maternity services in the UK mentioned “people in labour…people using our services…”. Argh 😡

Come on, Amol and Sky maternity services programme presenters and every other journalist and broadcaster who does this: you know full well that ovarian cancer sufferers and that the people giving birth are all - every single one of them - WOMEN. Always have been, always will be.

Please use the words WOMAN or WOMEN. It really is very easy. In fact, these words should just trip off your tongues - no mental gymnastics required.

I've just seen this on the Sky News website:

https://news.sky.com/story/new-ovarian-cancer-treatment-approved-for-nhs-the-first-for-20-years-13550608

Uses the word "woman" throughout, so they obviously do know, and can use correct terminology when they want to, just don't want to say it out loud on national TV. But it's ok in a news article online?

Perhaps they think that activists can't read?

OP, I agree, it's infuriating, but I have seen signs that things are very slowly returning to reality. Very slowly. Only when no one is looking.

But not good enough, is it? What exactly are they scared of? (Rhetorical question)

Gets right on my (womanly) tits.

Hard agree. Language is important.

Agree OP. Time to reverse the notion that the words woman and girls are somehow shameful, wrong, unsayable. It's misogyny on steroids. It panders to the Victorian ideology practised by toxic men who see women and girls as objects, to be purchased, disciplined and used for their own ends.

The word woman must never be removed from healthcare - ever.

Pardon?

@LabourWillSaveOurKidsFutureif it were about clarity and inclusion then men’s issues would also be referred to as ‘people’ eg ‘people with a prostate’. But that doesn’t happen, it is only women that is a replaceable term.

A trans man is a woman. At no point did the OP say trans men don't have ovaries.

Actually don’t bother explaining. I don’t want to argue with people who are anti-reason, anti-science and who throw slurs around.

👏👏👏

You can guarantee that in the first 5 posts someone will say "what's it to you" when you've explained what it is to you. It's a lack of comprehension, and that's why clear and meaningful words are so important.

I didn’t even use the word “trans”.

Only a misogynist could complain about genetic women asking to be called women.

Ask yourself why over 99% of people giving birth should give up the right be referred to as the child's mother, which is a very special thing to be.

People can live their lives how they want. What they shouldn't be doing is demanding to change everyone else's experience to suit their own.

I used to think that, then I noticed that men with prostate cancer are never called people with prostate cancer and it got on my nerves, it’s like we all need reminding that women are people too. Like men won’t take ovarian cancer seriously unless they are reminded, like it’s all ‘women’s issues’. It’s just very irritating every time you see it.

It’s more than that: it’s erasing the words WOMAN and WOMEN.

I agree, I hate the erasure of the word "woman" in these contexts.

My second objection is that it makes the figures wrong. It's not X% of people, it's X% of women. It's quite simply inaccurate.

Yes, it is. But it started for me with being irritated by double standards. It’s hard to unsee.

I just checked the BBC News website, prepared to be enraged at the usual linguistic gaslighting, and was profoundly gobsmacked. They actually used the word "woman"! At least three times! Has the new head actually told them to rip up that bloody style guide?!

It started after the fallout about the Donald Trump misquote.

That bit took the headlines but the report was very critical about the bias in the Gaza coverage and went into great detail about the lack of balance in the trans issues coverage.

It was all round about the same timing as the Supreme Court judgement and the reporting began to be noticeably different.

I imagine that there are a lot of relieved people inside the BBC and another group gritting their teeth.

That's interesting @Imdunfer, thanks

If you want to be inclusive then you add you don’t take away, so they could say ‘women and trans men with ovarian cancer’ but they do not need to remove the use of ‘women’. Overwhelmingly the people with ovarian cancer will identify with the word ‘women’ they will recognise that the message is for them, they will understand that the content of the conversation or text has relevance to them. When you remove the word that calls the right people to action then you dilute the message and make it unrecognisable. In attempting to be ‘inclusive’ to the teeny tiny number of trans men who will get ovarian cancer you take away a very commonly known word that is recognisable to women globally who may have a low level of understanding of the English language, you potentially prevent women who need to hear the message from understanding that it is for them, and you just piss off a load of women who are sick to the back teeth of all this bullshit.

It's like me saying I don't like drinking alcohol and then demanding that everyone else also stops drinking alcohol because of MY life.

The outrage would probably be higher for that than for the demands that no one be referred to as a woman anymore.

I'm surprised we've got this far on the thread without someone chipping in "so you're saying women aren't people".

In anticipation of that inane comment - no, that isn't what's being said here.

Isn't it tedious dealing with the equivalent of flat earthers who've taken up so much of the public space with all this?

But we mustn't give up, exhausting as it is. The BBC have been exposed and are having to reset and return to more objective accurate reporting. Only the most extreme activists support erasing the language of women for the miniscule % of those who think they're in the wrong body.

The NHS is a toxic mess with Fife & Darlington cases showcasing why. The SC judgment will force them into complying with the law and things are changing, slowly, but they are changing.

The word woman is being reclaimed. It was inevitable - lies can never be sustained.

you just piss off a load of women who are sick to the back teeth of all this bullshit.

I suspect that is entirely the point of it!