The Word is Woman #33

Documenting the erasure of women from language and life.

Welcome to the Issue #33 of The Word is Woman, a weekly section of my substack where I document examples of the erasure of women from both language and public life.

For the past three years, ever since I spoke out about language changes in maternity such as ‘birthing people’, I have been sent hundreds of examples of convolutions of language in which the word woman is erased and replaced in the name of so-called ‘inclusivity’. Uterus owners, menstruators, non-men, bleeders, birthers, and even bodies with vaginas…the list of names we have been called and continue to be called is a seemingly endless catalogue of offence.

At the same time, we are seeing male people taking the place of women on sporting podiums and in public roles, and also being applauded as the ‘first woman’ to achieve a certain award or accomplishment, or the ‘best female’ or ‘woman of the year’ in their field.

The Word is Woman is a place to keep track.

So here is this week’s The Word is Woman for the week ending 18th April 2024.

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This week’s TWIW is dedicated to Kirstie Allsopp and estate agents everywhere.

Are you ready to be shown round a house of horrors? OK let’s go!

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First up, science.com, who reported on a new study into pregnancy complications this week and worked hard to entirely erase women from their reporting.

The piece, which you can find here, doesn’t mention women or mothers once, but instead uses ‘pregnant people’ and ‘pregnant parents’. For example:

This in spite of the fact that the original study does talk about women and mothers.

And they said inclusivity was all about ‘adding more ink’.

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Women are also not named in this article about female ejaculation from Masterclass, but, in an unusual move, neither are men. (usually men get to be men, trans women (men) get to be women, and women get to be erased.)

Here, though, women are vulva owners, and men are penis owners.

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As an aside, the idea of humans, not as people or women or men, but as the ‘owners’ of body parts, is thought to be quite deliberate in a world that seeks to commodify all of us, but of course, women in particular. This was illustrated in the most chilling of ways this week in a post shared by Surrogacy Concern about ‘surrogacy life insurance’, so that, if your surrogate dies during the pregnancy or birth, you can just make a claim and use the money to buy a new one.

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Surrogacy is also normalised in this children’s book via the erasure of ‘woman’ and ‘mother’. Babies grow ‘inside someone’s tummy’ and are sometimes ‘brought up by the birth parent’, but other times, by a ‘different parent’.

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And look, in this article from the terrifyingly captured breastfeeding organisation La Leche League, you can see that, once there is no such thing as a ‘mother’, only a ‘parent’, then breastfeeding at last becomes open to all, even the menz.

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A reader sent in this sign from the loos at the Museum of the Home in London.

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Speaking of periods, Jessica Biel’s book has already had a mention on TWIW, but this week someone sent me a couple of sample pages, which include the humdinger, ‘menstruating bodies’.

If you want a book for 9 to 13 year old girls about periods that DOESN’T erase the reality of biological sex, then My Period is only £5.99 on Amazon today #justsayin

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Birthing person here from student_midwife_studygram…

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Plan C Pills and Feminist bring you ‘people with uteri’.

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For icanbirth we are either not named eg ‘those…who labor’ after a cesarean’ or ‘For most…’, or we are ‘birthing people’. (the missing words always make me think of Les Dawson but maybe that’s just me)

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And finally, the Essex Birth Company want to get to the bottom of birth trauma, you know, that thing that happens to…people.

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As usual, there are far more this week than I have time or space to include, but if you need more, you can always look through the growing back catalogue of 32 other editions! Useful when people tell you that women are not being erased and that you are having a moral panic.

Have a lovely weekend, Milli x

I could not keep painstakingly documenting this erasure without the support of paid subscribers. If you are one, thank you! If not, please consider signing up, you’ll get all kind of marvellous perks and my eternal gratitude. If you can’t afford it, please do take out a free sub so you never miss a post.