The Word is Woman #57

Documenting the erasure of women from language and life.

Welcome to the Issue #57 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 four 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 17th January 2024.

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First up, a quick bit of news from La Leche League. If you’ve been following my substack, you’ll know that all sorts of shenanigans have been going down at this once prestigious breastfeeding organisation, and that a SAR I put in to them revealed that they had effectively ‘banned’ my books from being sold in their shop or listed as ‘approved’ for their Leaders to recommend, entirely on the basis of my views. Not only this, but they had clearly and publicly stated that they had done this - they didn’t even try to pretend it was for any other reason than the fact I don’t believe men can magically turn into women.

La Leche League banned my books

So as I said I would, I wrote to LLLGB and asked them for an apology for this defamation.

Their PR Manager, Maria, replied:

The current Council of Directors of LLLGB has read your article and have been making themselves aware of the history of your Subject Access Request in May this year.
LLLGB does not ban books. Our approved list is an internal list of books for both our online shop and our group libraries. There is no obligation for either the shop or group libraries to stock the complete list.

I then responded to them:

Dear Maria
I'm not asking for you to apologise for removing my books from your approved list. I'm asking you to apologise for defaming me, both internally in your spreadsheet and also in your Leaders Facebook group.
Hope that's clearer.

To which, they did not reply, and eventually, when I emailed again, they responded yesterday:

We have received your message. We have no further comments.

So, in other words, eff off, we ain’t apologising.

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Moving on, Derbyshire Maternity and Neonatal Voices are a little behind the curve…

Seems like maybe they got a bit of feedback on that email, though, because they then updated the post.

I love how these people think that adding more ingredients to your soup is the solution. It would be good see those communication guidelines, though, wouldn’t it? Don’t worry, I’ve emailed the press office at Joined Up Care to ask for a copy. Expect the reply will be:

We have received your message. We have no further comments.

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Someone sent me this screengrab of an advert from U.S company MasterClass.

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The next one’s a tricky one, because we do know that, in very rare cases, men can get breast cancer.

But is this really why the World Health Organisation is referring to ‘people with an abnormal breast lump’?

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Salisbury District Hospital are appealing to ‘pregnant service users’ to have the RSV vax. No mention of women in their post.

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South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust Maternity are offering a reflection service for traumatised…persons.

Would it have been so hard to say, ‘a unique time in a woman’s life’?

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Here’s one that’s a bit out of date, like the Christmas cheese in my fridge…

It may or may not have been lurking in my inbox, undetected…

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Really awful news about the fires in LA. In step the ACOG with information for ‘pregnant people’.

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A somewhat odd account called Living with Research is posting in search of ‘pregnant individuals’.

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And the Obfuscation of the Week award goes to midwife Deborah Neiger who is trying to describe that feeling women get when they are separated from their baby…

Funny how this post, with its suggestion of extras in the birth space - birthing parents AND mothers - sounds a lot like surrogacy. And yet surrogacy only functions if you pretend there’s no such thing as Maternal Separation Anxiety. And added to this, midwives like this one if favour of Language Soup are also almost always in favour of surrogacy. Riddle me that.

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And one final shrug before we go…here at TWIW I often also feature examples of the real world consequences of changing the meaning of the word WOMAN and making it an open category, and what better example than a male person being nominated for a BAFTA in the category of Best Actress?

She has made history.

OK so, before anyone starts, this is not about me being a meanie and saying Carlos can’t call himself Karla if he wants to. This is about boundaries. Just ask yourself, how many men is it ok to have on an all women panel? When does a female only shortlist stop being a female only shortlist? And how many male nominees for Best Actress is too many?

Where do YOU draw the line?

I know where I draw mine.

The word is woman.

See you next time. xx

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Please support me to keep documenting the erasure of women from language, with a paid subscription. If you can’t afford it, please do take out a free sub so you never miss a post. And do like this post and share it! It all helps. Thank you.

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Alternatively you can buy me a coffee / wine / gin….

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Or you can pre-order my next book, Ultra Processed Women, which I am now able to say is OUT THIS YEAR!! Woop woop!