The Word is Woman #6
Documenting the erasure of women from language and life.
Welcome to the Issue #6 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 two 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.
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What is a woman? Well, as we are in the business of looking at the definition of the word ‘woman’ here, we couldn’t get started this week without a mention for a new campaign that plans to ask UK politicians this question.
Find them on twitter here.
They have already begun compiling an extraordinary list of politicians who have struggled to answer this question, from David Lammy who said it’s inaccurate to say that only women have a cervix, to Kate Osbourne MP who tweeted that they don’t need to bother asking her, she already knows: some women have a penis. As I’ve already pointed out in my post earlier this week, nobody is asking ‘what is a man?’. This is because the aim is to erode the definition of woman, linguistically, so that it no longer means ‘adult human female’, but instead becomes an open category or an identity that anyone may adopt. Once this is achieved (and arguably this has already happened), the path is clear for male people to be women. Sorry to break it to you if you’re new to all this, but it’s 100% about male needs, male desires, and male entitlement.
Read my post with lots more thoughts on this here.
Never mind what is a woman, what is a female skeleton? Those holding firm to linguistic boundaries and keen to stress the difference between sex (innate, binary, biological) and gender (socially constructed) run the risk of losing their platform: this week a panel of six academics had their panel pulled from an anthropology conference. Their discussion, entitled: “Let’s Talk About Sex Baby: Why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in anthropology”, had been accepted by the American and Canadian anthropology associations (AAA / CASCA), but they were then told that their session would be removed from the programme as it could ‘cause harm’ to members who were ‘trans or LGBTQI’ or to the ‘community at large’. The panel say they are concerned at the decision which they find, “chilling”, and puzzled by, “AAA / CASCA adopting as its own official stance that to support the continued use of biological sex categories (e.g., male and female; man and woman) is to imperil the safety of the LGBTQI community.”
Clarity in health messaging can save lives, but BUPA don’t seem to have got this memo. In spite of the fact that surveys show that almost 50% of women don’t know where their cervix is, and that almost half of women don’t know what their cervix is, BUPA are still happy to leave the W word out of their call for ‘anyone with a cervix’ to get cancer screening.
Similarly, Coppafeel obscure important health messaging here when they ask women to ‘check their chest’ when they shower.
The Coppafeel website is also confusing, there’s a lot of talk about and pictures of ‘boobs’ but very little use of the W word (I found just one). Instead they tell us that ‘breast cancer can affect any body’ and that their mission is to, ‘educate and remind every young person in the UK that checking their boobs isn’t only fun, it could save their life’. In the small print of the FAQ’s they tell us that ‘anyone regardless of gender’ can get breast cancer. (do they mean gender, or sex?). It’s true that an extremely small number of men will get breast cancer - but is this who they are trying to include? And in doing so, are they confusing things and diluting their own vital message?
A pregnant woman got in touch to tell me she’d been sent this message from the Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS foundation trust' asking her to do a survey. She felt so cheesed off she deleted it.
The NICE guidelines on induction refer to ‘women’ but this antenatal teacher and doula, whose feed I’ve had a nosy at and who hardly ever mentions the W word, changes ‘women’ to ‘birthers’.
Vancouver Coastal Health sees their ‘birthers’ and raises them ‘expectant birthing individuals’. (via this tweet)
Irony klaxon! This post about state interference in women’s reproductive decisions erases the W word. Did nobody tell them that men’s bodily autonomy doesn’t get policed in this way? The ‘intrusion from politicians’ they reference doesn’t happen to people, it happens to women. It’s not ‘gender based’, it’s ‘sex based’.
Thanks to all of you who have been sending me examples of erasure for this newsletter. A few of you have made the point that in some cases, it’s hard to tell if it’s done on purpose or not? There’s a distinct absence of ‘woman’ and ‘mothers’, but is it deliberate? In the current climate, women read them and feel a bit…uneasy. Here’s one such example.
Note the caption - ‘make them comfortable’ etc. It all sounds a bit…clunky.
Toilets have been in focus this week as Jenny Watson - who earlier this month fought and won the right to exclude male people from her lesbian speed dating nights - happened to be in King’s Cross Station and noticed something rather peculiar.
Network Rail were quick to reassure women that they don’t have to walk past men’s cubicles first, but did drop this bombshell.
“Hello”, they said, “the ‘O’ is the universal restroom symbol for all genders, I hope this clears things up…”
News to us, that we are now ‘the gender formerly known as woman’ and from now on will be going by the symbol ‘O’. Some were quick to point out that ‘O’ is all too reminiscent of ‘bonus hole’ - recently promoted by a cancer charity as a term some may prefer for ‘vagina’. Others went straight to the top of the English set for remembering that ‘O’ was a Shakespearean slang for vagina, and Network Rail found themselves under a pile of witty, well-read Terfs, struggling to explain themselves. They’ve now backtracked and said O isn’t a ‘universal restroom symbol’ after all, but they haven’t quite cleared up what’s is actually going on. A bit like when you read social media posts about breastfeeding that don’t mention women at all, you find yourself rubbing your eyes and wondering if you’re having a funny dream and if the whole thing really was done in good faith. I’m afraid I just don’t have the answer. But if you’re interested in toilets remaining single sex spaces, Sex Matters have guidance on how to respond to a government consultation on them, here.
Post script update from Network Rail here.
And finally this week, I leave you with this clip to ponder - a discussion between two male people, one of whom won an ‘Outstanding Female’ award this week.
They are trying to answer the question, ‘What is a woman?’, too.
Their answer?
It’s someone who gets patronised.
It’s very ‘validating’, apparently. See you next week.
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If you spot examples of erasure that you’d like to see highlighted, you can send them to me via email (either by replying to one of my substacks or at milli@millihill.co.uk), with the subject line, The Word is Woman.
ywca
https://twitter.com/JenniferAnne_s/status/1707062378087510145
Hi Milli- Thank you for the important work you are doing.
I absolutely agree with you that the current gender-inclusive language seems mostly or only to apply to WOMEN having to make themselves accommodating to transwomen. We are tying ourselves up in knots and erasing women and girls’ experience in the process.
I have just been on to ‘ testicular cancer UK’ website and it is totally chap-friendly. No qualms about calling the disease ‘ a young MAN’s disease’ and as far as I can see, no effort to include transwomen and their preferred pronouns in the prose. I cannot see here how to send images but you can see for yourself!
Thanks once again- I think that your writing is brilliant!