The Word is Woman #62

Documenting the erasure of women from language and 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 21st February 2025.

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Hello and welcome! Last week we had a break from the usual TWIW with a brilliant guest post about language erasure in Swedish abortion law. I hope you enjoyed it. But this week, I’m back! OK, let’s go…

First up, my dear old friends at Birthrights. How I miss them.

This week they posted about reproductive and birth justice, for….people.

Goes without saying that they have completely swallowed the Kool Aid. I do wonder if they ever wake up in the night - in particular at the moment, for example, as the gender madness is exposed to a ton of disinfecting sunlight by the Sandy Peggie trial - and wonder how they heck they are going to get out of the corner they’ve painted themselves into.

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Of course, they haven’t just painted themselves into that corner, either. When they rubber stamped my cancellation and poured a lovely can of gas on the bin fire in which I was being roasted, they set the tone for people like the Really Useful Doula to write posts like this, in which you’d never guess in a million years which type of person has babies.

It’s a really doozy isn’t it! Human rights truly being flexed there!

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And here’s another rights organisation, this time the Birth Rights Alliance, also busily erasing women…

“Imagine going to the hospital and 47% of people didn’t feel like they have a choice in their care!”. Worse still, imagine writing a post to raise awareness of that and ignoring the fact that 100% of those ‘people’ were women which was precisely why it was happening. Obstetric violence - when you don’t feel you have a choice, or you feel violated, or your consent is not sought or given - is sex based violence. It happens to women because they are women. Why are rights organisations erasing this fact?

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This next one is from 2020, but definitely still worth an airing - it’s the Language Guide from the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, apparently.

And this is the best bit…

“People of all genders and sexes may have childbearing potential”

Sounds like they went to the Dr Upton School of Biology.

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OK this next one really made me chortle. No, it’s not a post from Man Who Has It All.

Yes yes I know, there’s nothing remotely funny about this, no woman has ever looked across at her male partner sleeping like this and wanted to smother him, dads look after babies too, we’re all equal now etc etc.

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This chap looks well rested, doesn’t he. And he’s interested in your body parts, too.

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And over at Aid Access they want us to understand that miscarriage is something people have been dealing with forever.

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But hang on, what’s this? Finally, the word woman is front and centre!!

After women mobilised and complained, the Southern Daily Echo was forced to amend this headline, but you can still see the original if you look at the article URL.

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Oh but look, here’s another use of the W word! Yippee.

Again, they’ve had to amend it, but still nowhere in the article does it say this is a man, or even say it’s a trans woman.

And over on the Avon police website you could be forgiven for thinking this sex offender was female…

Extraordinary isn’t it.

Also, do you ever think about how they only change these things, like the newspaper reports above, because of the outcry. It actually makes my blood go a bit cold when I think about where we might be if women weren’t fighting back so hard on all of this. Please don’t stop fighting back. See you next week.

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