A pregnancy charity has rejected pressure to stop using the word “women” on the basis that it would make services more trans-friendly.
The British Pregnancy Advice Service (BPAS) is believed to be the first major organisation to publicly state that it will not remove gendered language, arguing that it is harder to fight against restrictions based on sexism if they “cannot clearly articulate” that it is “predominantly” women impacted.
It was described as a “hugely significant” move by feminist campaigners after major organisations, government departments and NHS Trusts have all dropped terms including mother and women from their policies.
Those changes came after pressure from groups including controversial LGBT charity Stonewall, which has advised organisations that they should remove all gendered language in order to be more inclusive.
Setting out its “values, vision and ambitions” for the next two years, BPAS said that its services were “inclusive” and that it was building “specialist pathways to meet individual needs”.
However, it refused to remove the word women from “campaigning, advocacy and general client materials” in part because it was how the “majority of those using our services see themselves”.
“We will also continue to use the word “women” over “people” so we can continue to campaign effectively for reproductive rights,” the charity said.
“Women’s reproductive healthcare and choices remain regulated and restricted in the way they are precisely because they are women’s issues, sadly still bound up with heavily gendered and judgmental approaches to female sexuality, ideals of motherhood and expectations of maternal sacrifice, and the need to control women’s bodies and choices.
‘We cannot – and will not – shy away from this’
“If we cannot clearly articulate that it is predominantly women, rather than people at large, who are affected by this, we will find it much harder to dismantle a framework that today is still underpinned by sexism.”
The move was welcomed by women’s rights campaigners, including birthing expert Milli Hill, who was attacked for questioning the use of the term “birthing people”.
She said that the move by BPAS felt “hugely significant”, adding: “I hope this is the beginning of an overdue re-centering of women in maternity, infant feeding, menstruation and reproductive healthcare.
Dr Nicola Williams, director of Fair Play for Women, also welcomed the decision, telling The Telegraph: “In political communications, women’s rights are the correct words to use.
“It is about balancing the needs of everyone in society rather than focusing on one small group and I think BPAS have got that balance right because in this instance the benefits of using the word woman outweighs the negative effects of using it.”
Health organisations have faced criticism for deleting gendered language, including Cancer Research which removed the word "women" from its smear test screening campaign and an NHS Trust which advised midwives to consider using terms such as “chestfeeding”.
Clare Murphy, the chief executive of BPAS, said that it had received a “hugely positive response” that showed “that this is not a controversial position… offering inclusive services is in no way incompatible with retaining the term ‘woman’.
She added: “From choice in childbirth to access to emergency contraception, our reproductive rights are undermined precisely because these are issues that affect women. We cannot – and will not – shy away from this as we continue to fight for a future where everyone can exercise reproductive autonomy and women are empowered to make their own decisions around pregnancy.”
How sure are you that Amber is lying? About how sure you were that Taylor Swift was a lying bitch manipulative mean woman snake, and deserved to die, lose her career, be assaulted, “stop existing,” be “taken down a peg,” have her awards taken away, all due to your undeniable, super concrete, phone call recording proof?
How sure are you that Amber is not only mentally ill when her “diagnosis” wasn’t a diagnosis by any means, but that this also means she is clearly the one doing something wrong and should be stopped? Maybe about how sure you were that Britney Spears was “sick, out of her mind,” and deserved to have her children taken away, have her bad influence on girls stopped, and was clearly incapable of living her own life, because being mentally ill means you’re either incapable or dangerous? — all because the media “diagnosed” her as such?
How sure are you that Amber is a huge fame/attention seeking cheating slut, that deserves to get beaten around? About how sure you were that Paris Hilton was a huge fame seeking slut when her 33 (fourteen years older than her) year old boyfriend released the tapes against her will and knowledge, when she was a teenager? Or maybe you’re as sure that Amber is a money digging shallow blonde as you were that Paris was one, even though now we know she was just reacting to deeply traumatizing childhood abuse and CPTSD?
When all of those things happened (and we could keep going), did you do your own research? Did you look into things yourself? Or did you just believe what someone told you, that someone told them, that their cousin read this on the headline cover of a magazine? Did you use your own critical thinking, or did you just believe what someone “exposed” on Twitter?
And when all of the truth came to light, did you feel ashamed? Were you one of the people clamoring about the “deceitful, hateful, media” and how “we really should” think before dolling out judgement, specially in a public forum? Maybe you were one of the people pointing out how many profited from the taken down of these people?
None of these cases, none of the “regrets” people have over it, no amount of “I’m sorry I went on with the crowd,” NONE of it means ANYTHING, if we don’t learn anything from them.
That all being said. If you’re STILL so sure, tell me: How SURE are you? Are you SO sure that you would laugh at a recounting of repeated rapes? Are you SO sure, that you would help propagate sayings such as “bitches lie”? Are you SO sure, that you would feel comfortable knowing that abusers who are NOT celebrities can and have now started using your mockery as a defense? Are you SO sure that you don’t care if your posts and mocking videos discourage victims even more from speaking up at all? Are you SO sure that if your harassment did cause another human being to take their own life, you’d celebrate? Are you SO sure that you know for a fact you’ll be happy and satisfied with yourself having spent all the money you’ve made from the mockery of a domestic violence case, if an year – or 10 years – from now some sort of evidence you finally believe comes up?
Are you THAT sure?
You might never believe her. You might even be right. But even if you are, is THIS the legacy you want to leave behind? Is this amount of hatred and harassment that you think will help other victims of abuse? Is this how you think that the rights of male victims of abuse are to be forwarded? With mockery of recounts of abuse and sexual assault? With online harassment? Whether you believe them to be real or “stolen” or “made up”? Because trust me, even if you are right, someone has been through, and is going through, these exact things. Do you REALLY think they’d take joy in watching you? That they’d laugh at your videos? Or are you so sure that you are right, that you just don’t care?
How sure are you?
🙄
Janelle Monáe came out as nonbinary...the singer of Pynk....
"I just don’t see myself as a woman solely. I feel all of my energy. I feel like God is so much bigger than the ‘he’ or the ‘she,’ she said. “And if I am from God, I am everything. But I will always, always stand with women. I will always stand with Black women. But I just see everything that I am, beyond the binary.”
The misogyny present....."I will stand with women but I'm just more complex and beyond other women." #NotLikeOtherGirls
Christ....disappointing is an understatement.
I actually think one part of the handmaid's tale is neglected when y'all bring it up. Maybe it's not in the show and some of y'all just ain't read the book idk.
But a big part of the book for me is that her boyfriend is basically like "do you not trust me to take care of you?" "I wouldn't do such and such to you" and doesn't really trust her intuition and kinda waves away her fear with "I'll protect you" type shit. He doesn't separate her view of her oppression from her view of him. He cares more about how she feels about him than he cares about her being her own free person.
And then he fails to protect her.
Energy Balls with apples, cranberries, cinnamon and pumpkin spice recipe
Instagram: @veganmiche
Mental illness
Mimi Reinhard was being held at a Nazi concentration camp near Krakow, Poland, in 1944, but because she spoke flawless German and could take shorthand, she was allowed to work in the camp office. One of her jobs was to compile a list of Jewish prisoners working in factories owned by industrialist Oskar Schindler.
Mrs. Reinhard, then known as Carmen Weitmann, typed the names of more than 1,000 Jewish people — including her own and those of two friends — to create what became known as “c.” She called herself a “schreibkraft,” or typist.
“The only practical thing in my life that I learned was shorthand, but I never learned to type,” Mrs. Reinhard told the New York Times in 2007. “I typed with two fingers only.”
As a result, she and more than 1,000 other Jews were saved from near-certain annihilation in the Nazi death camps of World War II.
Read More: Washington Post
May her memory be a blessing.
Why are TRAs so ignorant to actual gay history? Why are they so instant on q*eer having never been a slur or being ‘fully reclaimed’? Why do they think that people saying ‘hey I don’t like being called this slur so can we stop using it to label the entire community/me’ is such a bad thing? Why are you all about ‘respecting other people’s identities’ until it comes to them not wanting to identify with a fucking slur?
Men are such entitled little freaks (and yes, of course the replies are full of men saying they don’t believe her, or “there’s two sides to every story”, or straight up making jokes).
i stop being attracted to someone once i learn they have a gender identity
Role model number 1: Debbie Jellinsky, Addams Family Values (1993)