“Updating”
Erase erase erase, don’t stop until every last trace is gone.
The Midwifery Council of NZ is updating its Midwifery Scope of Practice guidance for midwives to entirely remove the words ‘mother’ and ‘woman’.
So then it will have to be the Midpersonry Council of NZ, yes? No point in deleting “mother” and “woman” but leaving “wife.” Husbandry, like “man” and “father,” will continue as before.
With midwifery arguably the most woman-centred and mother-centred of all health professions, [Dr Sarah] Donovan says clarification is needed on what evidence base and advice underpinned the Midwifery Council’s decision to remove these words entirely. The words ‘wahine’ and ‘māmā’, used almost universally in other maternity care material in New Zealand are also not used anywhere in the English language version of the document. The lack of these words seems conspicuous considering the inclusion of te reo [the language, i.e. Maori] in the English version for other terms.
…
The previous version of the NZ Midwives Scope of Practice document referred to women and mothers throughout.
Not surprisingly, because what else would it do?
What’s with this “maternity” shit??
The desires of those women that wish to be men override other considerations. Womanhood is something dreadful, something they wish not to be reminded of, something to flee.
Sort of on topic…I went to a play last night that was about same-sex attraction in the 1950s. It was sort of a mediocre play; I don’t know if that’s the play, or just the fact that the actors weren’t very good. Anyway, the play itself isn’t the issue, it’s what happened before the play.
To begin with, the director’s notes talked about how long he has looked for an LGBTQIA+ play, and how excited he is about it. There are two problems just there:
1. This was not an LGBTQ+ play. The characters represented only LGB.
2. This theatre has done at least one (usually more) play centered around LGB issues every season since we’ve been going – starting in 2007. Just another example of having to be the “most oppressed ever”.
Another thing is the list of apologia in the program for the use of “offensive” words, and noting that these are not the words of the actors, but of the characters (duh!).
Three, the strange and surreal confrontation as things were getting started. The director came out on stage to introduce the play and give the rules. Normal, no issue. He goes back over the apologies for the use of words and ideas that might offend someone (but no apology for the misogyny that threaded throughout the play – in 1951, that’s expected, but so are the other things they apologized for). Then the moment of silence when everyone was supposed to read the land acknowledgement. Here we end up with the most dramatic moments of the evening.
One of the UNL profs was on hand, and talked during the moment of silence, expressing his disdain. While the director pretentiously and ostentatiously read the words he knew by heart to himself on stage so we could see his virtue, the prof talked. The director turned on him and told him to shut up. He chose not to, saying this was ridiculous. The confrontation grew, and he was eventually ejected under protest.
It was hard to be sympathetic with either individual. The prof was denying that native populations had been brutalized in the settlement of North America, and the director was ostentatiously virtue signaling. I wasn’t actually upset when he was rejected, the confrontation ended, we did another moment of silence, and the play began. We were on the verge of leaving before that happened; neither of us likes conflict, and particularly this ugly conflict.
But it was something we talked about nearly the entire way out of the city.
tl;dr: Misogyny goes unnoticed while a mention of the word Negro in a play set in 1951 sends the whole cast and crew into a freak out. A play about gays and lesbians having to have the rest of the alphabet tacked on. A confrontation between the woke and the unwoke, ending in cancellation of the unwoke. It made for a tense night of theatre.
I don’t think this would be happening if it were a matter of TiFs only. Women don’t have that much pull. There isn’t an equally comrehensive effort to erase “man.” The erasure of women is pushed as much as it is because it benefits TiMs. I think the real point is to decouple “woman” from biology, not to assuage the feelings of triggered TiMs; they’re just a convenient excuse. If TiFs didn’t exist, TiMs would have invented them. Trans activists thinking that the existence of post-menopausal women, or women who’ve had hysterectomies are gotchas that somehow invalidate a biological concept of “woman” that even mentions reproductive function is a part of this. “If it’s not rooted in biology, then the definition of “woman” must reside elsewhere. It’s actually in lipstick and handbags.”
YNnB? #4
That’s what I have been trying to say, albeit less eloquently. If you know who fits the definition of “woman” then you also who does not, which is ultimately what this shitstorm is all about.
As I keep saying, even if there were no basis for talking about biological sexes as distinct and identifiable categories, it wouldn’t follow that being a “man” or “woman” were about something other than physical traits. What would follow would be that there were no basis for talking about “men” or “women”either. If biological sex is not a valid category, then neither are “man” and “woman”. If words like “man” and “woman” don’t refer to anything biological, they don’t refer to anything at all. If physical traits don’t make us “men” and “women”, then nothing does.
If you destroy the definition of “woman”, then it is no longer available to women. It’s also no longer available to you. Congratulations on your Pyrrhic victory. It’s like arguing that there is no concept of “truth” and declaring your argument is true, hoping to gain the benefit and status conferred by the very thing you’ve just invalidated. How do you bottle a universal acid? It’s all academic until it’s your floor it has eaten through.
I’ve often been astounded by the degree of misogyny shown by TiMs. Sure they claim to be “better” at being women than women are, but so what? If they hate women so much, why do they want to become them? Is it all humiliation and degradation for them, that for them that’s part of their “definition?” Is it the natural result of the repressed acknowledgement that they can never be women? Some sort of psychological murder/suicide pact in which they’re saying “IF I CAN’T BE A WOMAN, THEN YOU CAN’T EITHER!”
I find myself shaking my head at this. There has been no significant public debate about this. Sure, activists have been pushing for ‘trans rights’ at government and organisational level; and other activists have been pushing back against quite extreme attempts to silence them. but the general public are not at all informed about the issues. Asked “do you support giving trans people rights?” they say yes, of course. Asked “should biological men who claim to be women compete in female sports, use female changing rooms, have open access to women’s refuges?” they say no, don’t be daft. How a group like midwives get captured like this bewilders me.
And if they rely on mainstream media to inform them, good luck with that. Their style guides and codes of conduct are preventing them from reporting honestly.
Showing the importance of framing what little debate their is, and clarity of language. If the media manage to wake up and smell the lipstick, and start doing their job properly, we might get an informed discussion that doesn’t result in women getting robbed.
Maybe it’s a generational thing? Can anyone be that scared of the whole “wrong side of history” bulshit? They can’t see that expunging “mother” from midwifery guarantees that that’s the side of history they’ll be on?Women have had to fight for their health care since forever; for an organization supposedly dedicated to the most woman-centered form of health care it’s possible to have to succumb to this is mindboggling.
It’s long since past the point where I see this sort of thing as benign or well-meaning, for the sake of being “inclusive.” It’s possible to be inclusive without obliterating the word “woman.” Add a clause or two onto what you’ve already got written down. Erasing “woman” or “mother” is not being “inclusive” it is supplanting. Replacing. It excludes and disappears most of their clientelle. The move to erase rather than add to shows me that the erasure itself is the point of the excersize.
To be that concerned about triggering the tiny number of trans identified females WHO ARE PREGNANT with the word “woman” is too much of a stretch. You’d think the PREGNANCY itself would be a hell of a lot more triggering than a word or two. If it is that disturbing, then maybe they’re really not cut out to be a parent at all.
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