Women’s bits vs Men’s bits

When I was at Uni, I noticed that my male friends used to insult each other with a very derogatory term. They never used it for me. I was surprised. It was the worst word they could use and I could be pretty annoying. 

“You woman!” they’d say, when they really wanted their mate to know the full force of their anger.

For a long time, I said nothing and wrote stories and poems about it and then I started to reply with, “yes?” as if they had been talking to me and I’d missed the beginning of the conversation and misheard the inflection of the sentence. It made a difference. They just stopped using the word as an insult (when I was around, anyway).

I hesitate to write what I’m going to say next because my daughter will roll her eyes at me. She’s younger and understands these things but I think the word has become an insult again. It’s too awful to write on medical literature. 

“Mum, didn’t you learn anything from the JK Rowling incident?” she will ask.

I did, actually.

I learnt that it was trans men that people didn’t want to offend. It hadn’t occurred to me that people who now identify as men would be upset at an article that suggested that people who need sanitary products were called women. I’m therefore fine about writers not wanting to upset them because life must be difficult enough. However, I do think we need to be careful that we don’t add to the idea that woman as a word is an insult.

I think trans men are probably smart enough to work out that if an article is about sanitary products or smear tests then it applies to them. They must be pretty intelligent people to have made a decision to live differently to the way society expects them to. Having the word woman in the article (or headline) wouldn’t stop them accessing the article if they needed it. 

What worries me about these articles and health literature is that they may be not reaching the people they need to reach. Leaflets about prostate or testicular cancer always use the word men. ‘Men! Check your balls!” they say. They keep it simple to catch as many men as possible. They don’t worry that pre-op trans women will be offended. The men I know don’t need much encouragement and probably spend as much time on this activity as they do looking at the Screwfix Direct catalogue.

Yesterday, I saw another one of these articles that recommended that all people with a cervix get a smear test. I expect this will cause another angry argument about why people can’t just use the word woman. I would argue that it is actually dangerous not to. We are just not very good at naming the anatomy of the female sex. Most people with any kind of problem with their female sex organs will go to the doctor and mouth, “I’ve got a problem down there.” Words like vagina are sexualised and although we should probably be thinking about them in the same way we’d think about an elbow, we therefore prefer not to think about them at all. There are many women who are very naive about their own bodies. I’ve known midwives who tell me that they have had patients that think their wee comes out of the same tube as their baby. If you write that people with a cervix should get a smear test then there will be loads of (cis) women who won’t know that applies to them because they have no idea what a cervix is. Women’s bits are all tucked away and hidden and that’s the way most quite like it.

I know that it’s easier for men. Most of their bits hang around on the outside and they love a gadget. 

Yesterday, I walked into the room as the Long Suffering Husband was browsing the Screwfix website. (not a euphemism)

“Do you think we should get an endoscope?” he asked.

Now, I was aware that this was a middle-aged man’s problem. My friend’s husband had bought one because it would be, “useful for looking down the back of radiators.” We laughed about it and thought of a new game show that could  feature it. 

The LSH wants his to check the plumbing (again, not a euphemism) - we have a slow draining shower.

I thought we probably needed a plumber.

I was still laughing about it when we made it rain, while having a BBQ with friends. 

The men discussed the problem and we left with a new gadget to try.

“Men are weird,” my friend said.

They are but woman is still the word that’s most offensive. That’s weirder.