# In Praise of Older People Bodies With Vaginas **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 16, 2021, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574 "2021-10-16T01:02:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/62 "2021-10-17T20:07:17Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > And the conservative universe has lost its collective mind over this. It must be a day of the week that ends in Y. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/63 "2021-10-17T20:52:35Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > And the conservative universe has lost its collective mind over this. It would be a mistake to think that concern over this is limited to conservatives. Most of the people I know that despise this sort of language are left-leaning, small “l” liberal women that are very supportive of trans rights. The conservatives may also be concerned about it but they are far from an overwhelming majority. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/64 "2021-10-17T20:54:01Z")
When i googled the Lancet article (looking for the actual article), the first two pages of results were all right-leaning news media reports about it. I think this is mostly a right-wing thing. It might be different in the UK ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/65 "2021-10-17T20:57:20Z")
The media generally is not necessarily representative of what people actually think. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/66 "2021-10-17T21:17:51Z")
A '99’er too, the Dope © has failed in its stated mission to the minions. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/67 "2021-10-17T21:36:37Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Personally I tend to zoom out even further and say “is this categorization necessary at all?” The anti-woke crowd wants to make this conversation about language because they don’t want to talk about what it’s really about which is that they’re losing their masking abilities to be a bigot. They paint this picture the woke brigade is walking around forcing everyone to learn a bunch of new words that they’ll have to use in all sorts of unfamiliar situations and if they make a single mistake, they’ll get cancelled into oblivion. The truth is, if you’re a non-bigot, very little about your life has to change because in almost no non-specialist circumstance do we need to refer to sex and not gender. Continue saying men for when you mean men and saying women for when you mean women. But when you say men, mean all men and when you say women, mean all women, _which is what you were doing all along as a non-bigot, right???_. This is the freedom the anti-woke brigade really wants, is not about all of the alternative formulations, but to continue the freedom to deliberately exclude certain classes of people from the categories of women and men through dogwhistles, similar to their use of “legal immigrants” or “middle class neighbourhoods”. This exclusion doesn’t just apply to the trans community btw, they use the deliberate ambiguity to exclude people like Caster Semenya and people with non traditional gender presentation and all sorts of other “undesirables” that they want the power to exclude. By pinning the words men and women to _only_ mean all men and all women, it pulls the tide out and forces people to reveal who they actually are. If you want to refer to a categorization based on sex, then use the specialist vocabulary for it (Assigned Female at Birth, Anatomically Female, People who Menstruate, People with Cervixes etc.) to highlight why a particular sexual characteristic is relevant. A lot of transphobia sounds pretty fucking weird when laid out in such explicit terms, which is why the transphobes are so desperate to slink back into the comfortable ambiguity of men and women and why we should not let them. > [@bump](#): > > Are people going to stand up in front of crowds and say “People with vaginas, and dong–holders”, or are they going to say “Ladies and Gentlemen” This is the perfect example of the type of strawman that I’m talking about. In what context are you standing up in front of a crowd and needing to _talk about their genitals_? Almost nobody is ever going to be in that situation and the people who are pretty fucking obviously in that situation. This isn’t actually a debate about language, it’s one where we’ve lived in a social environment that has placed an undue and undeserved primacy on the importance of genitals and a social movement that wants us to recognize how ridiculous it all is and to highlight both the absurdity of it and the harm it’s causing through the use of accurate language: [![](https://i2.wp.com/sacraparental.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Is-this-toy-for-boys-or-girls.jpg) ](https://i2.wp.com/sacraparental.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Is-this-toy-for-boys-or-girls.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![stretch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@stretch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stretch)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/68 "2021-10-17T21:49:38Z")
I’m just going to leave this here. > **[Viva la vulva: why we need to talk about women’s genitalia](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/16/viva-la-vulva-why-we-need-to-talk-about-women-genitalia)** > > Ignorance about the basic biology of vulvas is still shockingly high – yet there are huge health benefits, physical and emotional, to be won with better understanding ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/69 "2021-10-17T21:54:37Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > This is the perfect example of the type of strawman that I’m talking about. In what context are you standing up in front of a crowd and needing to _talk about their genitals_ ? Almost nobody is ever going to be in that situation and the people who are pretty fucking obviously in that situation. Why did the Lancet article choose not to just say “Women”? There wasn’t any reason to refer to anyone’s genitals there either. That’s just it- the genitals aren’t the important part, or so I’m told. Men are those who identify as men, regardless of the plumbing, and the same for women. So why this distinction between women and “bodies with vaginas”, especially if only 0.6% are not women? And what are they, if they’re people with vaginas who aren’t men, but who aren’t women either? > [@BigT](#): > > trans women are in fact adult human females. I’m not so sure that makes sense. They may be women, but they’re not female in a biological sense. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/70 "2021-10-17T22:10:44Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Why did the Lancet article choose not to just say “Women”? There wasn’t any reason to refer to anyone’s genitals there either. Are you sure you read the article carefully? It was about an [exhibition](https://web.archive.org/web/20210510203848/https://www.vaginamuseum.co.uk/exhibitions/currentexhibition) dedicated to menstruation at the Vagina Museum. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/71 "2021-10-17T22:18:20Z")
I have not Googled, but the moderate newspaper (seen in Canada as left-wing) also had an article condemning The Lancet’s choice of phrase - not just right-wing ones. I think many women would not prefer the Lancet’s version used on the cover. I trust the word to broadly include whomever so wishes when used in a general sense. Intent is probably still important when it comes to acting without due sensitivity. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/72 "2021-10-17T22:24:00Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > I have not Googled, but the moderate newspaper (seen in Canada as left-wing) also had an article condemning The Lancet’s choice of phrase - not just right-wing ones. I think many women would not prefer the Lancet’s version used on the cover. The burden is kind of on the critics to argue why a reference to an exhibition at the Vagina Museum [one of whose missions is to spread knowledge and raise awareness of the gynaecological anatomy and health] should not use the word “vagina” or mention bodies with vaginas. ---
**Author:** ![WalterBishop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/aeb1de/32.png) [@WalterBishop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WalterBishop)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/73 "2021-10-17T22:26:56Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Who is the medical article trying to address? If it’s something about, say, toxic shock syndrome, then they should say “people with vaginas”, rather than “women and transgender men”. If it’s something about menstruation, then it should be “people who menstruate”, because lots of women and transgender men don’t menstruate. If it’s about pregnancy then it should be “people who are pregnant or may become so”, etc. > > “Women and transgender men” is not really specific enough, right? It also leaves out intersex people, agender people, etc. Specificity is important, of course. However, sensitivity to the demographics one is addressing is equally, if not more important. An outlet could produce an article chock-full of high quality information, but if they employ phrasing that offends a large number of readers then that information will fall on deaf ears. Worse, offended readers will be less likely to take the outlet seriously in future, no matter how good their subsequent articles may be. Is this rational? Not really. But it’s how people are and they’re not going to change any time soon. We must accept that many women found the phrasing used in _The Lancet_ to be highly offensive. We know this because _The Lancet_ received literally thousands of complaints about it. Here’s a link to the offending Tweet. As you may expect, it got ratio’d _hard_. It has over 7,000 responses, virtually all of which are _extremely_ negative. [The Lancet - ‘Bodies With Vaginas’ Tweet.](https://twitter.com/TheLancet/status/1441372277786951681) We also cannot deny that this is part of an ongoing trend. The last few years have seen the introduction of a great many new gender neutral terms. Off the top of my head, there’s: - Menstruators / People who menstruate. - Chestfeeders. - Bleeders / People who bleed. - Womxn - Cervix havers / People with a cervix. - Uterus havers / People with a uterus. And now, of course, “Bodies with vaginas”. While these terms may have been introduced with the best of intentions, the fact is that large numbers of women find them objectifying and dehumanising, and they don’t shy away from saying so. This is compounded by the fact that the medical establishment’s newfound passion for inclusivity only seems to extend in one direction. Absolutely nobody is talking about “penis havers”, or “people who inseminate”. How must this look from a woman’s point of view? Women have to put up with objectification their entire lives. They have to endure sexist remarks, disgusting “jokes” about their genitalia and bodily functions, and the ever present threat of violence from men who see them as nothing more than pieces of meat. Furthermore, they know that every previous generation has had it worse. They also know that the medical establishment has, for almost as long as there’s _been_ a medical establishment, prioritized men’s health over theirs. The male body has always been considered the “default” body, as it were. This problem, which has only recently been recognised, has consistently led to worse health outcomes for women ([Guardian: The Female Problem - How Male Bias in Medical Trials Ruined Women’s Health).](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/13/the-female-problem-male-bias-in-medical-trials) So you can appreciate that, when the same society and medical establishment that have neglected them since time immemorial, and which have only recently begun shedding their objectifying biases, start referring to woman as “menstruators” or “people with a cervix”, it doesn’t look good. I don’t think you can really blame women for worrying about the implications of this new linguistic trend, especially given the historical context of the thousands of years of rank objectification which immediately preceded it, and especially since men are noticeably being spared. It makes perfect sense for women to be very wary of any trend which could, however unintentionally, impede their struggle to be thought of as more than functions and parts. All that said, you’re obviously correct that inclusivity is important. My problem is that language like “people who menstruate” is really the worst possible language that the medical establishment can adopt. If the phrase “women and transgender men” isn’t specific or inclusive enough, then a preferable option, in my opinion, would be for outlets like _The Lancet_ to simply list all the groups to which the article applies. If that means saying things like _“Women between the ages of X and Y, transgender men between the ages of X and Y, intersex people with conditions XYZ…”_ and so on, and so on, then so be it. It’s still preferable to phrases like “people who menstruate” or “bodies with a vagina” that are widely, and not without reason, perceived as objectifying by so many. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/74 "2021-10-17T22:33:32Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > The male body has always been considered the “default” body, as it were. I am not an expert, but, interestingly enough, in reality it is the other way around: > **[Virilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeminization_and_masculinization)** > > Virilization or masculinization is the biological development of adult male characteristics in young males or females. Most of the changes of virilization are produced by androgens. > Virilization is a medical term commonly used in three medical and biology of sex contexts: prenatal biological sexual differentiation, the postnatal changes of typical chromosomal male (46, XY) puberty, and excessive androgen effects in typical chromosomal females (46, XX). It is also the intended result of androgen ... ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/75 "2021-10-17T23:13:50Z")
Embryology is a fascinating subject, but the truth remains that, for example, heart attacks in women over 60 were sometimes historically misdiagnosed since they presented with “atypical symptoms”. Sometimes a segment of population is too large to be atypical. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/76 "2021-10-18T02:52:55Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > We must accept that many women found the phrasing used in _The Lancet_ to be highly offensive. We know this because _The Lancet_ received literally thousands of complaints about it. I am going to guess that 99% of those complaints were from people who didn’t read the article, but instead saw a headline that claimed the Lancet was referring to women as “bodies with vaginas”. It didn’t. It referred to women as women in the very same sentence as that phrase. That phrase was used to make exactly this point: > [@WalterBishop](#): > > They also know that the medical establishment has, for almost as long as there’s _been_ a medical establishment, prioritized men’s health over theirs. The full sentence containing that phrase was: > Historically, the anatomy and physiology of bodies with vaginas have been neglected – for example, the paucity in understanding of endometriosis and the way women’s pain has been seen as more likely to have an emotional or psychological cause, a hangover of centuries of theorizing about hysteria. (Notice it also uses the phrase “women’s pain”. Because the author wasn’t actually trying to avoid the word “women”.) > [@WalterBishop](#): > > Absolutely nobody is talking about “penis havers”, or “people who inseminate”. I have seen “people with prostates” and “people who produce sperm”, fwiw. Both in similarly specialized/technical contexts. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/77 "2021-10-18T03:25:40Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I have seen “people with prostates” and “people who produce sperm”, fwiw. Both in similarly specialized/technical contexts. But in the Lancet? Because they used “men” in their prostate article from three days earlier than the one being discussed in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/78 "2021-10-18T03:30:19Z")
And they used “women” several times in this article about “the vagina museum”. But i didn’t see the prostate article. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/79 "2021-10-18T03:34:31Z")
[Here you go](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S147020452100348X?via%3Dihub). Men is used exclusively throughout. No prostate-havers, bodies with prostates, or even people with prostates. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/80 "2021-10-18T06:07:18Z")
Didn’t read a word of this thread, but agree with the title. Hey… we like a … Oh shit. Nevermind. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574/81 "2021-10-18T06:47:33Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I am going to guess that 99% of those complaints were from people who didn’t read the article, but instead saw a headline that claimed the Lancet was referring to women as “bodies with vaginas”. It didn’t. No, the complaints were about the fact that The Lancet chose a specific and probably deliberately provocative wording for their headline to put on their front cover. Which they demonstrably did and subsequently agreed they were wrong to do. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-older-people-bodies-with-vaginas/952574.md?page=5)