May 6, 2022

If you won't say "women," you are embracing the self-subordination of weak political speech.

I'm collecting examples of this avoidance of the word "woman" and the resultant etiolation of speech.

In "Abortion bans and penalties would vary widely by state," Politico quotes Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel to something called If/When/How:

"Even if a bill doesn’t allow pregnant people to be charged directly, we’re concerned about the ways increased surveillance could lead to people being criminalized for an abortion or another kind of pregnancy loss....These bills create an environment where a person’s private health information, their affect and demeanor and whether they are sufficiently distraught, could all become evidence in a case against someone else. They could still be treated as a suspect."

Here's the webpage for If/When/How, subtitled "Lawyering for Reproductive Justice." It describes its purpose without saying "women":

"If/When/How envisions a transformation of the legal systems and institutions that perpetuate oppression into structures that realize justice, and a future when all people can self-determine their reproductive lives free from discrimination, coercion, or violence. We transform the law and policy landscape through advocacy, support, and organizing so all people have the power to determine if, when, and how to define, create, and sustain families with dignity and to actualize sexual and reproductive wellbeing on their own terms.

42 comments:

David Begley said...


A pathological condition of plants that grow in places that provide insufficient light, as under stones. It is characterized by elongated stems and pale color due to lack of chlorophyll.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
mezzrow said...

Stein's law. It applies here.

David Begley said...

Staff at if/when/how: “ they/she) is a Queer Muslim Refugee from Lebanon.” And a lawyer.

Where does this organization get the money to pay 35 staff people?

eddiejetson said...

"etiolation of speech"

That's a beautiful turn of phrase. Well done.

Leland said...

They are not interested in speech. They will carry out the promise from 2020 and move the protests into the neighborhoods. If not at a Justice’s home then one that may be considered in the future. The President is refusing to get out in front and condemn the violence because they are who they claim us to be.

Beasts of England said...

’…and the resultant etiolation of speech.’

I agree that speech should be verdant.

Michael P said...

"a future when all people can self-determine their reproductive lives free from discrimination, coercion, or violence"

Maybe they favor reform of paternity laws and assumptions? Or the supposed right of a father to also decide whether a child should be born?

RideSpaceMountain said...

I see it a different way. Fighting for the word 'woman's is a sign that you've already lost. Clearly, if this is your battlefield, can you honestly say you're winning the war?

Louie the Looper said...

Did someone pass a “Don’t Say Woman” law?

Howard said...

Objection, you honor. Counselor is making statement assuming facts not in evidence. How can women possibly be people when they are the property of their father or husband?

rhhardin said...

Worrying about subordination seems to be a women's delusion. You don't see it in men, oppressed or not.

farmgirl said...

The erasure of Thickness.

Sebastian said...

"when all people can self-determine their reproductive lives free from discrimination . . . so all people have the power to determine if, when, and how to define, create, and sustain families with dignity and to actualize sexual and reproductive wellbeing on their own terms"

I agree with this. Abortion law has discriminated against men long enough. In fact, men get screwed legally in several ways. No more. Men's terms deserve equal weight.

Jamie said...

But all people can't determine their reproductive rights. Two people of complementary chromosomes have unprotected sexual intercourse. Maybe neither wanted any products of conception to result, but a product of conception happens anyway. Even setting aside the fact that the product of conception would, if allowed, almost certainly develop into an unequivocal person, only one of the already-people is afforded any right to decide what to do about the product of conception.

So all this "people" garbage is meaningless.

But we all knew that anyway.

Tom T. said...

The irony is that by insisting on saying "people," it sounds like they're pushing for men to have a role in the abortion decision.

Bob Boyd said...

Okay, how 'bout this:

Just pass a law making it legal for men to get abortions then you can safely go back to fighting for women to have the same rights as men.

robother said...

Editorial page writers have been particularly sensitized to the Cultural Left's speech police over the last 20 years. Since they are struggling for a safe neologism, might I suggest (based on the vagrant model), "persons temporarily experiencing pregnancy"?

Gahrie said...

How many cases where men are trying to avoid child support have they supported?

tim in vermont said...

This is the part on the little comic where we on the right say "LOL."

gilbar said...

Serious Question
I thought, Men Were PIGS? I thought Women were Better*
So, How come; Men are COOL now? I mean, as long as they're Womb Men? or something?
Wouldn't ANY True feminist say that a womyn that Wanted to be a Male; was some Sick Mother?

Women were Better*
Anything you can do, i can do better; i can do Anything Better than YOU
Althouse If you do scientific research into the differences between men and women, you must portray whatever you find to be true of women as superior

MadisonMan said...

It's unclear who is being charged in those tangled webs of words: the pregnant woman, or the doctor.

hombre said...

"... a future when all people can self-determine their reproductive lives free from discrimination, coercion, or violence."

A future achieved by imposing the worst violence imaginable on babies, unborn and sometimes born, often in discriminatory fashion.

These monsters can't even hear themselves.

Temujin said...

They say that the first step toward healing is to admit you have a problem. I'll stretch that to cover this. If you cannot say the word 'women' and you cannot define what a 'woman' is, how the hell are you going to stand up for 'women', make laws for 'women', declare justice for 'women', or claim to be a protector of 'women'?

Honestly, when their mission statement is hardly readable, so muddled and unfocused, just what do they hope to accomplish? I mean other than to get paid while gaining 'cred' on the Left, and hopefully a cushy University job or better yet, a job in the Biden Administration.

I wonder how they define 'realizing justice'? Is justice realized when one of these staff members lands a job with Biden, Inc. or Williams College?

Jupiter said...

That staff of 35 must include at least one biologist.

hawkeyedjb said...

So we're going to renew the Violence Against People Act?

MartyH said...

Trans Genders and their allies began stealing the word “woman” when they differentiated between cis and trans. Now they’ve shoved biological women aside with terms like “birthing person”. A trans woman is a full woman; a biological woman is a person with a cervix. They’ve completed the theft; the Professor has noticed and is spreading the alarm.

mikee said...

Etiolation of speech? More like ramification. The attempted limitation of words available to be used isn't so much a reaching out towards light, it is more like a branching off into stubby useless dead ends of speech. I use Humpty Dumpty as my language guru.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'

AlbertAnonymous said...

Post-Covid there would appear to be “no such thing” as a person’s “private health information.”

It used to be all the rage on the left. Employers could never ask about it. Lots of protection of the employee. But then with Covid the left flipped and it became “private companies can do why they want - if they want you to be vaxxed they can demand it - and demand to see your “papers” (i.e., your vax card) on penalty of termination.

Now, maybe they’re gonna flip back. Because, imagine an employer asking about your abortion, or any of the left’s other newfound (or “re-found”?) privacy rights …

farmgirl said...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yKhAh_qfO64

Another point of view…

dbp said...

Etiolation has its place and that place is mostly occupied by endives. When this plant, of which chicory is a member, has access to light, the leaves become very bitter. Even this has its purpose, as a coffee substitute. An endive salad is a delight! Always choose the palest endives at the grocery store, even though the slightly greener ones are more attractive.

Language allows for thought and to the extent that we torture language and deform it into a barely recognizable form, we weaken its ability to help us see the world as it is.

I think this is on purpose. This is below the 9th circle of hell. Betrayers at least know the difference between good and evil. The deformers of language seek to make it impossible to even recognize those concepts.

gahrie said...

Do splooge stooges count as people who have reproductive rights?

gahrie said...

Do splooge stooges count as people who have reproductive rights?

Michael K said...

Blogger Leland said...

They are not interested in speech. They will carry out the promise from 2020 and move the protests into the neighborhoods. If not at a Justice’s home then one that may be considered in the future>


The Democrat Party has given up on logic and persuasion. What's left is force and threats. That worked pretty well for the "Socialist Workers' Party" in the 1930s.

RigelDog said...

"Trans Genders and their allies began stealing the word “woman” when they differentiated between cis and trans. Now they’ve shoved biological women aside with terms like “birthing person”. A trans woman is a full woman; a biological woman is a person with a cervix. "

Yup. My tolerance was exhausted when some of the enlightened began to call vaginas "front holes."

Now we don't want anyone to feel excluded so I thought, where can we start? Eureka--- everyone DOES have an ass!

Ergo, here is my proposed nomenclature :

Vulva= Front Ass
Clitoris/Penis= Sensory Protuberance
Urethra= Front Hole
Vagina= Middle Hole
Anus= Back Hole
Gluteus Maximus= Back Ass

gahrie said...

Proposed new definition of woman: An adult American citizen not required to register for the draft?

Mark said...

The only ones who have raised the notion of prosecuting women seeking or obtaining an abortion is the pro-abortion crowd. The same folks who prey on women, who take women's money, who presume to speak for women rather than letting women speak for themselves, and who won't even allow women to speak for themselves in these court cases.

Clyde said...

There are two types of people: Those who need pap smears (women) and those who need prostate exams (men). It's as simple as that.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Men are people.

Right?

Bunkypotatohead said...

It was a short leap from women athletes getting clobbered by men to women becoming an unmentionable.
Suck it, ladies. No special rights for you.

Chris Lopes said...

"Trans Genders and their allies began stealing the word “woman” when they differentiated between cis and trans. Now they’ve shoved biological women aside with terms like “birthing person”. A trans woman is a full woman; a biological woman is a person with a cervix. "

It's almost as if hard line feminists (TERFs) like J K Rowling have a point.

Eternity Matters said...

They are too cowardly to say "women," but that's no surprise. They use deadly euphemisms like "reproductive health," when 100% of abortions kill human beings who have already been reproduced. If they hadn't been, there would be nothing to kill.