Psst drop the “mothers”
Stonewall to Oxford: don’t refer to mothers as “she” if you want to score well.
Stonewall told Oxford University to stop referring to mothers as “she” in order to win a higher place on its controversial employer scheme, new documents have revealed.
…
The university had tried to keep its correspondence with the lobby group secret. However, it was ordered to release the documents after the information commissioner ruled that participation in the Workplace Equality Index allowed Stonewall to “exercise a significant degree of influence” over the policies of public organisations.
And in doing so, telling them to erase women from the language.
Oxford University was ranked 93rd in the 2019 Workplace Equality Index. A year later, it climbed to 76th place.
Big jump!
The documents show that in its 2020 feedback, Stonewall took issue with Oxford referring to mothers as “she” in its maternity policies, despite its advice to make the language gender neutral.
“There is good work on your policies, and it’s good to see clear commitments to trans staff,” the Stonewall assessor wrote. “The majority of your family policies are gender neutral which is good, but you use ‘she’ in the maternity policy and I recommend reviewing the glossary to expand the definition of ‘mother’ to ensure it is fully inclusive.”
What glossary would that be? The one that says men can be mothers?
Men can’t be mothers though. That’s one of the most basic things humans know – it’s female people who are mothers, female people exclusively.
In its 2019 feedback, Stonewall said: “Some great work here and clear thought-out responses to the questions. Please keep in mind that any examples in your training should cover sexual orientation and gender identity, there is a lot here which are examples of homophobia but not biphobia and/or transphobia.”
Probably because they’re not real.
Stonewall said: “We are absolutely not trying to eliminate the word ‘mother’. Every parent should be supported by their employers, and our advice simply highlights the importance of inclusive language in ensuring that HR policies, such as family and parental leave policies, are inclusive of all lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer staff.”
Blah blah blah every parent, but it’s women who face particular hardships and demands that stem from motherhood. And how exactly can maternal leave be “inclusive” of queer people? When nobody knows what “queer” even means?
Perhaps Stonewall can help me with this.
I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and was unable to get back to sleep. My mind was consumed with wondering what Pronoun People do in bed.
Before sleep, my partner and I had sex. That isn’t anything unusual, in fact, it is quite common for heterosexual and same-sex couples. I’ve even heard that some people include more than two in their sex.
But how, my mind wondered, do the Sex Denying Pronoun People do it? I just cannot figure out a way that anyone, solo, couple, or more, can have gender. Do they ever say things like “That was the best gender ever”, or “our gender life is boring, we need to try new forms of gender”, or even “PHWOAR!! Look at that. I could have gender that all night”.
Knowing I could never resolve the issue, I went back to thinking about time travel and the grandfather paradox and found that far easier to understand.
Giving birth is a demonstrably female process by any measure. I cannot in the furthest depths of my imagination, and my imagination has run pretty deep lemme tell ya, comprehend how someone would be quite alright with giving birth and all the pain and risk that entails but feel excluded by the use of the word “she” to describe her. Even transmasc nonbinary(!?) who don’t like to admit they are women, who take on pregnancy or even the act of sex as a female partner, baffle me.