Open Letter to Editor of The Lancet
On the recent cover referring to women as “bodies with vaginas”
Dear Richard,
In case you haven’t seen the outraged response by women on social media to the Lancet’s recent cover which referred to women as “bodies with vaginas”, and in case you haven’t grasped the reason for the outrage, I’m writing to make you aware of the offensive nature of such woman-erasing terminology.
Some points:-
1. Unless you are referring to female animals, talking about “bodies with vaginas” is confusing and unclear. Female whales have vaginas, as do cows, does, and ewes.
It’s hard to know from your cover if the article is talking about humans, or indeed whether it means cadavers or living bodies (“bodies” does carry the unfortunate ring of serial killer tv/literature).
A scientific journal needs to be clear - are you talking about humans?
If so, use the human words.
The word for a human with a vagina is *woman*.
The sex of a human with a vagina is *female*.
2. Women are not “bodies”. We are humans.
Humans are not just “bodies” with assembled body parts.
We are also minds, consciousness, memories, emotions, thoughts.
Women are whole human beings - we are just as human as men.
I note that the Lancet didn't refer to men as “bodies with penises” in the tweet posted on prostate cancer only 4 days earlier -
May I ask - why is that?
Why this discrepancy in the terminology used to refer to each of the two sexes?
Is there a link, do you think, between the sex which is referred to only in terms of body parts/bodily functions, and the group which the article says has historically faced neglect?
Do you think there may be a connection between the selective use of language in the Lancet article, and this historical, selective “neglect”?
3. Referring to the 51% of the population that faces entrenched, systemic discrimination and violence on account of their sex, in terms of their body parts and/or bodily functions, is not progressive or inclusive.
It is reductive and dehumanising.
In fact, as it is only women that you describe in such terms, it is very clearly sexist.
4. Your article says that “Historically, the anatomy and physiology of bodies with vaginas have been neglected.”
Yes. Because of SEXism. Because women and girls, the owners of those “bodies with vaginas”, face sex discrimination on account of being female.
You can hardly claim to be concerned about the neglect of female people by medicine if you won’t even name the sex that faces sex discrimination.
Do you honestly think you are helping to combat sex discrimination by referring to women using language so objectifying that even most pornographers would steer clear of it?
5. A scientific/medical journal that dare not speak the name of (just) one of the two sexes, so crucial to the understanding, research and practice of every aspect of medicine, has abandoned all pretence of adhering to the scientific method.
Unfortunately, it seems from this article that the Lancet has been captured ideologically by the gender identity lobby, which denies the reality and indeed the social consequences and political significance, for human beings, of biological sex.
What a terrible disappointment.
I do hope you will listen to women, issue a correction to the publication, and an apology to women for this offensive erasure.
Yours sincerely,
Bea Jaspert