Please stop saying sex doesn’t matter.
I wrote this in response to letters in the Irish Times about the removal of the words “women” and “mother” from seven Acts of Irish legislation affecting women.
Here are some recent letters in the Irish Times about the Irish Parliament’s removal of the words Woman and Mother from legislation directly related to women as a sex.
Very few people seem to be aware that this erasure of the words we use to describe ourselves as female people is not just practiced by a few weirdos on social media, but is now common policy and practice in law, legislation, police training, the courts, schools, universities, charities and healthcare. Not just in Ireland by the way, not just in Spain, but everywhere in Europe, the UK, Canada and much of the rest of the world.
It is neither progressive nor feminist to replace the words Woman and Mother with words that refer to women by their body parts and bodily functions.
Calling women “menstruators”, “uterus havers”, “anyone with a cervix”, “people with vaginas”, “vulva owners” and “birthing bodies” (examples abound, I wrote about this here) is not just deeply insulting and reductive.
It is a direct threat to women’s rights, as it prevents us from having words to describe ourselves as a cohesive group, a group that faces entrenched, endemic discrimination, disadvantage and violence on the basis of our biological sex.
What happens to solidarity between women, if we are all just the owners of disparate anatomical characteristics?
High time this sly erasure of our language and our rights became common knowledge. Please take this seriously, and please spread the word.
Please note - it is no more divisive (or “exclusionary”) to talk about women’s rights than it is to talk about black rights.
Some groups have been and continue to be subjected to entrenched, endemic, discrimination and violence.
Those groups need rights and protections because they are NOT equal, and are not able to become equal without measures to overturn the structural subjugation and exploitation which keeps them down.
Most of the world’s poor are women.
Most of the world’s illiterate are women.
Most of those in low paid insecure and/low status jobs are women.
Most unpaid labour is performed by women.
Most sexual violence including rape is perpetrated by men (99% of perpetrators are male), on women.
Most victims of domestic abuse are women (and most perpetrators are male).
Most victims of sex trafficking are women (77%).
Most victims of child sexual abuse are girls (and 94% of perpetrators are male).
Millions of female foetuses are aborted every year because of their sex.
Millions of baby girls are murdered every year on account of their sex.
All the millions of victims of Female Genital Mutilation are girls.
All the millions of victims of child marriage are girls.
Only women and girls face criminalisation for exercising their reproductive rights.
Only women and girls face obstetric violence.
Women make up 51% of the population, but are massively under-represented in positions of power in every field, right across the globe - politics, law, media, science, business, medicine, sports, finance.
As Caroline Criado Perez reveals in Invisible Women, data and design are overwhelmingly male-centric - and this has powerful real life consequences on women’s lives.
Women’s rights have not been won.
It is not over.
It is not yet the time for #AllSexesMatter - any more than it is the time for #AllLivesMatter.
Structural inequality exists. It matters and it needs overturned.
None of us is free if one of us is chained.