What struck me about the discussion of "birthing people" vs. "mothers" is how it's the inverse argument of "black lives matter" vs. "all lives matter." The narrower term was seen as the preferred one, that the exclusivity of it was important, because it emphasized the different experience of black lives among all lives. There was an assumption that the term "all lives matter" was a denial of the black experience, or at least, using that other term didn't properly recognize the challenges, struggles, heartaches and deaths that were in the black communities. Yes, other races also had stories of police abuse, but trying to include everyone under the umbrella of "all lives matter" was judged as inappropriate at best and a racist dog whistle at worst.
Yet in this instance, by eliminating the "narrow" female terminology, there is somehow *not* a denial of the distinctiveness of women's experiences? That, now, in this case, it is better to have the most expansive, all-inclusive language as possible, disregarding the history, heartaches, problems, and triumphs of *mothers* for thousands of years?
That seems to me to be a "tell" - this is manipulative politics, not a natural evolution of the language, organically changing to meet the widespread reality of pregnancy and birth.
I think it's really important to parse this debate out into separate components (all of which overlap, and often necessitate taking apparently paradoxical stances). For example, there are many good reasons to replace the culturally-conditioned gendered language we often use with gender-neutral language (for example, my mother used to use a household organization system she called the 'organised mum' - my husband and I use aspects of it, but now it's the 'organised family' system, because we share it out equally). On the one hand, the language changes to fit the changed reality, but often the language change can precede the change in practice (by consciously emphasising that the household is run by both of us, we remind ourselves that what might have been 'mom' jobs in our childhood homes are now shared). On the other, for my mother's situation, that description would have been erroneous, because it would have erased the fact that she did the vast majority of the work involved in running the household.
In part that's why I'm wary of the gender-neutral language when it comes to birthing and motherhood - as Magdalen expresses below (and Jenn sets out clearly with figures), this is a labour that is in the vast, vast majority undertaken by women. And, significantly, it is a labour that has been (and still often is) undervalued, under-resourced, and in which women's work is still often erased. And language plays a key part in that. I'm in the UK, and in my first pregnancy, and was shocked when I got my paperwork for my employer to see that it made reference to the 'week in which I would *be delivered*' (i.e. the [traditionally male] doctor would be doing the work).
I think the (historical and present) linguistic devaluation of womanhood/motherhood is key here. It's telling, for me, that this debate almost entirely occurs around the replacement of *women-specific* language (i.e. I have yet to see a similar movement to re-brand men's health services as 'people's health services', although the same arguments could be made in favour of that change). Women have spent the past century or so fighting for inclusion within 'male' terms, precisely because they are often seen to confer more authority, prestige, etc. (e.g. women requesting to be referred to as 'actors' rather than 'actresses', because the former is seen as a more serious occupation than the former). And so, I think we need to be really wary when we see women-specific language being erased for gender-neutral language, without a move of similar magnitude from male-specific to gender-neutral language. We ought to ask ourselves - is the desire underlying this entirely that of inclusivity, or is there also a lurking misogyny in men not wanting to be referred to using 'female' language (such as that of motherhood), while women are happier to adopt 'male' language?
Having said all that, I do think there are some advantages, for women, of the push to use more gender-neutral language, in that it often forces us (men and women) to recognise and articulate the specificity of women's labour and the realities of the biologically female body. I realised this during a work debate about putting closed-top trash cans in the bathrooms of student residences (for more hygienic disposal of sanitary products). Because the proposal had been made in gender-neutral terms, we were discussing the needs of 'students who menstruate' - thus making a more euphemistic discussion around the needs of 'female students' (without articulating more specifically the precise nature of those needs) impossible. I think the same could be said here about replacing 'maternity leave' with 'leave for the birthing parent' - on the one hand that erases the woman-specific language (which is not unproblematic, as I argue above), but on the other, it does emphasise that part of the necessity of that leave is to parent, but part of it is also to recover from the specific physical reality of giving birth.
I think it's difficult to separate my feelings about gender neutral language around birth from my overall beliefs about gender, because the primary reason I object to gender neutral language around pregnancy and birth is that it says something about the world which I believe to be wrong. I absolutely think that if a specific person wants to use gender neutral language around their experience of birth, that preference should be respected. But I don't believe that pregnancy and birth are inherently gender neutral experiences, or that there is nothing particularly feminine about them. To me, the complete replacement of gender specific terms with neutral ones signifies that we believe the experience IS gender neutral, and that a man giving birth is normative rather than an exception to a rule. It's okay to be an exception, but I also think it's okay to treat it like an exception.
I think this highlights a difference between my thoughts and Melling's: to her, it appears that the existence of trans and non-binary people giving birth show us that the experience is not so gendered after all. For me, I think the rule is still correct, but biology and the world are so wild and complicated that of course the rule will have some exceptions (who OF COURSE should always be treated with respect and compassion and dignity). And I also think that erasing the exceptionality of not identifying with your biological sex can be very dangerous; the exploding rates of adolescent females identifying as men, and in some cases making irreversible decisions which they later regret, are one testament to this.
This reminds me of a debate in the women’s hockey community recently. The National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) recently took “women” out of their name and rebranded as the Premier Hockey Federation. Not every player in the former NWHL identifies as a woman, so some people were celebrating this as a gesture of inclusivity, and the league itself was encouraging this perception. But given the heavily misogynistic nature of hockey as a sport, many people (including myself) were suspicious that this had more to do with the difficulties around marketing women’s hockey and the distaste that many male fans have for the women’s version of the game (the rules are slightly different, with the most noticeable change being that body checks and fighting are illegal in women’s hockey, and many male fans are vocal about violence being essential to the sport). By taking “women” out of the league name, they could try to appeal to people who don’t like “women’s hockey”. Given that one of the leaders of the former NWHL is involved with a sports group that believes athletes should compete based on biological sex rather than identified gender, it’s easy for me to believe this is more about marketing to men than transgender inclusion.
I don’t think people who are advocating for language like “birthing persons” or “people with periods” are usually trying to erase women—it’s more likely that they believe they’re clarifying the complicated nature of who gives birth and who menstruates. (And honestly, even though it’s super clunky, I’ve grown to enjoy the term “people with periods” as it reminds me that I won’t stop being a woman when I stop menstruating after menopause!) But I do think that, like with the NWHL, taking “women” out of a term can be as much a cynical ploy to get people to care about something they’ve been trained not to care about for misogynistic reason as it can be a gesture of inclusivity—and that doesn’t help anyone, not even trans people.
The enormous frustrating thing that we stop talking about when we won’t talk about “women” is that there is a large and coherent class of people whose bodies are ordered to produce large gametes, who have more or less functional mammary glands, who have uteruses and ovaries, who menstruate and conceive and labor and give birth, and that these people have a collective experience, and it is EXTREMELY USEFUL to have a collective noun that can refer to this class of person without endlessly parsing out exactly which aspect of the large-gametes-mammary-glands-lactation-ovulation-menstruation-uterus-having-laboring-birthing experience is under discussion.
There is already, in fact, a convenient word for this. That word is “woman.” It is a good and useful word. Refusing to use it ignores how in the vast, vast majority of cases “large-gametes-making, mammary-glands-having, lactating, ovulating, menstruating, uterus-having, laboring, birthing” go more or less together.
I am enthusiastically for girls and women (and men and boys) having the freedom to act in any way they want, whether that is in a conforming-to-gender-stereotypes way or not. I was a girl who only wanted to shop in the boys’ section, refused to wear makeup or remove any body hair, and was generally an argumentative loudmouth on two different male-dominated debate teams. I never ever felt “like a girl,” and went through a lot of bullying for it at school. It was quite the struggle for me to internalize that all of my loud-mouthery and general tomboyish-ness was *perfectly compatible* with what we are now calling being a large-gamete-making, mammary-glands-having, lactating, ovulating, menstruating, uterus-having, laboring, and birthing person. One of the best things anyone ever told me was that of course I felt like a girl and acted like a girl; I *was* a girl, and so however I felt or acted was how a girl felt and acted. (Thanks, mom.) A big part of all of that was learning to feel like I belonged in my large-gamete-making, mammary-glands-having, lactating, ovulating, menstruating, uterus-having, laboring, and birthing body.
The current changes to gender discourse feel like a boxing-in to me, like a narrowing, like the whole culture gathering to be those middle-school bullies to me all over again, telling me that I don’t belong in my body after all.
It all seems egregiously harmful. Anyone with any type of body can act or present in any way they choose and still belong in that type of body. Girls and women (and men and boys) who, like me, feel that the way they want to act or present is incompatible with their body need lots of love, encouragement, reassurance, and support so that they can feel safe and empowered to act or present in whatever way feels right. It’s flat out wrong to tell anyone that they way they want to look, be, think, or act is incompatible with the body that they have.
Bodies, furthermore, come in two basic types, one of which is the large-gamete-making, mammary-glands-having, lactating, ovulating, menstruating, uterus-having, laboring, and birthing type. And having a simple collective noun for that type of body is straightforwardly useful.
With regard to your second question, about how to approach calls to solidarity on topics that affect women most deeply, but aren’t limited to women, I think you're correct to note that a lot of parenting lives in this category. For example, I once brought my baby to an event at a university and was shocked to discover that they didn't have a single baby changing table on the entire campus. The library helpdesk staff who I approached to ask about the issue were somewhat abashed when they had to tell me that there simply wasn't such a thing to be had.
"Do you not have students who are parents?" I asked. (Let alone staff!)
"We, uh, we definitely do, we just ... maybe we should get on that. It wouldn't actually be that hard to install."
In my opinion, activism on a subject like this is generally unthreatened by the fact that many dads also change nappies, and that such a thing would generally be located in a "parents room" rather than a "mothers room." These complications do not seem to prevent people from understanding that this is a feminist issue.
I would like to think that the same is true for advocacy around birth -- that we can advocate just as easily for humane and respectful treatment of "labouring people" as we can of "labouring mothers." Indeed, as someone who wishes to be supportive of adoptive parents and same-sex couples who parent, I might note that the phrase "birthing parent" and "mother" are already not synonymous, and that singling out birth as a relevant factor instead of simply conflating it with "mother" can already be very clarifying, when we talk about the types of difficulties and sacrifices that arise specifically with pregnancy rather than merely with parenting. This does not seem to me to be an area where precise and/or inclusive language will threaten our ability to communicate the underlying issues.
This interview reminds me of a pro-abortion piece I once read called “Who Has Abortions?” It is perhaps the most pro-abortion piece I’ve ever agreed with - in it the activist is uncomfortable with the way women’s reproductive rights (as she sees them) have had their woman-ness erased. It included this quote: “Right now, though, it feels as if abortion language is becoming a bit like French, where one man in a group of no matter how many women means ‘elles’ becomes ‘ils.’ Birth/maternity/motherhood feel like they are going in the same direction - now that a small number of people using male pronouns are involved, the femininity should be erased. The tired feminist in me wants to quote Miss Cordelia from Anne’s House of Dreams - “isn’t that just like a man!”
Men-as-default/neutral rarely seems to provoke the same outrage. In sports journalism, it’s the World Cup and the Women’s World Cup, for example.
I have to admit, like Melling I am really *truly* perplexed here. A local hospital changed its maternity wing from the Mother Baby Center to the Family Birthing Center. I love it! In hetero couples it's common (thank goodness) for the father to accompany the mother. We know through a ton of research that a father who is engaged early on in the health and welfare of the child and views the birth as a family affair leads to a happy, healthier family. Bonus: the fact that it also includes trans men is also great!
I hoped your piece here would give me a perspective at why so many people on the right fear inclusion of trans men, but the examples you gave apply equally to trans men as women. Being rushed into a C-section, laboring under conditions built for a doctor's comfort, experiencing pain and not having that pain taken seriously - why would any of that be mitigated by taking a only-women-give-birth gendered approach?
An example more akin to your breast cancer example could be digging into implementation of certain outreach programs - baby boxes, for instance, or at-home after birth care, or studies of health and well being. I think it would be worth knowing through rigorous analysis if programs that use gender inclusive language fail to enroll women at adequate rates, or by oversampling trans men produce flawed results! I'd find that compelling perhaps, that more care is needed to ensure research is adequate, that outreach language needs to be optimized.
At the same time, I think it's truly shameful that when we talk about maternal health and mortality rates we have basically zero data about trans men's experience. I would bet, given the way trans people are generally horrifically treated by our society that their mortality rate is higher. Don't you want to know that too? And how would we collect the data to know the answer if gender inclusive data is never gathered?
Thank you Thank You Thank you for writing this! I read that Atlantic piece and I went from rolling my eyes to being really frustrated at Melling's insistence and her obliviousness. Being pregnant, giving birth, and nursing a baby are exclusively female experiences. And there people whose gender is male who will and do have these experiences. I bet, unlike the male breast cancer havers, that there far fewer than 1 pregnant man for every 100 pregnant women, yet the whole society is supposed to be doing backflips for these guys? Give me a break--if you want to respect your pronouns and your new gender, I am totally fine with that, but don't try to have it both ways. If gender is so malleable, hand in your man card for 9 months plus whatever time you are lactating.
This would be kind of funny if it weren't so irritating--typical male behavior to expect the world to mold itself around preventing a man from being uncomfortable, rather than him accepting the fact that his situation is an extreme edge case. Pregnancy and birth can be uncomfortable and embarrassing in lots of ways--having to be the one guy in yes, the MATERNITY ward, is part of it.
I am happy to honor a trans person's pronouns, identity, and name. I don't care if they use the ladies room. I treat them with the respect and dignity that I treat all others. But this kind of stuff is going to brew a huge backlash--I hope not against the trans community (the handful of trans people I have met in person are absolutely reasonable and good natured) but against "allies" who are acting as the language police. This is where resentment of "woke" and "CRT" comes from. Almost nobody really knows what those terms mean, but they do know that they are being considered ignorant or bigoted without quite understanding why, and that quite reasonably builds resentment.
Tl;dr: I worry that using the term “birthing person” in lieu of “mother” could further obscure the degree to which birth affects the rest of our mothering, causing even more poor care decisions.
Long version: I've been trying to figure out what exactly pains me the most about erasing "mother" in favor of "birthing person." I think it's that birth is supposed to be integrated with pregnancy, breastfeeding, postpartum bonding, and childrearing. The term "mother" implies all of these things and helps support their continuity. Whereas the term "birthing person" separates birth from the other experiences.
What do I mean by "supposed to be integrated"? What's wrong with separating one of these experiences from the others? Isn't it appropriate for birth professionals, who AFAIK are the main ones changing their language, to single out birth?
Our brain goes through immense changes during and as a result of pregnancy, labor, birth, breastfeeding, postpartum bonding, and early childrearing. This neurological maturation is known as matrescence. Matrescence is as significant of a neurological transformation as adolescence, but the changes are packed into a much shorter timeframe. It's an intense and radical transformation.
Each of those stages of matrescence evolved to help us do well in the stages to come, among other functions. Late pregnancy deepens our body intuition, which helps us coordinate our body and baby as they navigate labor together. Labor and birth, at least when they happen in a conducive setting without drugs, produce sky-high levels of oxytocin and endorphins, as well as DMT that rewires our brain according to those. That hormone cocktail that our bodies make during physiological birth evolved to instill in us lasting feelings of empowerment, competence, attentive connection, and compassion. Those newly attained virtues propel us through the intensive demands of caring for a newborn. Birth hormones also contribute to milk production. Breastfeeding, in turn, maintains elevated oxytocin levels to help both parties bond. Childrearing can, in theory, be done by anyone; the other parent, or anyone else who spends a lot of time doing infant care, does experience hormonal shifts that make them more nurturing. However, the person who has gone through the entire pregnancy-labor-birth-breastfeeding journey experiences the biggest hormonal shifts that attune them to notice, interpret, and care about the nonverbal signals of an infant. Additionally, the baby has spent nine months surrounded by that parent's heartbeat, voice, smell, and taste, and is attuned to relating to and being soothed by them in particular.
There is a word that has traditionally referred to that whole pregnancy-labor-birth-breastfeeding-childrearing experience: motherhood. As the child grows and is eventually weaned, their unique relationship with their mother becomes less unique, but not exactly the same as with any other person. And certainly from the mother's perspective, their unique history remains viscerally meaningful.
All of those biological experiences affect each other. How the mother is treated during one stage - e.g. with trauma, negative or positive imagery, compassionate listening, caring and respectful touch, etc. - reverberates into the outcomes of the other stages. It affects how the mother feels about herself and her mothering, especially if that experience was ingrained by the DMT that occurs in drug-free births. And it affects how she relates to and treats her baby.
So by “supposed to be integrated,” I mean that the stages inescapably affect each other in reality, and that we do best when we understand that, build our traditions around it, and accord it its proper weight in our care of and respect for mothers. We need to treat mothers in each of those stages with the utmost honor and support, because the ramifications for their entire mothering journey and their children’s childhoods are wide-reaching.
To give one example, recommending induction of labor doesn’t only come with risks and potential benefits for the birth itself; Pitocin, the drug most commonly used to induce labor, also raises the risk of postpartum depression by 36%. That can have a huge effect on the mother and baby for years to come. Most birth professionals are trained to consider pros and cons mainly within the timeframe of birth, and don’t concern themselves with much beyond the immediate outcome. Of course they wish the best for their patients in general, but motherhood as a whole is not their field of expertise. Nor do so-called mothering experts advise on birth choices or discuss birth trauma much. So, I worry that using the term “birthing person” in lieu of “mother” could further obscure the degree to which birth affects the rest of our mothering, causing even more poor care decisions.
On the other hand, to the extent that our patriarchal disrespect for mothers and the title of “mother” contributes to our institutionalized disrespect for birthing mothers, “birthing person” does start from a cleaner slate. “Mothers” are stereotyped as old, out-of-touch, deserving of condescension, unsexy, lacking agency, or, in a different light, interchangeable with fathers. “Birthing people” sounds active, powerful, passionate, immediate, full of agency, and like a biologically unique role. My experiences of birth have shined with all of those positive qualities. I do appreciate active language like “birth” and “birthing” rather than “delivery” and “being born.”
Back to the first hand though, I am so very tired of denigrating and discarding female-coded attributes in order to be granted respect in a masculine world. I’d prefer that we use those positive “birthing” connotations to infuse our concept of “mother” with the vitality that’s actually been there all along. Giving birth made me appreciate mothers for the first time in a lifetime of hearing mostly denigration of motherhood.
Of course, for trans people who don't want to situate their upcoming birth experience within the tradition of motherhood, I think birth professionals and everyone else around them should support them with whatever terms they prefer, just as with pronouns.
For me, genderfluid at the time of my first pregnancy, I had mixed feelings about lowering myself to the despised (in my upbringing and circles) status of "mother." But while I was pregnant I indulged the amusing novelty of being referred to as "mama" and "mother" by those supporting me. That first birth made me realize the energy and glory that motherhood carries, and now I am proud to be numbered in the ranks of mothers. Those first prenatal instances of being called a mother that spurred me to test out identifying as a mother are now cherished memories. I am glad that I was welcomed into the timeless community of mothers as a mother. I am glad that that identifier has applied to and supported me through my whole journey as a mother, not just one stage. And I'm glad it will continue to attest to my births, and all the rest, for my whole life ahead of me.
As I read the earlier comments, I kept thinking about the huge racial disparity in infant and maternal mortality, between often varying according to the race of the attending physicians. If there are similar bad outcomes for other groups having babies, they should also get attention. My concern is that the racial disparity will get buried under vague terminology. Ivan Illich talks about how "keywords" take discussions from the specific, concrete people and their specific, concrete situations into an abstract term that disguises what actually happens. If we say, for example, African-American persons -- somehow the individual women sort of fade into the background. Isn't this the point of intersectionality? Pretending that one group isn't a minority group in the society or in the situation is just that -- pretending. Covering it up to make everything look nicer. And I think that applies to a person who has a female body and identifies as a man. It's a minority situation that deserves attention, not to be hidden under a vague abstraction.
The power we give individuals to define what words mean continues to surprise and confuse me. It doesn’t matter what word(s) you choose. Birth is not gender neutral. In a maternity ward, a genetic female is giving birth to an genetic male or female. Chromosomes matter in that situation. Medicine and physical health center on the physical realities of the body- Not the social/ individual constructs of words/ definitions.
One of the things I've noticed in discussions of this issue is that we don't really have language that lets us talk easily about gender and biological sex as distinct from each other. Until a few years ago, the assumption was that the whole package went together: if you had a female body, you must be a "woman," and if you had a male body, you were a "man." This worked for most people, but was obviously deeply problematic for those who didn't fit the expected pattern.
Now, though, the pendulum seems to have swung the other way, so that we end up making statements like the one you used above: "Not everyone who gives birth is a woman." From the standpoint of gender identity, that's true. From the standpoint of biological sex, though, it obviously isn't: it is not possible to give birth without possessing female sex organs. It would be helpful if we had language that let us talk about female bodies without also appearing to be talking about female identity, but we really don't.
The problem with not being able to make those distinctions easily is that issues--sometimes very important issues--get muddied by the emotions that inevitably surround something as subjective as gender identity. (When I say "subjective," I'm not trying to dismiss or trivialize in any way the importance of gender identity; I'm just saying that it's an internal thing that can't be objectively determined by someone else.) But in the rush to create a fair world for people of all gender identities, we need to be careful not to dismiss or trivialize the role that physical, biological sex plays in many people's lives--especially in the lives of women who are biologically female.
When we privilege gender identity over biological identity, instead of viewing them as equally important and deserving of attention, we run the risk of ignoring issues that those who are biologically female still have to contend with--issues of physical health, safety, and the ability to participate on a fair footing in areas where physique matters.
This also feels like another data point for the discussion on whose pain matters. This change in language is a huge adjustment for an entire sector of healthcare for the benefit of a small number of people. As someone who has dealt with infertility and pregnancy loss, I have not seen a similar push to consider how this same sector of healthcare could better serve women dealing with those issues (which is a much larger population than the number of transmen giving birth).
About solidarity with other women as women...all kinds of women's circles and caucuses...yet the biggest shift was in my attitude toward women at blacksmithing conferences. (I was an artist-blacksmith at the time.) These multi-day gatherings were demonstrations of techniques, plus exhibits of work, and lots of time to just talk with other smiths. Most of the smiths were men, and nearly all the women were wives of smiths.
There were some workshops for the wives in other crafts. As one of the few women smiths, first I tried interesting other women smiths in meeting to support each other. I only met one woman interested in this. I ignored the wives as irrelevant. (I cringe now, writing that.)
The shift came when my own blacksmithing process became inseparable from the spiritual and political life I was developing. I vowed to be a true friend to the creator in every woman. Division and hierarchy and male-identification shifted to a solidarity with the creator I knew was there in every woman, who shared with me significant barriers -- internal and external -- in valuing and developing that creator in us.
Perhaps the creator in a woman was finding expression; perhaps it was hidden. I knew it was there, respected it, and vowed to encourage it.
So any creative act became equal to me -- making a big sculpture didn't trump cooking dinner or knitting or "feminine" crafts I had looked down on. (I wasn't good at them either, except for baking. I could make superb pie crust and bread and cakes from scratch.)
The "little wife" had vanished, replaced by "the creative woman."
I wasn't thinking of "the creator" in Christian terms, by the way. At the time I had the concept of a unifying process -- basically Whitehead -- but I was far away from Christianity (or so I thought!) Perhaps shedding a little arrogance and ambition was a step toward Christianity that I didn't see at the time. All I knew was the change in myself, and the way I saw other women, was good.
What struck me about the discussion of "birthing people" vs. "mothers" is how it's the inverse argument of "black lives matter" vs. "all lives matter." The narrower term was seen as the preferred one, that the exclusivity of it was important, because it emphasized the different experience of black lives among all lives. There was an assumption that the term "all lives matter" was a denial of the black experience, or at least, using that other term didn't properly recognize the challenges, struggles, heartaches and deaths that were in the black communities. Yes, other races also had stories of police abuse, but trying to include everyone under the umbrella of "all lives matter" was judged as inappropriate at best and a racist dog whistle at worst.
Yet in this instance, by eliminating the "narrow" female terminology, there is somehow *not* a denial of the distinctiveness of women's experiences? That, now, in this case, it is better to have the most expansive, all-inclusive language as possible, disregarding the history, heartaches, problems, and triumphs of *mothers* for thousands of years?
That seems to me to be a "tell" - this is manipulative politics, not a natural evolution of the language, organically changing to meet the widespread reality of pregnancy and birth.
I think it's really important to parse this debate out into separate components (all of which overlap, and often necessitate taking apparently paradoxical stances). For example, there are many good reasons to replace the culturally-conditioned gendered language we often use with gender-neutral language (for example, my mother used to use a household organization system she called the 'organised mum' - my husband and I use aspects of it, but now it's the 'organised family' system, because we share it out equally). On the one hand, the language changes to fit the changed reality, but often the language change can precede the change in practice (by consciously emphasising that the household is run by both of us, we remind ourselves that what might have been 'mom' jobs in our childhood homes are now shared). On the other, for my mother's situation, that description would have been erroneous, because it would have erased the fact that she did the vast majority of the work involved in running the household.
In part that's why I'm wary of the gender-neutral language when it comes to birthing and motherhood - as Magdalen expresses below (and Jenn sets out clearly with figures), this is a labour that is in the vast, vast majority undertaken by women. And, significantly, it is a labour that has been (and still often is) undervalued, under-resourced, and in which women's work is still often erased. And language plays a key part in that. I'm in the UK, and in my first pregnancy, and was shocked when I got my paperwork for my employer to see that it made reference to the 'week in which I would *be delivered*' (i.e. the [traditionally male] doctor would be doing the work).
I think the (historical and present) linguistic devaluation of womanhood/motherhood is key here. It's telling, for me, that this debate almost entirely occurs around the replacement of *women-specific* language (i.e. I have yet to see a similar movement to re-brand men's health services as 'people's health services', although the same arguments could be made in favour of that change). Women have spent the past century or so fighting for inclusion within 'male' terms, precisely because they are often seen to confer more authority, prestige, etc. (e.g. women requesting to be referred to as 'actors' rather than 'actresses', because the former is seen as a more serious occupation than the former). And so, I think we need to be really wary when we see women-specific language being erased for gender-neutral language, without a move of similar magnitude from male-specific to gender-neutral language. We ought to ask ourselves - is the desire underlying this entirely that of inclusivity, or is there also a lurking misogyny in men not wanting to be referred to using 'female' language (such as that of motherhood), while women are happier to adopt 'male' language?
Having said all that, I do think there are some advantages, for women, of the push to use more gender-neutral language, in that it often forces us (men and women) to recognise and articulate the specificity of women's labour and the realities of the biologically female body. I realised this during a work debate about putting closed-top trash cans in the bathrooms of student residences (for more hygienic disposal of sanitary products). Because the proposal had been made in gender-neutral terms, we were discussing the needs of 'students who menstruate' - thus making a more euphemistic discussion around the needs of 'female students' (without articulating more specifically the precise nature of those needs) impossible. I think the same could be said here about replacing 'maternity leave' with 'leave for the birthing parent' - on the one hand that erases the woman-specific language (which is not unproblematic, as I argue above), but on the other, it does emphasise that part of the necessity of that leave is to parent, but part of it is also to recover from the specific physical reality of giving birth.
I think it's difficult to separate my feelings about gender neutral language around birth from my overall beliefs about gender, because the primary reason I object to gender neutral language around pregnancy and birth is that it says something about the world which I believe to be wrong. I absolutely think that if a specific person wants to use gender neutral language around their experience of birth, that preference should be respected. But I don't believe that pregnancy and birth are inherently gender neutral experiences, or that there is nothing particularly feminine about them. To me, the complete replacement of gender specific terms with neutral ones signifies that we believe the experience IS gender neutral, and that a man giving birth is normative rather than an exception to a rule. It's okay to be an exception, but I also think it's okay to treat it like an exception.
I think this highlights a difference between my thoughts and Melling's: to her, it appears that the existence of trans and non-binary people giving birth show us that the experience is not so gendered after all. For me, I think the rule is still correct, but biology and the world are so wild and complicated that of course the rule will have some exceptions (who OF COURSE should always be treated with respect and compassion and dignity). And I also think that erasing the exceptionality of not identifying with your biological sex can be very dangerous; the exploding rates of adolescent females identifying as men, and in some cases making irreversible decisions which they later regret, are one testament to this.
This reminds me of a debate in the women’s hockey community recently. The National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) recently took “women” out of their name and rebranded as the Premier Hockey Federation. Not every player in the former NWHL identifies as a woman, so some people were celebrating this as a gesture of inclusivity, and the league itself was encouraging this perception. But given the heavily misogynistic nature of hockey as a sport, many people (including myself) were suspicious that this had more to do with the difficulties around marketing women’s hockey and the distaste that many male fans have for the women’s version of the game (the rules are slightly different, with the most noticeable change being that body checks and fighting are illegal in women’s hockey, and many male fans are vocal about violence being essential to the sport). By taking “women” out of the league name, they could try to appeal to people who don’t like “women’s hockey”. Given that one of the leaders of the former NWHL is involved with a sports group that believes athletes should compete based on biological sex rather than identified gender, it’s easy for me to believe this is more about marketing to men than transgender inclusion.
I don’t think people who are advocating for language like “birthing persons” or “people with periods” are usually trying to erase women—it’s more likely that they believe they’re clarifying the complicated nature of who gives birth and who menstruates. (And honestly, even though it’s super clunky, I’ve grown to enjoy the term “people with periods” as it reminds me that I won’t stop being a woman when I stop menstruating after menopause!) But I do think that, like with the NWHL, taking “women” out of a term can be as much a cynical ploy to get people to care about something they’ve been trained not to care about for misogynistic reason as it can be a gesture of inclusivity—and that doesn’t help anyone, not even trans people.
The enormous frustrating thing that we stop talking about when we won’t talk about “women” is that there is a large and coherent class of people whose bodies are ordered to produce large gametes, who have more or less functional mammary glands, who have uteruses and ovaries, who menstruate and conceive and labor and give birth, and that these people have a collective experience, and it is EXTREMELY USEFUL to have a collective noun that can refer to this class of person without endlessly parsing out exactly which aspect of the large-gametes-mammary-glands-lactation-ovulation-menstruation-uterus-having-laboring-birthing experience is under discussion.
There is already, in fact, a convenient word for this. That word is “woman.” It is a good and useful word. Refusing to use it ignores how in the vast, vast majority of cases “large-gametes-making, mammary-glands-having, lactating, ovulating, menstruating, uterus-having, laboring, birthing” go more or less together.
I am enthusiastically for girls and women (and men and boys) having the freedom to act in any way they want, whether that is in a conforming-to-gender-stereotypes way or not. I was a girl who only wanted to shop in the boys’ section, refused to wear makeup or remove any body hair, and was generally an argumentative loudmouth on two different male-dominated debate teams. I never ever felt “like a girl,” and went through a lot of bullying for it at school. It was quite the struggle for me to internalize that all of my loud-mouthery and general tomboyish-ness was *perfectly compatible* with what we are now calling being a large-gamete-making, mammary-glands-having, lactating, ovulating, menstruating, uterus-having, laboring, and birthing person. One of the best things anyone ever told me was that of course I felt like a girl and acted like a girl; I *was* a girl, and so however I felt or acted was how a girl felt and acted. (Thanks, mom.) A big part of all of that was learning to feel like I belonged in my large-gamete-making, mammary-glands-having, lactating, ovulating, menstruating, uterus-having, laboring, and birthing body.
The current changes to gender discourse feel like a boxing-in to me, like a narrowing, like the whole culture gathering to be those middle-school bullies to me all over again, telling me that I don’t belong in my body after all.
It all seems egregiously harmful. Anyone with any type of body can act or present in any way they choose and still belong in that type of body. Girls and women (and men and boys) who, like me, feel that the way they want to act or present is incompatible with their body need lots of love, encouragement, reassurance, and support so that they can feel safe and empowered to act or present in whatever way feels right. It’s flat out wrong to tell anyone that they way they want to look, be, think, or act is incompatible with the body that they have.
Bodies, furthermore, come in two basic types, one of which is the large-gamete-making, mammary-glands-having, lactating, ovulating, menstruating, uterus-having, laboring, and birthing type. And having a simple collective noun for that type of body is straightforwardly useful.
With regard to your second question, about how to approach calls to solidarity on topics that affect women most deeply, but aren’t limited to women, I think you're correct to note that a lot of parenting lives in this category. For example, I once brought my baby to an event at a university and was shocked to discover that they didn't have a single baby changing table on the entire campus. The library helpdesk staff who I approached to ask about the issue were somewhat abashed when they had to tell me that there simply wasn't such a thing to be had.
"Do you not have students who are parents?" I asked. (Let alone staff!)
"We, uh, we definitely do, we just ... maybe we should get on that. It wouldn't actually be that hard to install."
In my opinion, activism on a subject like this is generally unthreatened by the fact that many dads also change nappies, and that such a thing would generally be located in a "parents room" rather than a "mothers room." These complications do not seem to prevent people from understanding that this is a feminist issue.
I would like to think that the same is true for advocacy around birth -- that we can advocate just as easily for humane and respectful treatment of "labouring people" as we can of "labouring mothers." Indeed, as someone who wishes to be supportive of adoptive parents and same-sex couples who parent, I might note that the phrase "birthing parent" and "mother" are already not synonymous, and that singling out birth as a relevant factor instead of simply conflating it with "mother" can already be very clarifying, when we talk about the types of difficulties and sacrifices that arise specifically with pregnancy rather than merely with parenting. This does not seem to me to be an area where precise and/or inclusive language will threaten our ability to communicate the underlying issues.
This interview reminds me of a pro-abortion piece I once read called “Who Has Abortions?” It is perhaps the most pro-abortion piece I’ve ever agreed with - in it the activist is uncomfortable with the way women’s reproductive rights (as she sees them) have had their woman-ness erased. It included this quote: “Right now, though, it feels as if abortion language is becoming a bit like French, where one man in a group of no matter how many women means ‘elles’ becomes ‘ils.’ Birth/maternity/motherhood feel like they are going in the same direction - now that a small number of people using male pronouns are involved, the femininity should be erased. The tired feminist in me wants to quote Miss Cordelia from Anne’s House of Dreams - “isn’t that just like a man!”
Men-as-default/neutral rarely seems to provoke the same outrage. In sports journalism, it’s the World Cup and the Women’s World Cup, for example.
I have to admit, like Melling I am really *truly* perplexed here. A local hospital changed its maternity wing from the Mother Baby Center to the Family Birthing Center. I love it! In hetero couples it's common (thank goodness) for the father to accompany the mother. We know through a ton of research that a father who is engaged early on in the health and welfare of the child and views the birth as a family affair leads to a happy, healthier family. Bonus: the fact that it also includes trans men is also great!
I hoped your piece here would give me a perspective at why so many people on the right fear inclusion of trans men, but the examples you gave apply equally to trans men as women. Being rushed into a C-section, laboring under conditions built for a doctor's comfort, experiencing pain and not having that pain taken seriously - why would any of that be mitigated by taking a only-women-give-birth gendered approach?
An example more akin to your breast cancer example could be digging into implementation of certain outreach programs - baby boxes, for instance, or at-home after birth care, or studies of health and well being. I think it would be worth knowing through rigorous analysis if programs that use gender inclusive language fail to enroll women at adequate rates, or by oversampling trans men produce flawed results! I'd find that compelling perhaps, that more care is needed to ensure research is adequate, that outreach language needs to be optimized.
At the same time, I think it's truly shameful that when we talk about maternal health and mortality rates we have basically zero data about trans men's experience. I would bet, given the way trans people are generally horrifically treated by our society that their mortality rate is higher. Don't you want to know that too? And how would we collect the data to know the answer if gender inclusive data is never gathered?
Thank you Thank You Thank you for writing this! I read that Atlantic piece and I went from rolling my eyes to being really frustrated at Melling's insistence and her obliviousness. Being pregnant, giving birth, and nursing a baby are exclusively female experiences. And there people whose gender is male who will and do have these experiences. I bet, unlike the male breast cancer havers, that there far fewer than 1 pregnant man for every 100 pregnant women, yet the whole society is supposed to be doing backflips for these guys? Give me a break--if you want to respect your pronouns and your new gender, I am totally fine with that, but don't try to have it both ways. If gender is so malleable, hand in your man card for 9 months plus whatever time you are lactating.
This would be kind of funny if it weren't so irritating--typical male behavior to expect the world to mold itself around preventing a man from being uncomfortable, rather than him accepting the fact that his situation is an extreme edge case. Pregnancy and birth can be uncomfortable and embarrassing in lots of ways--having to be the one guy in yes, the MATERNITY ward, is part of it.
I am happy to honor a trans person's pronouns, identity, and name. I don't care if they use the ladies room. I treat them with the respect and dignity that I treat all others. But this kind of stuff is going to brew a huge backlash--I hope not against the trans community (the handful of trans people I have met in person are absolutely reasonable and good natured) but against "allies" who are acting as the language police. This is where resentment of "woke" and "CRT" comes from. Almost nobody really knows what those terms mean, but they do know that they are being considered ignorant or bigoted without quite understanding why, and that quite reasonably builds resentment.
This Washington Post op ed seemed timely, as the broadening of pregnant women to “pregnant people” glosses over the ways women in particular are understudied in medicine (lack of disaggregated data, seeing half the population as too variable because of menstrual cycles, etc. The whole article only uses the word “women” once. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/21/far-too-many-pregnant-people-remain-high-risk-covid-19-it-didnt-have-be-this-way/
Tl;dr: I worry that using the term “birthing person” in lieu of “mother” could further obscure the degree to which birth affects the rest of our mothering, causing even more poor care decisions.
Long version: I've been trying to figure out what exactly pains me the most about erasing "mother" in favor of "birthing person." I think it's that birth is supposed to be integrated with pregnancy, breastfeeding, postpartum bonding, and childrearing. The term "mother" implies all of these things and helps support their continuity. Whereas the term "birthing person" separates birth from the other experiences.
What do I mean by "supposed to be integrated"? What's wrong with separating one of these experiences from the others? Isn't it appropriate for birth professionals, who AFAIK are the main ones changing their language, to single out birth?
Our brain goes through immense changes during and as a result of pregnancy, labor, birth, breastfeeding, postpartum bonding, and early childrearing. This neurological maturation is known as matrescence. Matrescence is as significant of a neurological transformation as adolescence, but the changes are packed into a much shorter timeframe. It's an intense and radical transformation.
Each of those stages of matrescence evolved to help us do well in the stages to come, among other functions. Late pregnancy deepens our body intuition, which helps us coordinate our body and baby as they navigate labor together. Labor and birth, at least when they happen in a conducive setting without drugs, produce sky-high levels of oxytocin and endorphins, as well as DMT that rewires our brain according to those. That hormone cocktail that our bodies make during physiological birth evolved to instill in us lasting feelings of empowerment, competence, attentive connection, and compassion. Those newly attained virtues propel us through the intensive demands of caring for a newborn. Birth hormones also contribute to milk production. Breastfeeding, in turn, maintains elevated oxytocin levels to help both parties bond. Childrearing can, in theory, be done by anyone; the other parent, or anyone else who spends a lot of time doing infant care, does experience hormonal shifts that make them more nurturing. However, the person who has gone through the entire pregnancy-labor-birth-breastfeeding journey experiences the biggest hormonal shifts that attune them to notice, interpret, and care about the nonverbal signals of an infant. Additionally, the baby has spent nine months surrounded by that parent's heartbeat, voice, smell, and taste, and is attuned to relating to and being soothed by them in particular.
There is a word that has traditionally referred to that whole pregnancy-labor-birth-breastfeeding-childrearing experience: motherhood. As the child grows and is eventually weaned, their unique relationship with their mother becomes less unique, but not exactly the same as with any other person. And certainly from the mother's perspective, their unique history remains viscerally meaningful.
All of those biological experiences affect each other. How the mother is treated during one stage - e.g. with trauma, negative or positive imagery, compassionate listening, caring and respectful touch, etc. - reverberates into the outcomes of the other stages. It affects how the mother feels about herself and her mothering, especially if that experience was ingrained by the DMT that occurs in drug-free births. And it affects how she relates to and treats her baby.
So by “supposed to be integrated,” I mean that the stages inescapably affect each other in reality, and that we do best when we understand that, build our traditions around it, and accord it its proper weight in our care of and respect for mothers. We need to treat mothers in each of those stages with the utmost honor and support, because the ramifications for their entire mothering journey and their children’s childhoods are wide-reaching.
To give one example, recommending induction of labor doesn’t only come with risks and potential benefits for the birth itself; Pitocin, the drug most commonly used to induce labor, also raises the risk of postpartum depression by 36%. That can have a huge effect on the mother and baby for years to come. Most birth professionals are trained to consider pros and cons mainly within the timeframe of birth, and don’t concern themselves with much beyond the immediate outcome. Of course they wish the best for their patients in general, but motherhood as a whole is not their field of expertise. Nor do so-called mothering experts advise on birth choices or discuss birth trauma much. So, I worry that using the term “birthing person” in lieu of “mother” could further obscure the degree to which birth affects the rest of our mothering, causing even more poor care decisions.
On the other hand, to the extent that our patriarchal disrespect for mothers and the title of “mother” contributes to our institutionalized disrespect for birthing mothers, “birthing person” does start from a cleaner slate. “Mothers” are stereotyped as old, out-of-touch, deserving of condescension, unsexy, lacking agency, or, in a different light, interchangeable with fathers. “Birthing people” sounds active, powerful, passionate, immediate, full of agency, and like a biologically unique role. My experiences of birth have shined with all of those positive qualities. I do appreciate active language like “birth” and “birthing” rather than “delivery” and “being born.”
Back to the first hand though, I am so very tired of denigrating and discarding female-coded attributes in order to be granted respect in a masculine world. I’d prefer that we use those positive “birthing” connotations to infuse our concept of “mother” with the vitality that’s actually been there all along. Giving birth made me appreciate mothers for the first time in a lifetime of hearing mostly denigration of motherhood.
Of course, for trans people who don't want to situate their upcoming birth experience within the tradition of motherhood, I think birth professionals and everyone else around them should support them with whatever terms they prefer, just as with pronouns.
For me, genderfluid at the time of my first pregnancy, I had mixed feelings about lowering myself to the despised (in my upbringing and circles) status of "mother." But while I was pregnant I indulged the amusing novelty of being referred to as "mama" and "mother" by those supporting me. That first birth made me realize the energy and glory that motherhood carries, and now I am proud to be numbered in the ranks of mothers. Those first prenatal instances of being called a mother that spurred me to test out identifying as a mother are now cherished memories. I am glad that I was welcomed into the timeless community of mothers as a mother. I am glad that that identifier has applied to and supported me through my whole journey as a mother, not just one stage. And I'm glad it will continue to attest to my births, and all the rest, for my whole life ahead of me.
As I read the earlier comments, I kept thinking about the huge racial disparity in infant and maternal mortality, between often varying according to the race of the attending physicians. If there are similar bad outcomes for other groups having babies, they should also get attention. My concern is that the racial disparity will get buried under vague terminology. Ivan Illich talks about how "keywords" take discussions from the specific, concrete people and their specific, concrete situations into an abstract term that disguises what actually happens. If we say, for example, African-American persons -- somehow the individual women sort of fade into the background. Isn't this the point of intersectionality? Pretending that one group isn't a minority group in the society or in the situation is just that -- pretending. Covering it up to make everything look nicer. And I think that applies to a person who has a female body and identifies as a man. It's a minority situation that deserves attention, not to be hidden under a vague abstraction.
The power we give individuals to define what words mean continues to surprise and confuse me. It doesn’t matter what word(s) you choose. Birth is not gender neutral. In a maternity ward, a genetic female is giving birth to an genetic male or female. Chromosomes matter in that situation. Medicine and physical health center on the physical realities of the body- Not the social/ individual constructs of words/ definitions.
One of the things I've noticed in discussions of this issue is that we don't really have language that lets us talk easily about gender and biological sex as distinct from each other. Until a few years ago, the assumption was that the whole package went together: if you had a female body, you must be a "woman," and if you had a male body, you were a "man." This worked for most people, but was obviously deeply problematic for those who didn't fit the expected pattern.
Now, though, the pendulum seems to have swung the other way, so that we end up making statements like the one you used above: "Not everyone who gives birth is a woman." From the standpoint of gender identity, that's true. From the standpoint of biological sex, though, it obviously isn't: it is not possible to give birth without possessing female sex organs. It would be helpful if we had language that let us talk about female bodies without also appearing to be talking about female identity, but we really don't.
The problem with not being able to make those distinctions easily is that issues--sometimes very important issues--get muddied by the emotions that inevitably surround something as subjective as gender identity. (When I say "subjective," I'm not trying to dismiss or trivialize in any way the importance of gender identity; I'm just saying that it's an internal thing that can't be objectively determined by someone else.) But in the rush to create a fair world for people of all gender identities, we need to be careful not to dismiss or trivialize the role that physical, biological sex plays in many people's lives--especially in the lives of women who are biologically female.
When we privilege gender identity over biological identity, instead of viewing them as equally important and deserving of attention, we run the risk of ignoring issues that those who are biologically female still have to contend with--issues of physical health, safety, and the ability to participate on a fair footing in areas where physique matters.
This also feels like another data point for the discussion on whose pain matters. This change in language is a huge adjustment for an entire sector of healthcare for the benefit of a small number of people. As someone who has dealt with infertility and pregnancy loss, I have not seen a similar push to consider how this same sector of healthcare could better serve women dealing with those issues (which is a much larger population than the number of transmen giving birth).
About solidarity with other women as women...all kinds of women's circles and caucuses...yet the biggest shift was in my attitude toward women at blacksmithing conferences. (I was an artist-blacksmith at the time.) These multi-day gatherings were demonstrations of techniques, plus exhibits of work, and lots of time to just talk with other smiths. Most of the smiths were men, and nearly all the women were wives of smiths.
There were some workshops for the wives in other crafts. As one of the few women smiths, first I tried interesting other women smiths in meeting to support each other. I only met one woman interested in this. I ignored the wives as irrelevant. (I cringe now, writing that.)
The shift came when my own blacksmithing process became inseparable from the spiritual and political life I was developing. I vowed to be a true friend to the creator in every woman. Division and hierarchy and male-identification shifted to a solidarity with the creator I knew was there in every woman, who shared with me significant barriers -- internal and external -- in valuing and developing that creator in us.
Perhaps the creator in a woman was finding expression; perhaps it was hidden. I knew it was there, respected it, and vowed to encourage it.
So any creative act became equal to me -- making a big sculpture didn't trump cooking dinner or knitting or "feminine" crafts I had looked down on. (I wasn't good at them either, except for baking. I could make superb pie crust and bread and cakes from scratch.)
The "little wife" had vanished, replaced by "the creative woman."
I wasn't thinking of "the creator" in Christian terms, by the way. At the time I had the concept of a unifying process -- basically Whitehead -- but I was far away from Christianity (or so I thought!) Perhaps shedding a little arrogance and ambition was a step toward Christianity that I didn't see at the time. All I knew was the change in myself, and the way I saw other women, was good.