Women's Issues

@Another Duck: The "don't be that gal" counter campaign also adresses only women, as if men would not make false allegations. That's extremely insulting to women. If one campaign can be critized for not being gender neutral so can the other. It's just a hateful response to shift the blame around and create fake balance instead of actual balance. That would have been a truly gender neutral campaign. That would be constructive criticism that helps more victims instead of a hateful campaign hurting victims. Formulating a gender neutral campaign would also solve the feeling insulted "issue" since everyone is adressed regardless of what group they belong too.

Gender neutral campaign would be the best, honestly.

Or one that insults both sides equally

Well, I'm personally in favor of the word "guy" becoming gender neutral, so I've got no problems here.

@Antiteilchen: Why is that addressed to me?

I use words like that as gender neutral in unspecified situations, as I do with he and she, but not if it's a directed statement. "If someone breaks the law, she's guilty of a crime," is a neutral use. "The person over there broke the law, so he's guilty of a crime," is masculine.

That definition I do use.

edited 16th Mar '14 2:15:15 PM by AnotherDuck

"Guys" is currently the accepted word to use for both groups of men and mixed gender groups; we just need to start using it to refer to all-female groups, and the rest should take care of itself.

edited 16th Mar '14 2:05:28 PM by RavenWilder

That's a case where you can use "they" instead.

I sometimes do that. Whether or not it's acceptable varies based on the people in question though.

I use they if the number of people is also unspecified. I just think it looks clumsy when specifically referring to one person.

They can be singular. You have to remember that english is insane

I don't, but considering that they are pretty average and normal guys for their age it's entirely possible that what they did is considered reasonable by many of their peers.

Even if we write them and everyone who thinks like them of as unreasonable, we've suddenly got a shit ton of unreasonable people who need to be taught to be reasonable.

A New Jersey Judge Rules That Women Can Keep Fathers Out Of The Delivery Room.

Harsh, but got to agree, medical privacy and whatnot.

Even if you're giving birth to the next Prince of England you shouldn't have to deal with people watching you given birth.

So what about home births?

Well, by definition, there's going to be at least one other person there.

I agree with that. One note is that the judging only applies to non-married couples, which I think is reasonable, considering building a family is kind of central to the concept of marriage. I would also assume that once the child is born, they have equal rights.

I kinda think the child should have the right to go through the process of being born without an annoying mother around.

agreed although I think pregnant women should still have final say.

/ha.

What about 'em?

edited 16th Mar '14 7:20:36 PM by joeyjojo

As someone who has been in labor and delivered a baby, men have no rights in the delivery room.

Labor is hard work. Not just physically though ripping yourself in half in order to bring life into the world isn't easy, but it's a huge emotional and mental toll. You need only those who are going to be a help in there. Most fathers, legally married or otherwise, are probably really great helps. But in the occasion for the men that aren't they need to be put out.

That being said, I am open to requiring live camera feeds or maybe a one way mirror where the man could still be involved and witness but not at the cost of discomfort to the mother.

Otherwise, I don't care if they have a piece of paper and a ring or not. The mother's health and safety is paramount in delivering a baby safely. And that needs to be done no questions asked.

As somebody who was once present and involved in a childbirth (note: was not the father), I'll second Gabrael. There are situations in life when politics and ego need to go right out the window in the face of pragmatic reality, and kids coming into this world is one of them.

If the father is being a nuisance, he needs to be absent. The woman doing the work is the one who ought to decide what "being a nuisance" means. Sure, if the dad wants to watch let him have a camera feed. But if he can't keep his shit together in the delivery room he can wait it out elsewhere. I know that sounds harsh - and it is - but sometimes life is that way.

People who've been there, your thoughts?

You sure it wasn't yours?

I work in women's health. While there is bucket loads of stuff that modern feminism pushes I vocally disagree with, a women's right to exclude family members when she doesn't want 'em is something I strongly believe in. It doesn't matter if she's there to push out a baby or a particularly nasty kidney stone, If she wants them gone GTFO.

Edit:

Pretty much.

edited 17th Mar '14 12:04:04 PM by joeyjojo

Shouldn't that be right for everyone, basically? If you are going to hospital, you should be able to clear the room from everyone apart from the staff who are supposed to be confidential.

Not disagreeing, just finding weird the specification of "women", rather than "people".

Then again, I might be reading it wrong and you are using "women" only because this is "Women's Issue" thread, so yeah.

Well, giving birth is a women's health matter, so it does rather make sense to talk about women specifically.

Unless we're getting into weird-fanfiction territory, of course.

Like I was recently involved in a pregnancy for which I was not the father, but had a very close relationship to the mother. Pregnancy is hard. Not just the act of labor, the entire pregnancy is one long, nine-month ordeal that left her breaking down and crying several times, especially once she got into her third trimester. She was a very athletic person for whom a flight of stairs was now an impossible ordeal. She was fired from her job because her hands bloated up to the point that she couldn't do manual tasks as quickly as other employees. Making matters worse, when she tried to get the father to sign off on the adoption paperwork, he refused to acknowledge that the child was even his in the first place, called her a variety of sexist epithets like slut and whore, and then changed his number and moved.

Having come from a household in which her father had done the same thing to her mom, and her two stepfathers had both been physically abusive to her and her sisters, as well as having been a victim of rape on multiple occasions and having had a close friend of hers rape her sister while she was sleeping, this was the point where she decided she needed to deal with this pregnancy in a safe space away from men - a decision she repeatedly violated on my behalf, because of the close relationship mentioned above, but I digress.

My point is, when she went into labor, she had one rule: no men in the delivery room. The presence of men have been such a negative impact on her life that their presence would have caused undue stress to an already incredibly hard ordeal. Since ending her pregnancy, she's come out of her safe space and been more open to giving men yet another chance, but during that time, she needed to feel safe more than anything.

edited 17th Mar '14 7:53:52 AM by TobiasDrake

@ Another Duck: Whoops. Only the last sentence was supposed to be adressed to you.

That is illegal here, I believe.

While I'm not 100% certain how the rules apply to retail jobs - her job was making bows at an art store - I'm pretty sure it's illegal too, but unfortunately, most things are legal if done to someone who can't afford a lawyer.