Comment by const_cast
3 days ago
But words evolve, and we do actually change which words we use. We've been doing it since... forever. And, somehow, people still manage to act surprised when it happens. As if it's their first day on Earth.
There's a lot of terminology around just mental illness that we have decided to leave in the past. And, a lot of it is for good.
One benefit of changing our language is we get a second chance. We can be more specific, more fine-grained, or more accurate. For example, sanity check is vague. If it's a bound check, we might say bounds check. That's more accurate. If it's a consistency check, we might say consistency check.
We want our language, particularly in technical pieces, to be both inclusive and precise. What I mean is, we want it to include every thing it should, and nothing it shouldn't.
For example, in Medical literature you'll often see the term "pregnant person" or "pregnant people", or even "people who may be pregnant". At first glance, it seems stupid. Why not just say "women"? Women is imprecise. There's a variety of people who would not identify as a woman who may be pregnant. If they get, say, a form with that verbiage they might mark "no, I'm not a woman". But they SHOULD mark "yes, I am a pregnant person" or "yes, I am a person who may be pregnant". It doesn't even just include transgender individuals - it also includes people born intersex, or people born without a uterus who do identify as a woman. There's women who may be pregnant and women who may never be pregnant, just as there are people who do not identify as women who may be pregnant. The word "woman" is then imprecise, confusing, and includes people it shouldn't, as well as excluding people it should.
Yes, they evolve but only if wider society accepts it. And in this case, most people don't consider that it's reasonable to change the phrasing.
This way leads to people writing blog posts about firing workers they don't employ because they used gender non-neutral language in technical posts.
> And in this case, most people don't consider that it's reasonable to change the phrasing.
You're positing an opinion as statistical fact; the reality is that most people do not care.
I think wider society has accepted it. For these terms in medical literature, they're already in use and have been for decades now.
This isn’t medical literature. What will you do when someone writes how they want and won’t conform to your opinion?
1 reply →
"Pregnant woman" is more precise than "pregnant person" or "pregnant female“. Pregnant woman specifies the gender as well as implying the sex (female or intersex, since males lack a uterus), while "pregnant person" only implies sex and "pregnant female" specifies the sex but not the gender.
"Pregnant person" is the least specific, "pregnant woman" is the most specific.
It's less accurate for the reasons you listed: it includes gender, which isn't always accurate and is unnecessary.
The problem is that there are trans men who exist, who may be pregnant. If asked if they are a woman or a woman who may be pregnant, they would answer no, which is incorrect in the larger context.
Pregnant people is naturally a superset of pregnant women, so pregnant women WOULD be more precise, if the advice applied only to pregnant women, which it almost never does. So that means we should almost never use pregnant women, as it's inaccurate.
Specificity should not be sought in the face of inaccuracy. For example, "brick house" is more specific than "house". So if I said "I live in a brick house", that should be better right? No, because it's wrong - I live in a wood house.
Per my original comment: "we want it [terms] to include every thing it should, and nothing it shouldn't." Pregnant woman doesn't include everything it should.
> people born without a uterus who do identify as a woman
Those cannot get pregnant. What's the point here? It's obvious that the phrase "pregnant woman" does not imply all women are pregnant.
The point is as stated - "women" does not mean the same thing as "pregnant person" or "person who may be pregnant", which are both more precise terms. Both forwards and backwards.
Meaning yes, not every woman can get pregnant, but also not every pregnant person may identify as a woman. Suppose an intersex person born with a uterus who is pregnant but has lived their entire life as a man.