Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

How the word ‘woman’ became taboo

When I was a little girl, my mum told me that I shouldn’t use the word ‘woman’ – but rather ‘lady.’ ‘Woman’ was just too visceral to her, whereas a ‘lady’ might well be a doll. But by adolescence my shoplifted copy of The Female Eunuch and Helen Reddy bawling ‘I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman!’ had reinforced by belief that my mother was wrong. I never dreamt that the w-word would be taboo again.

How could the word woman become so contentious that the stating of the dictionary definition – ‘Adult Human Female’ – could become a matter for the police? It started with Posie Parker, a disillusioned member of the Labour party member: ‘I left in 2016 – I had been asking online Labour groups this question: “Does my 11-year-old daughter have the right to use a female-only changing room and not see an adult penis?” and was told I was raising a pervert who stared at genitals and a transphobe. No one agreed that my daughter had the right. On the back of silence from the leaders, I knew my time in Labour had ended.’ In 2018 she hired a £700 billboard for the duration of Labour conference in Liverpool stating this biological fact. A doctor (I wonder how he did in biology?) complained that this was ‘transphobic’ and the billboard company capitulated.

This was the start of the thought-policing of women who dared claim their name. In 2019 Thames Valley Police announced that those responsible for reportedly slapping a few Adult Human Female stickers around in Oxford could be charged with a public order offence and appealed for witnesses. It’s interesting Thames Valley Police are so keen to chase ‘Hate Speech’ on the grounds that (following the half-witted trans-mantra) ‘Words are literal violence’ when the same police force vetted a man known fondly as ‘The Rapist’ by his colleagues – and who would go on to murder Sarah Everard.

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