• Latest
  • All
“Breastfeeding” too “heteronormative” in Newspeak

“Breastfeeding” too “heteronormative” in Newspeak

February 18, 2021
Canada: British Columbia first province to offer free contraception

Canada: British Columbia first province to offer free contraception

March 29, 2023
Jordan Peterson praises Hungarian family policy in face of demographic winter

Jordan Peterson praises Hungarian family policy in face of demographic winter

March 28, 2023
Portugal again in the streets: Defending life, fighting euthanasia

Portugal again in the streets: Defending life, fighting euthanasia

March 28, 2023
Children park

Italy’s center-right parties say “No” to EU certificate of filiation

March 27, 2023
people-street-city, people, street, city

How is the population policy in Europe? Seriously bad.

March 27, 2023
First plus-size and “transgender” models at Victoria’s Secret

First plus-size and “transgender” models at Victoria’s Secret

March 25, 2023
Italy: All children have the same rights and are entitled to a mother and father

Italy: All children have the same rights and are entitled to a mother and father

March 24, 2023
U.S. states and pro-life and pro-abortion legislation

U.S. states and pro-life and pro-abortion legislation

March 24, 2023
No evidence to support trans treatment for minors

No evidence to support trans treatment for minors

March 23, 2023
EU silent on the worrying rise of anti-Christian acts, vandalism throughout Europe

EU silent on the worrying rise of anti-Christian acts, vandalism throughout Europe

March 23, 2023
  • About iFamNews
  • Contact

Navigation Button Subscribe

  • Subscribe
March 29, 2023
  • Login
  • Register
No Result
View All Result
  • English
    • Italiano
    • Español
    • Français
    • Deutsch
    • Polski
    • српски
    • Русский

Navigation Button Donate

  • Donate
International Family News Network (IFN)
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • Life
  • Family
  • Culture
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • Science
  • Shows
  • Petitions
  • Subscribe
  • Donate
International Family News Network (IFN)
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • Life
  • Family
  • Culture
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • Science
  • Shows
  • Petitions
  • Subscribe
  • Donate
No Result
View All Result
International Family News Network (IFN)
No Result
View All Result

“Breastfeeding” too “heteronormative” in Newspeak

Intelligence in danger of death in Australia and Britain.

Cristina Tamburini by Cristina Tamburini
February 18, 2021
in Breaking News, Family, Foreground, Science
807
Reading Time: 5 mins read
0
“Breastfeeding” too “heteronormative” in Newspeak

Image by mcmurryjulie from Pixabay

Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on TelegramShare on TwitterShare on WeChat

It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. […] Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. […] The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

The prophetic words from 1984 by George Orwell (1903-1950) seem increasingly to correspond to everyday life.

The operation began decades ago, in predictably peaceful and seemingly positive ways. Here in Italy, the trash collector became l’operatore ecologico (the “ecological operator”)—as if the dignity of such daily toil were amplified by a more prissy description. Or there’s the case of the handicapped being re-designated the “differently abled.” Yet already here something must have gone wrong; because, despite such verbal cleverness, in reality malformations and handicaps (even slight)—far from having gained in dignity and consideration—have become sufficient grounds to abort a fetus with such “defects,” even in the second trimester of pregnancy (not only in Italy, but also elsewhere). Such are regarded “lives not worth living” to such an extent that, even after birth, in some places, being “differently-abled” under certain circumstances can be grounds for terminating life. Supposedly it’s in the “best interest“—yet another euphemistic neologism—of the individual.

Newspeak in the university

The evolution of language, however, goes on apace. Some researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra last year published a gender-inclusive handbook, or rather a guide to “uplift female and gender minority students.” The use of the concept of “gender” as a social construct and the assimilation of the female condition to that of “gender minorities” are already perplexing—as if “gender minorities” really existed, in addition to the male and female sex—but particularly striking are the tips for the use of the parent-inclusive Newspeak. With the supposedly noble aim of easing the plight of those in school who are already looking after a child, the Australian university says it is “celebrating diversity among students”. [The handbook says, “While many students will identify as ‘mothers’ or ‘fathers,’ using these terms alone to describe parenthood excludes those who do not identify with gender-binaries.”]

Heterosexuality is traumatizing

According to a 2019 study done by researcher Lauren Dinour, Speaking Out on Breadfasting Therminology, quoted in the ANU handbook, “heterosexual and woman-focused lactation language [. . .] can misgender, isolate, and harm transmasculine parents and non-heteronormative families.” So, in place of such quintessentially “heterosexual” terms as “breastfeeding,” the handbook “therefore recommend[s]… the terms ‘breast/chest feeding’… rather than ‘breastfeeding’…’ to describe lactation.”

However, a problem remains for the neo-linguists, a subtle contradiction: namely, they seem to take for granted that only women have breasts. Perhaps a “transgender female-to-male” who has retained her mammary glands would feel more “welcomed” by hearing about “chests” instead of “breasts.” But isn’t it discriminatory also toward “male-to-female transgender” persons who have resorted to cosmetic surgery not to acknowledge their “breasts” as being just as real as those Mother Nature gives to those XX chromosomes?

Trampled by seahorses

It is also very wrong, we learn, to speak of “mother’s milk” when there are more “inclusive” expressions: “human milk” or “parent’s milk”. And, because they are “discriminatory,” terms such as “mother” and “father” should be abolished in favor of “gestational parent” or “birthing parent” and “nongestational parent” and “nonbirthing parent.”

Evidently there is still some reason, surely of a practical order, that requires one to distinguish between a “gestating parent” and a “parent” who does not gestate their child; but it is no longer part of polite and civilized vocabulary to take for granted that it is the “mother” who carries on the gestation of a child and gives birth to it. For example, there are “seahorse dads,” or “‘men’ who give birth”—and to refer to such as these as “mothers” would in be truly unforgivable indeed!

‘Breast milk’ also banned in UK hospitals

The Australian university’s pamphlet is but one example of the attempt at linguistic revolution underway today. In the two facilities run by Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, midwives are no longer allowed to use the terms “breastfeeding” and “breast milk.” ‘Maternity wards’ have become ‘peri-natal services’ and practitioners, having successfully removed the terms ‘mothers’ and ‘women’, are ‘proud to care for trans and non-binary people’. In fact, according to the health workers of those hospitals, the classical narrative of pregnancy, birth and nurturing of the newborn brings with it “biological essentialism and transphobia.”

Nominalism and nihilism: the denial of pain

The University was once the place where people learned that known truth involves correspondence with reality; as the Medievals put it, adaequatio rei et intellectus (“the intellect must be adequate to the reality known”). Epistemic nominalism—a presupposition now implicit in any “scientific” research—has, however, eliminated the relationship between thoughts/words and concrete data. In the debasement of bodies, which are mutilated and shaped according to the whim of minds that are increasingly too immature to have attained adequate self-understanding, the lying illusion is that altering the narrative can alter the facts. A man, or a woman, who is by condition—or conditioning—uncomfortable in relation to his or her own body can now adopt the illusion that the “celebration” (another significant Newspeak term) of his or her own “diversity” suppresses meaningful and inconvenient facts.

The names of snow

An urban legend has it that the Eskimos have a hundred different words to indicate snow (despite several studies to disprove this statement). Yet, in the myth there is still a deep meaning: man, the more he deals with a certain reality, continues to build observations, knowledge, and descriptions. And the more knowledge grows, the more specific and precise the language becomes: reality is indicated with ever greater accuracy.

Where, on the other hand, we find language systematically thinned out and impoverished, it is evident that the ultimate intention is not to describe or know better, but to hide something, to obscure what it uncomfortable or inconvenient. But to deny the uncomfortable doesn’t make the pain go away.

Tags: Foreground
Cristina Tamburini

Cristina Tamburini

Cristina Tamburini, graduated in Philosophy with a thesis in Philosophical Anthropology on contemporary utilitarianism, wife and mother of seven children, has never abandoned the study and the passion for philosophical anthropology, ethics and bioethics. She has translated into Italian several texts, including Action and Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action by Stephen L. Brock and Intention by G. Elizabeth M. Anscombe, extending her interests to theology (especially to eschatology and the Social Doctrine of the Church). He edited the blog Yes, they are all mine! to tell and explore the maternage and everyday life in a large family.

Discussion about this post

Popular News

  • Woke policies of Disney gravely damaging the fortunes of the entertainment giant

    Woke policies of Disney gravely damaging the fortunes of the entertainment giant

    32 shares 14.4k VIEWS
    Share 0 Tweet 32
  • Thanks, Keith

    32 shares 2k VIEWS
    Share 0 Tweet 32
  • Giorgia Meloni warns: “Women are the first victims of gender ideology”

    1 shares 1.8k VIEWS
    Share 1 Tweet 0
  • Dedication in and for the world without sacrificing femininity

    32 shares 1.4k VIEWS
    Share 0 Tweet 32
  • Catholic Churches in Latin America defaced by feminists on March 8

    32 shares 1.3k VIEWS
    Share 0 Tweet 32

Twitter iFamNewsEN

Tweets by @iFamNewsEN
IFN – International Family News Network

© 2022 IFN – International Family News - All Rights Reserved.

Quick Links

  • About iFamNews
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • Life
  • Family
  • Culture
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • Science
  • Shows
  • Petitions
  • Subscribe
  • Donate

  • en English
  • it Italiano
  • es Español
  • fr Français
  • de Deutsch
  • pl Polski
  • sr српски
  • ru Русский
  • Login
  • Sign Up

© 2022 IFN – International Family News - All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Subscribe