>Many women I know would be offended by hearing their
child referred to as being a "Down's kid" or "Marfan's child." How does it
sound if we say "a cancer woman," for example? <

In my years of meeting with health professionals I have always found it
offensive when women are referred to as 'breastfeeders' or 'bottlefeeders'.
It always reminds me of the term in use when I worked in San Francisco in
1980, when homosexual men would sometimes refer to heterosexual men or women
as 'breeders'.  The other phrase which drove me wild was 'late bookers' -- a
really pejorative term used for women who don't compliantly enter the
antenatal system at the first sign of pregnancy.  (It made me long to get
pregnant again and just phone the midwife at about 8 months to arrange a
home delivery without jumping through all the paperwork, urine samples, long
waits in clincis and hospitals and especially the continual threat of
ultrasounds and vaginal exams -- merely to earn the naughty label.)

Just the other day I told my chiropractor that I had done the exercises he
set for me daily at least 6 times a week.  He said 'You've been so
compliant!' and I now find it ten times harder to do the exercises because I
resent the labelling so much.

I guess you could say I am 'RTL' = resistant to labels (or even CRTL =
chronically resistant to labels) but maybe I am not alone.

Magda Sachs, CRTL
Breastfeeding Supporter, BfN, UK

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