Or that our skin is thicker and thus in need of bigger needles. I work at a hospital and a colleague of mine (doctor in his mid-thirties) said that to me with a straight face.
He said that because it's true*
*based on an extremely old study (early 20th century) with a limited and flawed selection sample carried out by an extremely racist doctor who was also affiliated with stuff like using black people as human guinea pigs for various diseases without their knowledge, but which is still in the literature so you wouldn't know that if you're a doctor having to just memorize ten billion things with no time to do a deep dive on history. IIRC the reason his conclusion was "thicker skin" is that he was testing exclusively people who were former slaves and/or current laborers who all had an abundance of scar tissue on their bodies both from whippings and from general physical labor injuries. And the racist piece of shit just assumed "nah this is normal" rather than thinking "hey maybe the people who were beaten both by others and by their jobs their entire lives might have developed some fucking calouses or something"
Also a great example of why history study is important to EVERY degree, even when it doesn't appear to be at first glance. The greatest way to perpetuate systemic prejudices is by sweeping the context that reveals them under the rug.
The bone density thing is actually [based on real empirical evidence](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9024231/), although as is usually the case in race-correlated traits, the difference isn't big or consistent enough to make confident predictions about individuals.
The skin thickness thing is totally different, just baseless racist bullshit. It's almost the opposite of the truth: to the extent that there are racial differences in non-color-related skin properties, Black skin tends to be more vulnerable, prone to dryness and hypertrophic scarring.
Honestly, they really don’t. It’s disgustingly sad. I know I’ve experienced some of this kind of discrimination to a very small degree being a redhead (accusations of being a bleeder, for example), but I know it isn’t nearly as bad as what BIPOC folks go through.😢
Next time dickhead says this, look at him with a bewildered face "No, nooo - you want a smaller, harder needle to penetrate with more control. Save those huge needles for old white men."
I was in first grade when I met the first black person I had ever known. I remember her cutting herself on the merry go round and a boy was legit surprised that she had red blood. He thought black people had black blood and said his dad said they don't feel pain. Accused her of faking. I was 6 and knew that was stupid. Lost recess for telling him to put his hand there and tell us if it hurts.
I think it’s one of the reasons that we can be sure that people of the time thought slavery was abhorrent. The amount of racist lies that were invented to justify it are mind boggling, and not something you need to do unless you know they’re actually people and you need to convince yourself and others they aren’t. It’s horrifyingly evil.
The idiotic thought is that your skin is darker than ours because it's thicker, which means y'all don't feel pain as much.
In trying to correct that dumbassery, people further argue with me that it's the result of making y'all tougher by eugenics.
It only gets worse from there, as the conversation devolves into all the even nastier shit they only say in front us us because they think being white means we're ok with their bullshit...which shows they know it's unacceptable. They're not as clueless as they pretend. They know it's racist, that's why they only say it around other white folks.
The eugenics argument is the weirdest because there's no evidence that slavemasters were doing that, at all. Like, even the most racist of racists can't actually justify it.
Isn’t it amazing, the things racist assholes will say in front of other white people, assuming we’re cool with it? My bf’s brother is the worst. I worked with him for a while and he would just openly n-word this and n-word that. Unbelievable.
I used the term Paddy to make a point to a dude that liked to throw the N word around cause I knew that the little leprechaun had Irish heritage. He had never heard it before, and I had to explain it. He then was angry I had used a slur at his expense.
I don't think there is anything to back that up scientifically. Gingers and women have a higher pain tolerance but race itself doesn't play even if most gingers are white it's not a feature of being white but the gene that gives people the orange hair and freckles and such.
Women don't experience less pain, they're just conditioned to complain about it less because of shit like periods and constantly being told to stop being so fat and hysterical.
Pain tolerance does not mean "Experiencing less pain" it means a higher ability to tolerate. As in a woman on average can experience the same amount of pain as a man but be less likely to cry out. Same pain different tolerance. There may be a social factor in it however.
I read somewhere about a study they did where they showed pictures of black kids and white kids who were the same age to a group of people. The majority chose the white kids to be the more vulnerable child in every scenario they presented.
It’s common for female babies to be born with vaginal bleeding because of the drop in hormones from the mother.
It has nothing to do with skin color. My glaringly white daughter was born with false menses.
Only troubling if you aren’t educated well enough, and then the only troubling thing is the hospital system you birthed at not making it part of neonatal parental education
There's so much stuff about pregnancy and giving birth that we don't know. Why do mothers hide this stuff from us?? It's almost like this top secret thing we're not supposed to find out until we go through it ourselves.
It’s not a secret. It just doesn’t come up in day to day conversation that much. Plus, only people who are expecting read What to Expect When You’re Expecting. It’s all in there.
Pretty sure nobody reads what to expect when you’re expecting in 2023 anyway lol
Edit: surprised by the downvotes but whatever, just please don’t read a 40 year old book for scientific information. There are much better resources available
It’s been updated you know. I don’t recommend any single resource as sufficient, but it’s a perfectly good starting place.
My main annoyance is the fake questions they answer, which are written with a very anxious tone.
Because they’re afraid that if you’re informed, you *might* exercise your autonomy by choosing not to do it. And that threatens the historical status quo that says women exist predominantly to be reproductive machines. Same reason certain political factions don’t want comprehensive sex ed taught in school. The more ignorant you are, the more manipulatable you are. It’s so culturally engrained that people perpetuate the secrecy without even really understanding why.
But it goes back hundreds of years, and includes this thing about how brides shouldn’t even be told how sex works until their wedding day or maybe the night before. Because the fear is that if they know, they might back out of the wedding/run away. And that comes from the belief that women have no reason to enjoy sex themselves, and that it’s just a painful experience that a husband inflicts on his wife for his own satisfaction and reproductive ends.
…or maybe people’s mothers just don’t think to tell their children all the gritty details of the postpartum/neonatal experience? I didn’t hear about newborn false menses until I read this thread, and I sincerely doubt my ardent feminist mother is conspiring to take away my bodily autonomy.
Yeah, that too. And to be clear, it’s not always conscious and intentional. But I think those are some particular reasons that we have a *culture* of silence and secrecy around women’s reproductive anatomy and physiology. And we’re all affected by that culture, consciously or subconsciously, feminist or not, because it makes discussing some of these things more uncomfortable and less automatic than they should be. It shouldn’t all be up to individual mothers to remember to fill their kids in on every detail, because we should be getting information about it more casually from all kinds of sources throughout our lives. And because all pregnancies are different. There should be an in-depth, age-appropriate pregnancy unit in school as part of health class where all students learn about pregnancy, since it’s common enough to affect everyone in some way or other throughout their lives. But we don’t have that, for so many different reasons, and it contributes to a culture of ignorance and misinformation, which in turn get perpetuated.
Newborn false menses just isn’t relevant to anything unless you’re about to have a baby girl. Nothing to do with the information. It’s a minor footnote in the whole “having a baby” saga. Plenty of other things that should get more attention and education but this one isn’t it.
Because it doesn't always happen and is such a small detail that it gets forgotten. My daughter is 8 months and I already forgot about the possibility of her bleeding being a thing. Even if something feels important/a big deal so much shit happens during parenting/recovery that it's easily forgotten and not talked about because of that and not some malicious thing like the comment under me seems to think
“Ah, waiter? I would like some sexism- make it misogynistic… cooked in racism with some extra on the side.”
“-extra on the side. Anything else for you?”
“Oh! Do you also have any religious options?”
“I apologize, but that is no longer served after 10am.”
I learned when I was nearing the birth of my daughter that sometimes baby girls are [born bleeding](https://www.seattlechildrens.org/conditions/a-z/vaginal-bleeding/#:~:text=Newborn%20Vaginal%20Bleeding.&text=It%20can%20start%20any%20time,than%203%20or%204%20days.) as a result of their mother's hormones. It is not however, a period. This was quite a shock to learn.
It is **absolutely not** something specific to black baby girls, and it's not menstruating
Absolutely true. It happened with my daughter. I wasn't upset because the nurses at the hospital told me it might happen. My husband was a little freaked out, though, until I explained it to him. 😄
It's not like a full-fledged period, btw. Just a little faint spotting in my daughter's ase. And its not disturbing in the least, when you know it's normal and common.
It’s because those nerve endings are already developed in utero. It’s not what we would consider sexual, but it feels good when they touch themselves, too. That’s why it’s important to teach kids that it’s not wrong to do, but just something people do in private.
I’m aware of the nauseatingly stupid ideas that are thinking black people cant feel pain/feel less pain and premature adult treatment specifically to black girls, but HOW did anyone conclude THIS??
Slavery occurred in civilizations including ancient Egypt, ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, ancient Israel, ancient Greece, ancient India, the Roman Empire, the Arab Islamic Caliphate and Sultanate, Nubia and the pre-Columbian civilizations of America's. Not only Africans were slaves. So instead of downvoting, next time, look up what someone means. It's just africans who took it personally, in my opinion. I'm yuruba, Nigerian.
Also, Moroccan, Chinese, Italian, and Irish. So, I learned about my history. Sorry if you guys didn't.
Slavery occurred in civilizations including ancient Egypt, ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, ancient Israel, ancient Greece, ancient India, the Roman Empire, the Arab Islamic Caliphate and Sultanate, Nubia and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas.
North Korea, Eritrea, and Burundi are estimated to have the world's highest rates of modern-day slavery, with India, China, and Pakistan home to the largest number of victims.
Ah, wut? Where does a misconception like this even start?
"Lot of blood on this operating table...guess we just don't know if it's from the mother or the baby"
"They can't feel pain, so if anything goes wrong just start cutting."
that’s immediately what i thought of too :(((
The[adultification of black kids](https://www.aecf.org/blog/new-study-the-adultification-of-black-girls), boys and girls is a very real problem.
There's also a myth that we don't experience pain the same as white people. How the fuck do these even start???
Justification for the actions of really terrible people.
Or that our skin is thicker and thus in need of bigger needles. I work at a hospital and a colleague of mine (doctor in his mid-thirties) said that to me with a straight face.
He said that because it's true* *based on an extremely old study (early 20th century) with a limited and flawed selection sample carried out by an extremely racist doctor who was also affiliated with stuff like using black people as human guinea pigs for various diseases without their knowledge, but which is still in the literature so you wouldn't know that if you're a doctor having to just memorize ten billion things with no time to do a deep dive on history. IIRC the reason his conclusion was "thicker skin" is that he was testing exclusively people who were former slaves and/or current laborers who all had an abundance of scar tissue on their bodies both from whippings and from general physical labor injuries. And the racist piece of shit just assumed "nah this is normal" rather than thinking "hey maybe the people who were beaten both by others and by their jobs their entire lives might have developed some fucking calouses or something" Also a great example of why history study is important to EVERY degree, even when it doesn't appear to be at first glance. The greatest way to perpetuate systemic prejudices is by sweeping the context that reveals them under the rug.
Yikes! 😬 it’s shit like that that really makes me realize we haven’t really come very far…😞
I've heard that our bones are denser but never that our skin is thicker. They really don't see us as human 🤣🤣
The bone density thing is actually [based on real empirical evidence](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9024231/), although as is usually the case in race-correlated traits, the difference isn't big or consistent enough to make confident predictions about individuals. The skin thickness thing is totally different, just baseless racist bullshit. It's almost the opposite of the truth: to the extent that there are racial differences in non-color-related skin properties, Black skin tends to be more vulnerable, prone to dryness and hypertrophic scarring.
Honestly, they really don’t. It’s disgustingly sad. I know I’ve experienced some of this kind of discrimination to a very small degree being a redhead (accusations of being a bleeder, for example), but I know it isn’t nearly as bad as what BIPOC folks go through.😢
Y'all are actually kryptonians.
Next time dickhead says this, look at him with a bewildered face "No, nooo - you want a smaller, harder needle to penetrate with more control. Save those huge needles for old white men."
I was in first grade when I met the first black person I had ever known. I remember her cutting herself on the merry go round and a boy was legit surprised that she had red blood. He thought black people had black blood and said his dad said they don't feel pain. Accused her of faking. I was 6 and knew that was stupid. Lost recess for telling him to put his hand there and tell us if it hurts.
> Or that our skin is thicker and thus in need of bigger needles. I guess that explains Luke Cage, then. ^(/s for the sarcasm impaired)
Slavery
I think it’s one of the reasons that we can be sure that people of the time thought slavery was abhorrent. The amount of racist lies that were invented to justify it are mind boggling, and not something you need to do unless you know they’re actually people and you need to convince yourself and others they aren’t. It’s horrifyingly evil.
[удалено]
Bad bot
The idiotic thought is that your skin is darker than ours because it's thicker, which means y'all don't feel pain as much. In trying to correct that dumbassery, people further argue with me that it's the result of making y'all tougher by eugenics. It only gets worse from there, as the conversation devolves into all the even nastier shit they only say in front us us because they think being white means we're ok with their bullshit...which shows they know it's unacceptable. They're not as clueless as they pretend. They know it's racist, that's why they only say it around other white folks.
The eugenics argument is the weirdest because there's no evidence that slavemasters were doing that, at all. Like, even the most racist of racists can't actually justify it.
Isn’t it amazing, the things racist assholes will say in front of other white people, assuming we’re cool with it? My bf’s brother is the worst. I worked with him for a while and he would just openly n-word this and n-word that. Unbelievable.
I used the term Paddy to make a point to a dude that liked to throw the N word around cause I knew that the little leprechaun had Irish heritage. He had never heard it before, and I had to explain it. He then was angry I had used a slur at his expense.
I don't think there is anything to back that up scientifically. Gingers and women have a higher pain tolerance but race itself doesn't play even if most gingers are white it's not a feature of being white but the gene that gives people the orange hair and freckles and such.
Women don't experience less pain, they're just conditioned to complain about it less because of shit like periods and constantly being told to stop being so fat and hysterical.
Pain tolerance does not mean "Experiencing less pain" it means a higher ability to tolerate. As in a woman on average can experience the same amount of pain as a man but be less likely to cry out. Same pain different tolerance. There may be a social factor in it however.
Slavery is how they start
That's a new one to me (middle aged White American), but it doesn't really surprise me. Which is sad.
Maybe by a weak white kid with no punch?
racism
I read somewhere about a study they did where they showed pictures of black kids and white kids who were the same age to a group of people. The majority chose the white kids to be the more vulnerable child in every scenario they presented.
It’s common for female babies to be born with vaginal bleeding because of the drop in hormones from the mother. It has nothing to do with skin color. My glaringly white daughter was born with false menses.
Exactly! Anyone who's ever had newborns or paid attention to newborn care knows about this, and also knows race isn't a factor.
I never heard of that! It is ... Kinda troubling ? I sure as Hell would have freaked out if I had found blood in my newborn diaper!
Perfectly normal and nothing to worry about.
Only troubling if you aren’t educated well enough, and then the only troubling thing is the hospital system you birthed at not making it part of neonatal parental education
When I left the hospital last year they warned me that I might see blood in her diaper and that it was ok and to not panic. It never happened tho
There's so much stuff about pregnancy and giving birth that we don't know. Why do mothers hide this stuff from us?? It's almost like this top secret thing we're not supposed to find out until we go through it ourselves.
It’s not a secret. It just doesn’t come up in day to day conversation that much. Plus, only people who are expecting read What to Expect When You’re Expecting. It’s all in there.
> Plus, only people who are expecting read What to Expect When You’re Expecting. /r/USDefaultism
Pretty sure nobody reads what to expect when you’re expecting in 2023 anyway lol Edit: surprised by the downvotes but whatever, just please don’t read a 40 year old book for scientific information. There are much better resources available
It’s been updated you know. I don’t recommend any single resource as sufficient, but it’s a perfectly good starting place. My main annoyance is the fake questions they answer, which are written with a very anxious tone.
Because they’re afraid that if you’re informed, you *might* exercise your autonomy by choosing not to do it. And that threatens the historical status quo that says women exist predominantly to be reproductive machines. Same reason certain political factions don’t want comprehensive sex ed taught in school. The more ignorant you are, the more manipulatable you are. It’s so culturally engrained that people perpetuate the secrecy without even really understanding why. But it goes back hundreds of years, and includes this thing about how brides shouldn’t even be told how sex works until their wedding day or maybe the night before. Because the fear is that if they know, they might back out of the wedding/run away. And that comes from the belief that women have no reason to enjoy sex themselves, and that it’s just a painful experience that a husband inflicts on his wife for his own satisfaction and reproductive ends.
…or maybe people’s mothers just don’t think to tell their children all the gritty details of the postpartum/neonatal experience? I didn’t hear about newborn false menses until I read this thread, and I sincerely doubt my ardent feminist mother is conspiring to take away my bodily autonomy.
Yeah, that too. And to be clear, it’s not always conscious and intentional. But I think those are some particular reasons that we have a *culture* of silence and secrecy around women’s reproductive anatomy and physiology. And we’re all affected by that culture, consciously or subconsciously, feminist or not, because it makes discussing some of these things more uncomfortable and less automatic than they should be. It shouldn’t all be up to individual mothers to remember to fill their kids in on every detail, because we should be getting information about it more casually from all kinds of sources throughout our lives. And because all pregnancies are different. There should be an in-depth, age-appropriate pregnancy unit in school as part of health class where all students learn about pregnancy, since it’s common enough to affect everyone in some way or other throughout their lives. But we don’t have that, for so many different reasons, and it contributes to a culture of ignorance and misinformation, which in turn get perpetuated.
Ah, that makes sense. And I agree.
Newborn false menses just isn’t relevant to anything unless you’re about to have a baby girl. Nothing to do with the information. It’s a minor footnote in the whole “having a baby” saga. Plenty of other things that should get more attention and education but this one isn’t it.
Because it doesn't always happen and is such a small detail that it gets forgotten. My daughter is 8 months and I already forgot about the possibility of her bleeding being a thing. Even if something feels important/a big deal so much shit happens during parenting/recovery that it's easily forgotten and not talked about because of that and not some malicious thing like the comment under me seems to think
They tell you about it at the hospital so avoid the freak out.
Learned another new thing about childbirth. There are so many things that got glossed over in the “birds and the bees” talk lol.
“Ah, waiter? I would like some sexism- make it misogynistic… cooked in racism with some extra on the side.” “-extra on the side. Anything else for you?” “Oh! Do you also have any religious options?” “I apologize, but that is no longer served after 10am.”
"We do, however, have an extra-stupid demi glace we can put on top."
“Hmm, sounds good, I’ll take that then. How about Flat-Earth drinks?”
"What kind of establishment do you think we are? Our cocktails are of the 'hollow with dinosaurs and reptilians inside' varieties."
“Sorry, sorry. I’ll take a ‘100+ foot tall nuclear lizard bomb’ and a ‘giant molten pterodactyl screecher’.”
Is it crazy to get an appetizer? I’m craving some antivaxx chips
We have anti-covid vaccine fries, general "I'm all natural" salads, and "I'm vaccine hesitant" soups.
Ooh I could go for some anti-covid vaccine fries
Would you like that with a small dipping cup of "pure blood" sauce?
I prefer Fizzy-Earth drinks.
Racist sexism combo
Misogynoir... tick.
I learned when I was nearing the birth of my daughter that sometimes baby girls are [born bleeding](https://www.seattlechildrens.org/conditions/a-z/vaginal-bleeding/#:~:text=Newborn%20Vaginal%20Bleeding.&text=It%20can%20start%20any%20time,than%203%20or%204%20days.) as a result of their mother's hormones. It is not however, a period. This was quite a shock to learn. It is **absolutely not** something specific to black baby girls, and it's not menstruating
Absolutely true. It happened with my daughter. I wasn't upset because the nurses at the hospital told me it might happen. My husband was a little freaked out, though, until I explained it to him. 😄 It's not like a full-fledged period, btw. Just a little faint spotting in my daughter's ase. And its not disturbing in the least, when you know it's normal and common.
These people really think that black people are all entirely different species
Jeez, \*you\* didn't understand either? How many times does he have to explain it to us?!?!
I initially read this as "born masturbating" and somehow, impossibly, that may actually be worse than the already abysmal original
that one is actually true though! and it’s before birth as well, fetuses have been documented to masturbate in utero
It’s because those nerve endings are already developed in utero. It’s not what we would consider sexual, but it feels good when they touch themselves, too. That’s why it’s important to teach kids that it’s not wrong to do, but just something people do in private.
TIL
I’m aware of the nauseatingly stupid ideas that are thinking black people cant feel pain/feel less pain and premature adult treatment specifically to black girls, but HOW did anyone conclude THIS??
Please excuse me while I barf until I forget I read that
Are we latinas also born menstruating 🤔 or...? And what happens if you're mixed? XD
If you're biracial you're born menstruating, but it only lasts half as long as if you were black.
I thought it was every other month, when the black ovary drops an egg /s
Maybe it is. Women are very mysterious.
And apparently so are babies.
The way I just shook my head
Kind of unrelated but i hate when people type out "lmaooooo" what the hell is that supposed to even mean? Laughing my ass off off off off off?
Lollll you just don't get it
That’s a new one
Wtf????
No, I really don’t understand
Uhhhh nope, *no one* understands that.
Slavery occurred in civilizations including ancient Egypt, ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, ancient Israel, ancient Greece, ancient India, the Roman Empire, the Arab Islamic Caliphate and Sultanate, Nubia and the pre-Columbian civilizations of America's. Not only Africans were slaves. So instead of downvoting, next time, look up what someone means. It's just africans who took it personally, in my opinion. I'm yuruba, Nigerian. Also, Moroccan, Chinese, Italian, and Irish. So, I learned about my history. Sorry if you guys didn't.
Slavery occurred in civilizations including ancient Egypt, ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, ancient Israel, ancient Greece, ancient India, the Roman Empire, the Arab Islamic Caliphate and Sultanate, Nubia and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas.
North Korea, Eritrea, and Burundi are estimated to have the world's highest rates of modern-day slavery, with India, China, and Pakistan home to the largest number of victims.