I cannot believe it!!

Ha haaaa! Never heard such rubbish!! Did he have to go on a course to learn his subject? Can he empathise? Nope! Would you find him understanding and approachable?nope! Then wth?!?

The Act referred to in the job description has been partly been implemented already. I have spotted sanitary supplies available free in schools, cafes, sports centres. Having only used toilets with a female sign I cannot speak to the products being available in those with a male sign. The ScotGov is involved as they created and approved the relevant law albeit probably due to public pressure. Of course the public will be funding the whole project.

Wonder if they've appointed a female prostate cancer counsellor?.....

Baggs

Re the "young people who menstruate" nonsense.... well, ScotGov has gone full woke so what do you expect?

The best rule about what words to us is the use the fewest possible, so on that score alone "girls" or "women" are far better than anything else

Quite. It's a non description really akin to saying " persons who forceably have sex with other persons who don't own a penis" !!!!? What I call a rapist.......

Paddyanne, regarding having a male gynacologist I will never have another one examine me. I had already told one other consultants have problems examining my cervix/uterus because of age related changes. He thought he was better and hurt me badly and carried on when I was screaming for him to stop.
Separately i have nothing against trans people but won't go along with people who menstruate or chest feeding instead of breast feeding. This needs nipping in the bud now. Men and women can get breast cancer and I've heard it medically described as such for men. So trans men who have a baby can legitimately breast feed.

His job description was logistics and PR - come on ladies he doesn’t need to menstruate to do that. Would there be the same outcry if the best candidate to do the same job for Prostate cancer was a woman?

Bet he was appointed by a man!

Coco51

Bet he was appointed by a man!

Oops a’Person with a penis’

Quite, Nanna.

My son who was President for a Uni worked his socks off to get free period products for all students and staff.
Took a while but he did it and was proud of his achievement.

Peaseblossom

Baggytrazzas seriously?! Maybe they should appoint a female as testicle officer.

What a lot of b.*lls!

Rene72

I just think this is another way of cancelling women. He mentioned ‘people who menstruate’…surely he means FEMALES, in other words girls or women. After all, only women menstruate. If I were a young teenager I’d be embarrassed to approach a man about starting my periods and which products to use and how to use a tampon. And why would he want this job? Is it the woke brigade at it again?

Erm.. if women are ’people who menstruate’ what are those of us long past menopause?

Period poverty masks the base issue. Why are there families that can't afford to buy even the cheapest own brand sanitary protection for their females? Because they're in poverty full stop! A poverty that shouldn't exist in the UK which is rich enough to support all its citizens if the will was there. I have no objection to period products being free in all those locations mentioned, but let's not kid ourselves it addresses those families' poverty by more than a smidgeon.

I wonder how my paternal grandma, living in poverty, managed. Rags and safety pins, probably, and rags that were washed out and re-used.

Just a thought. Wish I'd asked her.

I'm sure I've read about washable sanitary products recently.

One of my daughters introduced me to the "moon cup" in my early forties and I used one until my periods stopped. That's when I started carrying a small bottle of water in my bag, so that I could rinse out the moon cup should I need to empty it in public toilets that did not have a wash-basin right next to the toilet (as well as outside the cubicles for hand-washing).

Our grandparents and great grandparents managed without an awful lot that most of us would be loathe to forego. I no longer menstruate, but if I still did, I'd not find the prospect of using rags and safety pins while being at school or work a happy prospect.
Washable sanitary products are available but are expensive for the initial purchase. Moon cups may not be suitable for everyone, but especially young girls just starting their periods. Again there's an initial outlay to consider.

Just read the twitter expose quoted earlier found by mums net. Looks like this appointment was a stitch up if that is true.

Slightly off topic, but still relating to male gynaecologists, I read a horrifying account from a woman who had vaginal mesh inserted and was pretty much in agony most of the time because of that, as indeed others are who have had the same procedure .Some awfully unsympathetic responses from the male surgeon in question, from what I remember he suggested her problem was psychological rather than physical and even more shockingly when she stated intercourse was too painful to contemplate, he crassly responded, "well you could try anal" Whilst I don't doubt that there are some excellent male gynaecologists and one's personal experiences would always colour attitudes as to whether your treatment was positive or not. Nevertheless, I imagine many women, and certainly those from certain ethnic groups and more conservative cultures would want to see a woman.

I can't imagine every feeling a man, especially if he isn't a medic could be the appropriate person to understand the various overwhelming and pretty horrible aspects of the menopause. The fact that so many discussions relating to that very subject are here on this very site bears out the fact that sometimes you have to "live it to understand it" and that's exactly what a poster would be seeking, the advice and experiences of other women who may have been through or are experiencing her symptoms.

Baggs

I wonder how my paternal grandma, living in poverty, managed. Rags and safety pins, probably, and rags that were washed out and re-used.

Just a thought. Wish I'd asked her.

Yes, she would have used rags and washed them, Baggs. People with a bit more money paid someone else to wash them. It was quite normal then unless you were very well off. Some people without rags used moss. Difficult to imagine now.

there were male doctors for many years before women doctors - did anybody think that was wrong?
I generally feel that men are usually more sympathetic, i felt violated by 2 female nurses during my first smear and refused to have another. 20 years later a male Asian Dr persuaded to me have another as he understood we are not the size of the Mersey Tunnel !

Baggs

Parsley3

I expect that he has been appointed because he has the necessary project management skills. It has nothing to do with the SNP government this time apart from their policy to provide free sanitary products. In my young day, I would have welcomed those little baskets of tampons and towels that I see in toilets these days. It is a good thing.

Well said. And well done ScotGov for having that policy.

Makes you wonder how poorer people managed in the past though. Perhaps some girls just missed a lot of school.

Girls and women managed in the past, whether they were poor or well-off by knitting sanitary towels or sewing them of old sheets and other rags kept for mending and cleaning, and washing them or sending them to the washer-wife with the rest of the dirty linen.

Very few girls "just missed school" of that I can assure you. The Education officer would have been round to ask why and no decent girl or woman right up to about 1960 would have dreamed of telling a stranger that she had her period.

Since the end of rationing after the second World War, women have bought sanitary towels or tampons, as we all know and burned them or threw them in the bin after use.

I reached menopause 20 years ago or thereabouts and even then the price of sanitary towels and tampons was ridiculously high, making a considerable dent in a small income.

If you compare, as the Danish branch of Women's Lib did in the 1970s the price of sanitary products for women with the price of razor-blades and shaving foam for men, it was quite clear that it was easier financially speaking for men to look and feel clean than for women - and that was at a time when the average man earned at least a third more than a woman did, even if they were doing the same, or the same kind of job.

Thankfully, the fact that women have periods is no longer "not quite nice", or so I mistakenly thought until I read a good many of these posts.

I sincerely hope many countries will follow Scotland's example and provide free sanitary products to those who cannot afford to pay for them.

In Denmark, most pubs and restaurants provide condoms free of charge. Do you not do so in the UK?

Women/females are people of the variety who can menstruate. (even if they don't now, or don't yet, or have a problem with their female reproduction system which means they can't)

Men/males are people of the variety who can't menstruate. Ever!

There are condoms for sale from machines in many UK toilets.

I think it's brilliant that he's male. I hope he can encourage more men to empathise with periods. There should be absolutely no reason why we shouldn't talk freely about this natural phenomenon experienced by 50% of the human race( and other mammals )
Please don't equate female gender with empathy. I am a GP and , while I try to sympathise with my female patient, I know many of my male colleagues who handle the topic so much better than me .

How nice to hear from a doctor. I have had some excellent and very understanding doctors over the years, mainly as it happens men.