Dispatch #104 White Lesbian Age 71 Considers Changing Language of Public Discourse

May 24th 2023 

823 Days Since Inauguration of First Woman Vice-President

272 Days Until the 2024 Presidential Primaries Begin 

336 Days Since Supremes Ruled Women’s Human Rights Don’t Matter

To dismantle the narratives that enable/empower hierarchies of oppression and the War on Women we must change the language of public discourse.  These embedded ideologies, the toxic progeny of patriarchy, are designed to resist and destroy movement work for change. Strategies to disrupt the language will disrupt these narratives.

• Always use Abortion Care instead of Abortion. Patriarchy/misogyny continually endeavors to label/cast abortion as the horrible/unique sin separate from humanity. Abortion Care insists this is normal medical care, that is, personal decisions about healthcare services.

• Tell everyone you know to use Abortion Care.  When a growing number of women/people insist on Abortion Care in public discourse, then we will disrupt the misogynist abortion narratives. Perhaps medical societies will then find their courage to call out this unprecedented incursion on their professional practices.

• Tell everyone to use Forced-Birth States instead of anti-abortion or anti-choice states. No matter how state legislators change their language to mask their purpose to ban access, we must call out these Forced-Birth States that would control women’s bodies. “Hell no, you can’t make me wear a mask, but, yeah, OK, we sure can force a woman have a child.” 

• Tell everyone to Object & Reject when terms such as ‘pregnant people’ and ‘people who can get pregnant’ are substituted for women.  This self-described movement to ‘recognize inclusivity’ shows how misogyny – the devaluing of women – is so deeply embedded that it can hide in plain sight.  Using pregnant people instead of women to acknowledge nonbinary or trans persons actually ERASES women. 

The fight for reproductive rights and women’s human rights requires dismantling the gender-binary hierarchy that enables Patriarchy’s oppression of women.  Public discourse language that erases women supports the Patriarchy.

February 14th 2023 marked the 25th anniversary of V-Day, the global movement founded by activist V -- formerly known as Eve Ensler author of The Vagina Monologues -- to end violence against women, gender-expansive people, and girls. DO listen to Democracy Now!:  25 Years of V-Day: Ending Gender Violence, Fighting Tentacles of Patriarchy & New “Reckoning” Memoir  www.democracynow.org/2023/2/13/v_day_end_gender_violence 

The V-Day movement brings together activism and art to transform systems and change culture.  V-Day leaders use powerful and inclusive language – e.g., “women, gender-expansive people, and girls”, e.g., “women, girls, transgender, nonbinary people, and gender-diverse people” -- that does not erase women.

V tells host Amy Goodman that “We’ve shifted the dialogue. We’ve disrupted the normal. We’ve brought the issue to the front and center. You know, when we started, you couldn’t say the word “vagina.” We can say it now. And we’ve helped make violence against women a front-page issue…..Despite all our victories, despite all the transformations we’ve seen in legislation, in art, culture, education, in ways of consciousness and ways of thinking, the tentacles of patriarchy are still so deeply embedded in everything….Our call to rise for freedom is really to get people to understand this huge form of violence.”

Do listen to this powerful program that also addressed the 10th anniversary of V-Day’s One Billion Rising campaign -- a call to action based on the staggering reality that one in three women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime.  

Ongoing actions to call out normalizing language and behavior are critically important as 2024 election narratives begin to emerge.  In the post-Dobbs landscape where women’s human rights are being legally violated, Democrats are constantly tone-deaf to the these normalizing dynamics.

Consider the decision by the patently unqualified federal judge in Texas to overturn the authority of the FDA.  Biden, or a senior administration official, should have immediately and publicly rejected this decision as an outrageously unlawful overreach informed by religious and patriarchal convictions.  By not doing so, this decision became normalized by silence as well as by the legal process of appeals and an emergency hearing by the Supreme Court.   Yeah, and we are supposed to be relieved that the Supremes sent the case back to the appeals court…uh-huh. Yeah, the Supremes will be chill….their work is done.