Engender blog

F-words: Language, power, and Blackness

In this first blog in our 'F-words' series, Claire L. Heuchan writes about how the capital 'B' in Black illustrates the link between words and anti-oppression. Claire tweets as SisterOutrider and blogs here.

Since taking my own place in the feminist movement, I’ve given a lot of thought to the relationship between language and power. Words are the markers we use to make sense of the world around us and where we fit in it. The language we choose can uphold social inequalities. Or it can challenge them. There is a connection between words and power, a bond that thrums with potential. Everyday words and phrases can be turned on their head, their meaning subverted.

The earliest example I can remember hearing comes from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The Banks family had gathered round the dinner table for their evening meal. A Christian family, they kicked off dinner by saying grace. And Ashley Banks – Will’s cousin, who brought a much-needed feminist perspective to the series – finished her prayer with ‘a-women’.

F-words: introducing our new blog series on feminist language

Language matters. The words we use, and the contexts in which we use them, come with baggage, preconceptions, cultural implications, and potential for misunderstandings. Used well, language can uplift – bringing nuance to conversations, enabling accuracy in policy discussions, and ensuring that people feel welcome and included. At its worst, language can be used to obfuscate, exclude, and offend.

GUEST POST: A recovery plan which works for women also works for the planet

Claire Duncanson is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. She has published widely on issues relating to gender, peace and security, with a particular focus on gender and peacebuilding. Her current work aims to bring a feminist analysis to the political economy of building peace, and she's an active member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). You can follow Claire on Twitter @cpduncanson, read more blogs at GenderED, and find out about her academic research here.

Engender and Close the Gap’s new paper outlining nine principles for economic recovery provides a valuable roadmap for Scotland to emerge from Covid-19 in ways that address the pandemic’s alarming gendered impacts. However, as important as its ideas are, it fails to make a critical connection, one at the heart of our country’s future. While the paper’s nine principles are offered as a path to a fairer, more just, more equal and inclusive Scotland, they can and must also be understood as providing a strong foundation for addressing and arresting the climate and biodiversity crises. This is an increasingly urgent task given Scotland’s recent rise in carbon emissions and its damaged and depleted ecosystems, but mention of this potential benefit of their approach is surprisingly absent from the paper.

GUEST POST: Being a Black Woman in Scotland: A Unique and Complex Experience

In this guest blog, Aleisha Omeike writes for Engender about the need to recognise the unique experiences of Black women. Follow Aleisha on Twitter at aleisha_omeike.

CN: this piece references and quotes racist language and slurs.

In this piece, I have shared some of my opinions and observations being a mixed-race woman (White Scottish and Black African) in Scotland. The experience of Black (and minority ethnic) women in Scotland is a unique and complex one. I have chosen to discuss two of the most under addressed of these experiences, including the ongoing trauma and detrimental influence racist abuse can have on women of colour and the hypersexualisation of Black women.

With the large engagement in the Black Lives Matter Movement, I hope that Scotland can begin implementing the change so desperately needed to start improving Black women's experiences.