Quote This Woman+ (QW+), an African feminist non-profit working to build a gender-just media, has released an open letter calling on government, international NGOs, academics, media professionals and civil society to choose their words with care during the '16 Days of Activism Against Gendered Violence' campaign.
The open letter challenges the linguistic bleaching of gender violence through the over-reliance on acronyms like "GBV" (Gender Based Violence), "VAWG" (Violence Against Women and Girls) and "IPV" (Intimate Partner Violence) in policy, media and advocacy spaces. QW+ argues that while acronyms may feel efficient or protective, they often dilute the reality of violence and shift attention away from perpetrators and the systems that enable harm, says the NPO.
"It's time to turn our attention to how we conduct this conversation. We need to think about who we enable and protect with the words we choose, and who we harm. And we need to stop being oblivious that the language we default to is a choice, whether it's conscious or not," says Kath Magrobi, Founder of QW+.
"We default to acronyms because gender violence unsettles us. But softening our language means we soften our activism. We protect the perpetrators and we don't demand accountability from the institutions. Little wonder nothing changes," says Magrobi.
The letter highlights the psychological effects of sanitised language, and best practices to name violence precisely in order to confront it, adds the NPO.
QW+ calls on all individuals and institutions shaping public discourse to take six actions:
- think before defaulting to acronyms
- be conscious gatekeepers of narrative
- use curiosity and compassion to gain clarity
- centre the systems that enable violence
- platform complexity and context, and
- edit with intention and courage.
The full open letter is available here.
For more information, visit www.quotethiswoman.org.za. You can also follow Quote This Woman+ on Facebook, LinkedIn, or on, X.
*Image courtesy of contributor