YWCA Practice Framework Series: Language Matters
The YWCA Practice Framework is a comprehensive document developed to focus and guide staff at the YWCA in a unified philosophy and was developed with expert consultation with frontline staff, leadership and external stakeholders. The document also serves to clarify for the general public the YWCA’s clear focus on women, particularly those who are vulnerable.
This blog series will break out sections and excerpts from the YWCA Practice Framework to share with our audiences and contribute to the social narratives about women’s issues.
For the last few weeks, we’ve explored violence and abuse against women and girls, how we define poverty and homelessness. We understand these issues as part of a gendered experience for women and explore how these issues affect women uniquely. At the YWCA, we’ve found that one of the most important elements of all of these issues is our use of language. Let’s explore anti-oppressive terminology in this edition of the Practice Framework series. When we speak about violence and abuse against women and girls, women’s poverty and women’s homelessness, it is important to be sensitive in the language we use.
Violence and abuse against women and girls
One definition of violence against women we use is the patterned, assaultive, controlling, threatening and coercive tactics of abuse, including physical, sexual, psychological, economic, social, spiritual and cultural abuse against their current or past partners. What’s important to recognize about this definition is abuse is multifaceted and affects every aspect of a woman’s life.
When we discount the gender aspect of violence against women, research tells us we are missing a key point which is that it is very much a gendered issue. Gender-neutral terminology such as ‘domestic violence’, ‘family violence’, ‘trauma’ and ‘intimate partner violence’ can conceal the perpetrator’s role by embedding the problem within the ‘domestic’ or ‘intimate’ context. The recent shift to describing women’s experiences of male violence and abuse as ‘trauma’ raises concerns that the gendered and social nature of abuse against girls and women is lost. Trauma labels alone, without adding a gender-based lens can ignore the far-reaching personal, health, economic, legal and social impacts of abuse.
Using abuse rather than violence is preferable, as it reflects the reality that abuse comes in many forms of power, dominance and control. The term “violence” is used to highlight the serious, and often criminal aspects of the experience. However, in general women who experience physical and/or sexual violence have experienced other forms of abuse, and many women who are abused have not been physically assaulted.
Women’s poverty
Previously, we’ve discussed poverty and violence against women as connected experiences. Women recognize that fleeing abuse is likely to plunge them and their children into poverty, and, perhaps, homelessness. When we describe poverty we recognize that poverty as an experience is not only about money, it also affects women’s time, ability to interact and participate socially with confidence. Given the shame and stigma associated with poverty and recognizing that many women may experience poverty in their lifespan (as children, as a student, following a disruptive event such as marital breakdown, illness or job loss or as a senior) we must be conscious to speak about poverty as an experience rather than a defining characteristic. Women experiencing poverty or women living in poverty is preferred over objectifying terms such as poor women.
Women’s homelessness
Last week, we focused on what women’s homelessness is and how we understand it. We understand that women make up a significant and growing percentage of the homeless population and women’s homelessness is often hidden. Women face a unique gendered experience with homelessness because they are more vulnerable without a safe place to call home. Women will sleep on streets, trade sex for a place to stay and remain in abusive relationships to avoid entering into a cycle of homelessness. Again, the language we use matters. Homelessness is an experience and defines a housing status rather than a women. Thus we refer to women who are homeless or women experiencing homelessness rather than homeless women.
