Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

We often think of language as a means to an end, but rarely take the time to consider whether language in itself is influencing our thoughts, not just enabling the sharing of them.

Words shape our ideas, how we see the world, and how we relate to one another. As design teacher and researcher Anne Galloway says:

“Language doesn’t just make things—it assembles, cobbles together, entire worlds and all the relations within.”

Language makes it possible for us to navigate places and relationships; to express needs and requirements; t... See more

“If you want to survive in this organization, you shouldn’t use the words you use. Words like ‘more-than-human’ or ‘otherwise’...” Someone told me this a while ago and probably many of you often come across comments like that. Re-reading my fav book, I found this quote:“The way we talk about this life and living, the language we use, builds a kind ... See more

And yet it should be possible to gaze into this alphabet soup and divine patterns. Our attraction to certain words surely reflects an inner yearning. Computer metaphors appeal to us because they imply futurism and hyperefficiency, while the language of self-empowerment hides a deeper anxiety about our relationship to work — a sense that what we’re

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