Only if we let them, and anyone who does is an incompetent advocate choosing to let sexists decide the meaning of words for everyone else when everyone else has at least as much power to do otherwise.
It’s complacent cooperation with the enemy that purports ethical superiority while being the opposite.
Older activists who understood the pitfalls of establishing their own stigmatization in the language at least had the sense not to cooperate with their enemies.
They’d more creatively reappropriate or reclaim words or embrace them as terms of pride.
That lesson seems lost here.
Only if we let them, and anyone who does is an incompetent advocate choosing to let sexists decide the meaning of words for everyone else when everyone else has at least as much power to do otherwise. It’s complacent cooperation with the enemy that purports ethical superiority while being the opposite.
Older activists who understood the pitfalls of establishing their own stigmatization in the language at least had the sense not to cooperate with their enemies. They’d more creatively reappropriate or reclaim words or embrace them as terms of pride. That lesson seems lost here.