Feminist Movement Builder's Dictionary

WUNRN

The Feminist Movement Builder’s Dictionary can be used as a vehicle for the political act of defining our world based on a distinct feminist

perspective – one that recognizes how distortions in social, economic, and political power form the basis of inequality and justice.

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Words Matter

Within the local-to-global context of citizen action, many activists and scholars agree

that we face a “crisis of discourse”. Words that once imparted radical visions of social

change have been co-opted by more powerful groups, rendering them devoid of

their original meaning or politics. For example, when the World Bank uses terms like

“empowerment” or “civil society participation,” they mean something quite different,

or at least far less transformative, than what activists originally envisioned. Since

feminist activists and movement-builders depend on the political meaning of words,

we at JASS decided to generate and claim our own definitions.

The Evolution of the JASS’ Feminist Movement Builder’s Dictionary

The idea for this dictionary originated with JASS Mesoamerica, where feminists and

women activists from different social movements found themselves creating alternative

terms to describe their context and strategies since old ones had lost their meaning.

Alda Facio, a Costa Rican feminist writer, activist, and lawyer with JASS wrote the first

version, Diccionario Feminista, in Spanish. Her goal was to “free words from the box or

mindset of the patriarchal paradigm”. As JASS’ work deepened in Southeast Asia and

Southern Africa, we quickly realized that we had all been searching for and “inventing”

new words to more accurately describe the contexts and dynamics of power within

which we’re operating, and the myriad ways in which women experience and resist

oppression.

We began building the English version of the Feminist Dictionary to develop a common

language, history, and sense of purpose within the JASS community. As more people

contributed, we quickly realized the dictionary’s potential as a vehicle for the political

act of defining our world based on a distinct feminist political perspective – one that

is constantly shifting and recognizes how distortions in social, economic, and political

power and privilege form the basis of inequality and injustice.

The production of knowledge

As with all knowledge, the content of this dictionary is a reflection of the various

vantage points, intersecting identities, values, and experiences of its writers and

contributors. The words and their definitions reflect and are embedded in JASS’

approach to feminist movement building and our analysis of how power can operate in

both positive and negative ways.