Dear progressive friends and loved ones: I wish I could grab you by the shoulders and shake you just hard enough to get your attention.
You're losing, badly, and it's going to get worse. Trying to eliminate the words "woman", "women", and "mothers" might make you feel "inclusive" and "intersectional".... but outside of your tribal silos, you're losing.
I'm certain that someone is going to feel the need to call me a TERF and then explain why "black birthing bodies" is the more correct phrasing and represents the future of our language. I'm entirely certain that one of you reading this and is thinking of writing an essay explaining why adopting the language of slave-masters in order to avoid using that terrible slur (i.e., "woman") is actually "decolonization of language".... but you're losing. If you have to explain why you're using the language of slave-masters, you've already lost. You will perhaps "win" in collecting "applause" on your social account, but at the ballot box, you're simply working for the fascists.
Women, even moderately religious women, should be your/our natural allies in the fight for women to be viewed and treated as fully autonomous human beings... and yet, you can't find it in yourself to say the word.
"Birthing parent", "chest feeding", "black birthing bodies"... Progressive friends, you do not live in the world you think you do.
And women are going to die so that you can feel righteous in your pieties.
There are quite a few people reading this who consider themselves progressive. One or two of you must be able to recognize the damage done by erasing "woman" and "mother" from our language in the name of "inclusion" and "intersectionality".
Please give some real thought (and talk to people outside of your silo) before you reduce women to "chest feeders" and "birthing bodies".
