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WMC Hot Button Words
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POLITICAL LANGUAGE: Words are often manipulated to make us feel, act, or vote a certain way. Evaluating political language needs not feeling, but thinking.

May 26, 2009 – 12:34 pm

Words are the most important tool in the service of a democratic government and its political system and they are often manipulated to make us feel, act, or vote a certain way; words are a means of controlling the public’s perception of government or political initiatives. For example, the Tax Simplification Act of 1993 ran [...]

By Rebekah Spicuglia | Comments (0)

FIRST LADY: the term is seen less and less often in print. Recent presidential spouses have preferred to be known by a name, rather than by a role.

April 8, 2009 – 1:53 pm

Summary: the wife of a U.S. president has been given this honorary term, but it is not an official title. Thus, the “problem” of what to do with a female president’s spouse is moot; he will be known simply as “Mr. Last-Name.” Presidents’ wives were not always referred to as “first ladies”; in 1849 President [...]

By Rebekah Spicuglia | Comments (0)

PEOPLE OF FAITH: popular years ago as an inclusive way to refer to believers of all creeds, “it soon caught on among conservative Christians who saw the advantages of comparing themselves to other oppressed groups” (Geoffrey Nunberg).

March 17, 2009 – 12:39 pm

Summary: this phrase “became popular about 25 years ago as an ostensibly inclusive way of referring to believers of all creeds and religions, about a decade after ‘people of color’ was revived as an inclusive term for nonwhites. The phrase was actually introduced out of a New-Agey aversion to identifying with organized religions, but it [...]

By Rebekah Spicuglia | Comments (0)

HERSTORY: the term was never intended to replace or be a synonym for “history,” but is used to indicate that until recently, history was written by men about men.

March 9, 2009 – 1:12 pm

Summary: coined by Robin Morgan in 1968, this term refers to all the parts of “her story” that have been left out of “his story.”  The word “history” itself is not sexist; the “his” in “history” is an English/American-language accident and has nothing to do with the male pronoun or with any male-based word. [...]

By Rebekah Spicuglia | Comments (0)

BACKDOOR DRAFT: indirect methods of forcing or manipulating people into military service—by extending the terms of soldiers or other coercive practices that critics have labeled the “greencard” or “education” or “poverty” draft.

February 18, 2009 – 12:44 pm

Summary: any of various indirect methods of forcing people to serve in the military, especially by extending the terms of people already in service” (Copy Editor). As recruiters scrambling to find troops have had to lower their enlistment requirements and add incentives, critics have labeled such coercive practices the drug/education/greencard or poverty draft. As of [...]

By Rebekah Spicuglia | Comments (2)

INTELLIGENT DESIGN: creationism in new clothes. Among 34 nations polled in 2005, the U.S. ranks next to last in acceptance of evolution theory.

February 10, 2009 – 12:17 pm

February 12, 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth.
Summary: creationism in new clothes, “intelligent design” (ID) is a religious belief that conservatives want taught in the schools instead of traditional science, biology, and evolution. (According to National Geographic news, among 34 nations polled in 2005, the U.S. ranks next to last in acceptance [...]

By Rebekah Spicuglia | Comments (0)

STAINED-GLASS CEILING: coined to describe women’s struggle to rise in religious hierarchies.

February 3, 2009 – 1:38 pm

Summary: a term for what women confront when seeking church leadership roles, as in a headline from /The Catholic Voice, Diocese of Oakland/: “Catholic women debate whether to abandon struggle against ’stained glass ceiling.’”
For more information on the forthcoming Unspinning the Spin: The Women’s Media Center Guide to Accurate, Bias-Free Language, click here.

By Rebekah Spicuglia | Comments (0)

SLUMBURBIA: a term suggesting a future in which mortgage foreclosures among other crisis transform the suburbs into the new slums.

January 29, 2009 – 2:33 pm

Summary: “The full onset of the mortgage foreclosure crisis, coupled with demographic changes, rising fuel prices and a host of other factors means that the suburbs could be on the way out. One analyst has postulated a future in which the suburbs, which once promised so much domestic happiness, are transformed into the new slums, [...]

By Rebekah Spicuglia | Comments (0)

ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED: the better term sometimes is economically exploited.

January 21, 2009 – 1:33 pm

Summary: “Many people of color have a painful history of being exploited for the benefit of European Americans. …’Economically disadvantaged’ sidesteps important issues, while ‘economically exploited’ more accurately represents the historical plight of people of color” (Clyde W. Ford, /We Can All Get Along/). See also “culturally deprived/disadvantaged,” poverty.
For more information on the forthcoming Unspinning [...]

By Rebekah Spicuglia | Comments (0)

WORKING POOR: this term should be an oxymoron. If you work fulltime, if you work hard, you should not be poor.

January 14, 2009 – 1:27 pm

Summary: this term should be an oxymoron. If you work fulltime, if you work hard, you should not be poor. Yet more than 30 million Americans—one in four workers—have jobs that pay less than the federal poverty level for a family of four. “What has been happening to working people is not the result of [...]

By Rebekah Spicuglia | Comments (0)