Language matters - Changing the Lens & Language around Violence

Violence in the Northwest Territories is normalized and breaking the code of silence often comes at a high personal cost. It is well-established that people who experience violence often feel blamed and shamed by the system, the media, family, friends, co-workers, their community, and the larger society

Accordingly, Changing the Lens and Language is an educational project to change the lens and the language around violence used in society so that victims of violence do not feel blamed nor shamed and feel less marginalized.

This project examines the vernacular of violence and the need for a trauma- and violence-informed reframing of language choices around violence, victim shaming and blaming, and gender - in the media, with policy makers, by political leaders, and by service providers. By choosing how something is framed in language, you are cuing others to think about it in a specific way. We can drastically change someone’s perspective on an issue and those impacted by that issue, by how we choose to talk about and frame it.

At the SWCNWT, we know this project won’t erase stereotypes and biases completely from people’s minds and the conversations on the street. However, if it dampens those conversations in the spheres that end up controlling a lot of our lives - where we spend our money and what policies and laws shape our society - that’s really important because those conversations have tremendous power.

As communicators, we need to be serving the ends of access, inclusion, and liberation, rather than maintaining oppression and the status quo. We have a responsibility to use language in ways that describe the world we are working to create, rather than unconsciously perpetuating bias and prejudice. Here are resources to help you more effectively communicate:

Tip sheets

• Words Matter: Avoid violent phrases in everyday speech

• Words Matter: Avoid common communication triggers

• Words Matter: in fostering equality

• Words Matter: but so do what, when, why, and how we say them

• Words Matter: in how we see others

• Changing the Lens: on the language of culture

• Changing the Lens: on power and control

• Changing the Lens : on the language of diversity

• Fact Sheet: Trauma and violence-informed approaches in communication

• Fact Sheet: Gender-based violence (GBV)

• Fact Sheet: What Will It Take? Bystander program

Booklets

• Changing the Lens and Language: Words Matter (email for a digital copy)

• Changing the Lens: Conversation Kit (email for a digital copy)

• Changing the Lens: Glossary of gender-based violence terminology

Training Resources

Changing the Lens and Language Around Gender -Based Violence narrated PowerPoint.

Please contact us at administration@nwtwomen.ca or 867.920.6177 if you would like to have us deliver a 1- hour or 3-hour in-person or virtual Changing the Lens and Language workshop to your organization.

This project was made possible with funding from the Department of Health and Social Services, Government of the Northwest Territories.