Why our sector’s language needs to change
By Julieta Morales, Women Deliver’s Advisor, Brand and Narrative
Language has always been central to movements for change.
We, feminists, have long understood that the words we use shape how we see the world and who gets to be seen within it. From early efforts to ensure women’s voices were reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to movements demanding recognition of gender-diverse people in law, to today’s global push for inclusive abortion legislation, language has been a tool for justice, power, and accountability.
Words turn ideas into action. They become policies. They define whose realities are recognized and whose are ignored. But language can only transform if people can access it, understand it, and claim it as their own.
So, what happens when words are not accessible to everyone?
Language has the power to reinforce or deconstruct systems of power¹ that sustain inequality and discrimination.
Too often, our own sector, the international development one, reproduces power dynamics that create barriers rather than break them down. The language and jargon we rely on are shaped by systems rooted in colonial histories and dominated by Global Minority–headquartered organizations. As a result, advancing within the sector often requires adopting the language of those systems, using its terms in order to be recognized as “credible” or “expert”. You need to become part of the system to advance within it.
Meanwhile, local communities and civil society actors rarely have the same power or influence to define which words signal trustworthiness or legitimacy. They are asked to prove themselves using terminology they did not define. In practice, this creates an uneven playing field. Participation becomes dependent on “knowing the right words.” Understanding becomes conditional.
Complex, technical language can drive us apart rather than building bridges. And at a time when our movements face growing resistance and shrinking civic space, we cannot afford to reproduce the very hierarchies we seek to dismantle.
When development jargon emerges from specific Global Minority contexts and travels across borders, it does not always translate easily into other realities. Instead, it can feel imposed, abstract, and disconnected from lived experiences. The “Deconstructing Development Discourse” publication explains it well: “The apparent universality of the buzzwords that have come to frame ‘global’ development discourses masks the locality of their origins. Significantly, few of the words used in Anglo-dominated development discourse admit of translation into other languages: many come to be used in other languages as loan-words.”
This is not simply a linguistic issue; it is a structural one. When language is inaccessible, it reinforces hierarchies rather than challenging them, echoing colonial patterns that have long shaped whose knowledge is considered legitimate and whose is not.
Recognizing the path that brought us here
At the same time, we can’t let aside the long road feminist movements have traveled to reach this moment. Many of the terms used today in international and legal frameworks are the result of decades of struggle, advocacy, and negotiation. Feminists fought — often at great personal risk — to codify these words into policies and laws that defend rights and hold power to account.
This is not about erasing that history.
We have reached a point where we must decide what to carry forward and what to leave behind. Which shared terms remain essential for collective understanding? Where does language strengthen movements and where does it risk becoming exclusionary?
What this looks like in practice
Power structures often show up in language through the labels we take for granted. Talking about “developing countries,” for example, reinforces a hierarchy that positions some regions as “behind”, rather than acknowledging historical and structural inequities. At the same time, referring to others as “developed countries” assumes that progress is finished — that they have reached a fixed endpoint, with little need for further transformation despite persistent inequality. Terms such as Global Majority and Global Minority offer a way to reframe these dynamics.
Similarly, phrases like “vulnerable people” can strip people of agency, masking the structural discrimination by our societies and systems. Phrases like “beneficiaries” or “target groups” create distance and hierarchy between organizations and people. Alternatives like participants, constituencies, or local partners better recognize mutual respect and shared ownership.
Terms like “capacity building” imply that communities lack skills or knowledge, positioning external actors as the ones who bring expertise. “Empowerment” can suggest that power is something granted by institutions, rather than something communities already hold or claim. Only referring to “women” when discussing sexual and reproductive rights excludes transgender men and non-binary people.
Language choices are not neutral.
We must ensure our language does not put people at risk or cause harm. We must be courageous and precise in naming structural oppressions and in identifying who is affected by them. This commitment is at the heart of the Feminist Playbook.
What we hope for the Playbook
Women Deliver is co-creating, alongside partners, a shared vision of justice and gender equality — one that reflects the world girls, women, and gender-diverse people need. The Feminist Playbook aims to build a collective understanding of what must change, including within our own sector.
We want the Playbook to be powerful yet accessible. Inclusive and caring. Bold and unapologetic. Hopeful and action-oriented. We are intentionally working to dismantle exclusionary language patterns within the Playbook because it belongs to all of us. Therefore, it must reflect our diversity, our differences, and the many ways knowledge is created and expressed.
By choosing clearer, more accessible language, we aim to widen participation, honor lived experience, and ensure that the Playbook can be used, challenged, and shaped by movements across contexts. And we are intentional about preserving the words our movements have fought hard to secure — terms that carry legal, political, and historical weight.
Language shapes power. By being intentional about the words we use, we take one step closer to the inclusive, feminist future we are working to build.
¹ Oxfam International. (2023). Inclusive Language Guide. Oxfam Policy & Practice. https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/inclusive-language-guide-621487/
