Replacing the word “victim” with “survivor” is perpetuating men’s violence against women.

I call for women to change the language we use to describe male violence against us.  In my lifetime it has been normalized to use the word “survivor” instead of “victim” when describing women hurt by male violence.  This change is perpetuating the massive twofold problem of men not being held accountable for violent crimes against women and women co-creating patterns of victimization.  Men are at fault here. But women will access power to allay both by changing this one choice of word.

 If I say “survivor” I put the focus on what I did.  It means that I lived through an event where others died, even suggesting that I’m lucky to have been left alive.  This implication alone hits me like a threat.  We’re talking about rape & abuse here!  And, when “survivor” is used instead of “victim,” no mention is made of HE who harmed.

Swapping the word “survivor” for “victim” is a clear exemplar of both male dominance and female submission.

So, you see, the word “survivor” is a weak substitute for the word “victim.”  This word-swap lets the violent man off the hook.  In doing so it skims past the harm done.  All that it leaves to focus on is that the woman lived through the harm done to her.  Our culture is already rife with women-hating.  It is therefore smoothly implied that she, the victim of male violence, ought to be grateful or even praised.  For surviving.  To accept this moniker is a pitiful acquiescence to the male dominance that manufactures women’s violent degradation.

So “victim” is the better word.  But unfortunately, “victim,” despite being more accurate, has been sullied.  Male-dominant culture routinely blames women for the violence done to us.  Or leaves women considering we are lucky to have survived.  Of course, it is the prevailing culture of male dominion that fails to hold perpetrators responsible.  Naturally it pretends not to be able to protect women from male violence.

But did you realize male dominion is also the force that trains women that it’s bad to be, or even name the fact of being, a victim?  It is clear when we examine who his serves!  Even more so, when we notice it also trains us to fall prey.  The corresponding phenomenon is how spectacularly it fails to train men that it’s bad to be a predator.  In fact, it is the self-perpetuating male-dominant culture that outright trains men to be predators. Victimization is a passive state.  Predatory behavior is an active choice. This juxtaposition is a blatantly unfair signal of the dominance of the male sex.

Women and girl victims of male violence are shamed to the extent that even the word “victim” is vilified by male dominant culture.  This emboldens male predators and silences their female prey.

Men are let off the proverbial hook.  Women are shamed, blamed, ostracized, and disdained for falling prey to unmentionable acts of violence by untouchably exalted men.  So, even today.  In the face of modern theoretical equality. Women are trained not to say, “I’m a victim.” It’s seen as a sign of emotional weakness to do so. This is apparent in how victimization brings up feelings of shame for many women.  Even though most women don’t believe that ‘might makes right.’ Don’t believe that superior strength bestows authority.  We have been taught not to be clear or confident when explaining the inarguable truth of our victimization.

The word “Survivor,” is a shame-driven, truth-obscuring strawman of empowerment used to appease victims.

We aren’t taught to be clear because if we do, others will be clear about it too. Clear that a woman was harmed by a man in a criminal act. That the man who did the crime is responsible for it.  Not her.  So, women are trained to obscure harm done to us. We are given the false hope of achieving empowerment by avoiding the shame of victimization.  But obscuring victimization only serves to further violence against women. It is a deliberate, synchronistic execution of the prevailing male dominion that doesn’t want women to be clear about who hurt us.  Of course, a male dominant culture doesn’t want men to be held to account for violence against women.  Self-servingly, it only wants to reinforce a barely veiled, unrestricted rape culture with phony institutions of justice.

Women desire full human freedom.  But are appeased by phony institutions of justice and left bewildered.

Phony institutions were set up to constantly appease women’s deep and abiding desire for human freedom. A desire that if not so impacted would bring about a revolt by women!  This hopeful desire is being pervasively and effectively waylaid by the pandering of false institutions of justice. Women will not revolt as long as the condition of our rage remains bewildered by the stigma of victimization. But this hasn’t happened yet. Because instead, women are lulled into submission. Grateful survivors of acts of degradation we’re genuinely but sickeningly lucky to have survived, if only just.

Because it’s not even survival. (As if survival could ever be enough anyway.) Not fully.  We have not, as yet, survived with the part of us that would defy this submission and rise up for freedom from violence and degradation. The everyday act of submission-as-empowerment has women refusing to even name the reality of having been harmed.

Change your language to alley patterns of victimization and hold male violence to your account.

It’s time for women to start claiming our victimization.  To show up in full human capacity ready to recognize and manifest the experience of freedom.  To be a survivor in the real sense of the world by unveiling the truth of the oppression done to us by acts of male violence.  Recognizing freedom from a state of degradation happens through a process of eliminating what is not freedom.

By naming tools of subjugation as we feel them sticking in our sides.  We must rage, revolt, and refuse to submit!  It’s time to hold men responsible for their crimes of violence against women in our everyday language.  Let’s not go along with the male dominion that stands to let them off the hook.  Instead, I’m ready for us to let ourselves off of it!

Create your own justice by changing your choice of words.

Say “I’m a victim.” Not, “I’m a survivor.” This way you will “remember and manifest the reality of freedom.”  A capacity that has been stolen from women by male dominion, wrote Andrea Dworkin, in her classic radical feminist book, Intercourse.

Give yourself the justice of being acknowledged as one who was intentionally harmed through no fault of your own.  When you are justified in this way you learn what justice feels like. New patterns of behavior will form, reflecting the sensations of justice you create.  These are the behaviors that will protect you from future victimization.  The beautifully apt proof of this is that it’s the opposite of what we are taught to do. For if anything is ever taught by a culture of male dominance, it will certainly be for its welfare.

State “I’m a victim.” Instead of “I’m a survivor.” This way you become the power that brings about justice. Inside of you. You hold violent men to your account. Simply by changing your language.