Glossary

Ableism is a set of beliefs or practices that devalue and discriminate against people with physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities and often rests on the assumption that disabled people need to be ‘fixed’ in one form or the other. Ableism is intertwined in our culture, due to many limiting beliefs about what disability does or does not mean, how able-bodied people learn to treat people with disabilities and how we are often not included at the table for key decisions.

Accountability is the obligation and willingness to accept responsibility for one’s actions. In the context of social justice, accountability refers to the ways in which individuals and communities hold themselves to their principles and goals, as well as acknowledging the groups to which they are responsible. Accountability often requires a transparent process and continuous self- and collective awareness.

Both agender and nonbinary identities exist outside of the traditional binary understanding of gender and gendered language. Agender individuals identify as having no gender, while nonbinary individuals identify outside of the male and female categories.

Awareness is an approach of carefully dealing with one another. The concept aims to create awareness for one’s own limits, the limits of others, and power relationships in general. Therefore it is the responsibility of everyone (guests, organizers, artists, etc.) whether an event has the potential for every person to feel comfortable. AwareMess refers to the messenger version of awareness. The idea of Awaremess was born at CMWC 2018 in Riga and ECMC 2019 in Brussels.

The awareness team is not the police! The awareness team only takes action as an active support when it is asked to do so. It is not about sanctioning others or imposing rules. Awareness work is based on consensus with the affected person and thus forms the opposite to the justice system, which often deprives those affected of control over their situation. No justice no peace.

Cis-gender people identify with the gender that was assigned to them at birth. Cis-men are therefore people who were assigned as male at birth and who identify themselves as men.

Classism is a term that describes discrimination based on the belief that a person’s social or economic status determines their value in society. Classism, as a form of discrimination and stigmatization, is based on actual or assumed financial means, educational status, and social inclusion. “Inferior” classes in the hierarchy are problematised and stereotyped, and often receive unequal access and rights within society.

Colonialism is the control and dominance of one power over a dependent area or people. In subjugating another people and land, colonialism entails violently conquering the population, often including mass displacement of people and the systematic exploitation of resources. Beyond material consequences, colonialism also includes processes of forcing the dominant power’s language and cultural values upon the subjugated people, thereby effecting cultural, psychological, and intergenerational trauma.

Colorism is a term that describes the prejudice or discrimination favoring people with lighter skin tones over those with darker skin tones. This is especially used to describe the nuanced discrimination faced within a racial or ethnic group.

…is the attempt to take the needs of everybody involved into account. The people involved find themselves in a transparent process to create a common solution. Consensus is a method for reflecting and communicating personal and sexual needs, boundaries and desires. The general formula of active consent can be summarized in short as: NO MEANS NO AND ONLY YES MEANS YES.

Cultural appropriation is the act of taking on aspects of a marginalized culture by a person or an institution who is outside of that culture, without comprehensive understanding of the context and often lacking respect for the significance of the original. Cultural appropriation, when promoting negative cultural or racial stereotypes, reproduces harm. Acts of cultural appropriation can often reveal power dynamics within a society: for example, a white person who wears a marginalized culture’s traditional dress is praised as fashionable, while a racialized person could be isolated from the dominant group and marked as foreign.  

…includes that those affected define themselves what happened to them, what form of violence, sexualized violence or discrimination they had to suffer. This definition is not necessarily rigid: sometimes those affected change the name over time, perhaps because they initially did not want to admit how blatant the violence was and after the initial shock the violence appears different to them.

…is a social phenomenon of disadvantage, exclusion and devaluation of persons or groups based on (supposed) characteristics of that specific person or group.

Diversity recognizes the diversity of all people. However, the term means more than mere recognition: diversity calls for a conscious approach to diversity in society. As an organizational and socio-political concept, it promotes an appreciative, respectful approach to the diversity and individuality of all people.

This concept assumes that there is a system of hierarchies, rule and power in which the various racist, sexist, classist, and other forms of governance intertwine. In this interconnectedness, a dominant group maintains power, which is socially negotiated again and again. In a given society, the dominant group achieves their role by being perceived as pertaining to a majority of the population and having a significant presence in societal institutions.

Empowerment refers to strategies and measures that are intended to increase the degree of autonomy and self-determination in the lives of people or communities and enable them to (once again) represent their interests in an autonomous, self-responsible and self-determined manner. Empowerment refers to both the process of self-empowerment (emancipation) and professional support for people to overcome their feeling of powerlessness and lack of influence (socio-political powerlessness) and to perceive and use their scope for action and resources.

Feminism challenges the existing systems of inequality and discrimination based on gender, and acknowledges that WTNBIA+ have been historically marginalized and denied opportunities. Feminism recognizes that all individuals must be treated with equal respect and dignity. The movement is diverse and evolving, encompassing a wide range of perspectives, theories, and approaches.

Heteronormativity is the concept that heterosexuality – romantic and/or sexual attraction between people of the “opposite” gender – is the normative or acceptable sexual orientation in a society. Heteronormativity assumes the gender binary, and therefore involves a belief in the alignment between sexuality, gender identity, gender roles, and biological sex. As a dominant social norm, heteronormativity results in discrimination and oppression against those who do not identify as heterosexual.

Inter*, or intersex, is an umbrella term that can describe people who have differences in reproductive anatomy, chromosomes, or hormones that do not fit typical definitions of male and female. The asterisk emphasizes the plurality of intersex realities and physicalities.

Intersectionality names the interconnected nature of systems of oppression and social categorizations such as race, gender, sexuality, migratory background, and class. Intersectionality emphasizes how individual forms of discrimination do not exist independently of each other, nor can they be considered and addressed independently. Rather, addressing oppression should take into account the cumulative and interconnected axes of multiple forms of discrimination.

Neurodiversity is a term that describes the unique ways each person’s brain structures function. The basic assumption of what kind of brain functioning is healthy and acceptable within a norm-oriented majority society is called neurotypical.

Nonbinary is a term that can be used by persons who do not describe themselves or their genders as fitting into the binary categories of man or woman. A range of terms are used for these experiences, with nonbinary and genderqueer often used.

One main aspect of awareness is partisanship. When it comes to discrimination or violence, partisanship means not taking a supposedly neutral stance. The awareness team always acts partisan in the interest of the person(s) concerned. This should grant a protected environment to those affected in which they can to report on their experiences without being confronted with doubts or even accusations of guilt. What is told is not evaluated and is accepted as those affected have experienced it.

Patriarchy is a social system whereby cis men dominantly hold positions of privilege both in public and private spheres. In feminist theory, patriarchy can be used to describe the power relationship between genders that favors male dominance, as well as the ideology of male superiority that justifies and enacts oppression against women and all non-normative genders.

The term has been used in this sense since the US civil rights movement in the 1960s. As a reappropriation and positive reinterpretation of the pejorative attribution „colored“, People of Color describes a solidary alliance of different communities that experience structural exclusion due to racism.

Privileges are often referred to as social advantages that people have due to their supposed membership to a socially constructed group. Privileges open up opportunities and give access to social spaces. People who are considered to be “normal” in society (e.g.: white, male, cisgender, able-bodied, etc.) are considered privileged. Positions that deviate from this, i.e. the supposedly “others”, are disadvantaged, i.e. discriminated against.

Queer is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. It Is used for a broad spectrum of non-normative sexual and/or gender identities and politics.

Racism is the process by which systems, policies, actions, and attitudes create unequal opportunities and outcomes for people based on race. More than individual or institutional prejudice, racism occurs when this discrimination is accompanied by the power to limit or oppress the rights of people and/or groups. Racism varies over time and between cultures, with racism towards different groups intensifying in different historical moments.

The ultimate goal of awareness work and structures is their own abolition. Because: If society is aware of itself, these structures are no longer needed. Then everyone takes good care of themselves and others. For this reason, attention and consideration are two important aspects of awareness in general: Be considerate and look out for each other. If you notice that a person is not feeling well, talk to them and ask if they need help.

Safer spaces are intended to be places where marginalized communities can gather and communicate shared experiences, free of bias, conflict, or harm perpetrated by members of a dominant group. Recognizing that there is no such thing as a perfectly safe space for marginalized people under the current systems of our society, the term “safer” indicates the goal of temporary relief, as well as acknowledging the fact that harm can be reproduced even within marginalized communities.

People are often labeled with categories or designations that they do not feel like they belong to or that they themselves would describe differently. Self-designations, on the other hand, are names that a socially marginalized group chooses for itself. Which pronoun would a person like to be addressed with? If you are unsure about how a person or group would like to be addressed or referred to, it is good to ask. Expressions such as “The person is read by me as…” leaves the actual designation of a group open.

Sexism is any expression (act, word, image, gesture) based on the idea that some persons, most often WTNBIA+, are inferior because of their (assigned) sex.

Sexual orientation is the term that describes which sex or gender a person feels emotionally, physically, romantically and/or sexually attracted to.

Social justice is a form of activism and political movement that promotes the process of transforming society from an injust and unequal state to one that is just and equitable. Social justice is rooted in the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and social rights and opportunities, and the fundamental right to feel psychologically and physically secure. Social justice therefore aims to change governing laws and societal norms that have historically and presently oppressed some groups over others. Social justice is not just the absence of discrimination, but also the presence of deliberate systems and supports that achieve and sustain equity along lines of race, gender, class, ability, religion, and more.

A social norm is a shared belief in the standard of acceptable behaviour by groups, both informal as well as institutionalized into policy or law. Social norms differ over time and between cultures and societies.

Structural discrimination refers to patterns of behaviour, policies, and attitudes found at the macro-level conditions of society. This discrimination of social groups is based on the nature of the structure of society as a whole. Structural discrimination is distinct from individual forms of discrimination (such as a single racist remark, which is a microaggression), though it often provides the contextual framework to understand why these individual instances occur.

Transgender, or simply trans, is an adjective that refers to people whose gender identity is different than the sex assigned at birth. Trans comes from the Latin prefix which means “across” or “beyond.” The self-designation is not an identity feature that automatically indicates whether this person identifies with a different gender, no gender or multiple genders. Thus, there are several trans identities. The asterisks (*) emphasizes the plurality and fluidity of trans identities.

White supremacy names the beliefs and practices that privilege white people as an inherently superior race, built on the exclusion and detriment of other racial and ethnic groups. It can refer to the interconnected social, economic, and political systems that enable white people to enjoy structural advantages over other racial groups both on a collective and individual level. It can also refer to the underlying political ideology that imposes and maintains multiple forms of domination by white people and non-white supporters, from justifying European colonialism to present-day neo-fascisms. 

By WTNBIA+ we mean all non-cis-male persons, summarized as all women, transgender, nonbinary, inter*/intersex and agender people. The plus emphasizes the plurality and fluidity of those gender identities.