The words used to describe the body, the harm, and the resistance all shape how women feel about themselves and how they are seen. If the term “sexual violence” is pushed into euphemism, the conventional structures for understanding and naming that violence shift. A woman’s personal narrative of “survivor,” “advocate,” or simply “woman who was harmed”, for instance, becomes harder to anchor. Over time, the erosion of precise terms weakens individual agency and collective recognition.
The language we employ to describe ourselves and our experiences profoundly shapes our identity and influences others’ perceptions of us. How we speak — and are spoken about — is never neutral; it carries cultural assumptions about which traits are valued or devalued, often along gendered lines. While women’s emphasis on connection, empathy, and community building is often recognized as a valuable strength, it paradoxically carries an undertone of perceived weakness and usually leads to implied expectations.
The Tales We Tell is our attempt to listen differently. Through these stories, we explore how agenda setting, framing, and linguistic bias shape not only media and culture but also our collective understanding of identity and power. Together, these essays and stories confront the “single story” that flattens women’s lives into narrow archetypes — the victim, the muse, the temptress — and offer new ways of seeing: stories told with women, not merely about them.