Subtle but powerful expressions of the logic of domination are prevalent in the ordinary use of the English language, but I have taken care throughout this text to avoid unnecessarily oppressive turns of phrase. I resist what is sometimes referred to as ableist language, for example, by avoiding visual and auditory metaphors such as ‘seeing’ the point or ‘listening’ to reason. Instead, I reserve visual and auditory references for those fairly rare contexts in which vision or hearing is actually relevant to the ideas that I aim to express. This is analogous to avoiding allegedly generic uses of ‘man’ and ‘men’… and instead reserving those terms for contexts in which sex and gender are of some relevance. I also avoid the use of unnecessary bodily metaphors, such as ‘standing up’ for a cause. In addition, I resist the use of binary language by avoiding the gender pronouns ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘him’, ‘his’, and ‘her’, and I resist the use of universalizing language by avoiding the plural pronouns ‘we’ and ‘our’. I also resist oppositional language by avoiding such expressions as ‘arguably’, and ‘on the contrary’.
Feminism is Queer, Mimi Marinucci, Zed Books: London & New York. 2010. p. xiv
