Both of these frames are problematic. It’s challenging to articulate exactly why, but I’m going to give it my best shot–because language has evolved within the same power structures we seek to tear down, we don’t always have the words to describe the problem.

Human rights within both frames are treated as a commodity that is traded. This is based on our market understanding of what we do with commodities: we accumulate, we spend, we give, we win, we lose. But if we really believe that certain rights are inalienable to humans, we can’t and shouldn’t commodify them. By doing so we support a power structure where rights are doled out and taken away at the whims of the dominant paradigm.

It also, in a deeper metaphorical sense, suggests that women aren’t necessarily fully human– they must be given the right to vote, or they must fight and win it for themselves. It’s not assumed that women would naturally vote in the grand scheme of things. We think so now (mostly), but if we continue to use this language, we support the antiquated structures that keep women from being recognized fully as humans.

If you’re into this kind of thing, by the way, and have the patience for heavy academic text, I highly recommend Women, Fire & Dangerous Things by George Lakoff. There’s a section called “Anger, Lust & Rape” that is truly disturbingly insightful as to how unraveling language can reveal our darkest cultural secrets. I’ll see if I can get in touch with George and post the piece here.

Good morning from the south side of Brooklyn, all!

Many of you know my commitment and activism around protecting voters from fraud, disenfranchisement and general craziness. In 2004, I traveled to Ohio to volunteer with the Election Protection coalition; this year, I wasn’t able to make it out of town (due to this lovely little addition to the family: meet Izzy Louise).

I’ve instead been working on a digital election protection project that uses a variety of tools to allow people to report on their voting experiences: check out Twitter Vote Report at http://twittervotereport.com/ . There are a couple amazing things about this project:

– you don’t have to use Twitter to report: text messages, phone calls, iPhones, Androids are all in play
– an *amazing* all-volunteer team came together from across the country to build out the coalition, site & tools in under two weeks

“This is a historic moment” is what we’re going to hear all day today, and I could be prouder to have played a part in making new technologies the means to a better end. (For those keeping score at home: I did the logo, design, website buildout, and helped make the maps and other bits look nice.)

I’ll also be reporting live for GRITtv with Laura Flanders from 12pm-2pm ET today on what we’re seeing; you can also watch the 5-minute clip of me on yesterday’s show, too:

Hope this finds you well… don’t forget to go vote. ;-)