Moderated by Christiana Langenberg, advising coordinator for women’s and gender studies, the 1B session of the first session discussed language and identity and how the two topics can be intertwined with one another.

In the Cardinal Room of the Memorial Union, three presentators gave presentations on experiences and studies they each had worked with during their academic studies in higher education.

Megan Chuah, sophomore in English, gave the first presentation of the hour. The presentation, “Excuse You: Words that Hurt,” was an end-term project Chuah participated in with classmates for their sociology 102 class in the summer of 2016 while Chuah attended Taylor’s University in Malaysia.

Instructions left by her professor were that Chuah and her classmates needed to organize a campaign to spread awareness about an issue currently experienced within society.

Chuah said her group decided on the name “Excuse You” due to the usage of the phrase by Chuah and her friends.

“I say ‘excuse you’ a lot when someone says something offensive,” Chuah said. “We [my friends and I] use it so often, especially to call people out.”

Chuah said the inspiration behind “Excuse You” came from her peers.

During the presentation, Chuah said “Excuse You” focused on emotional appeal and a lack of branding.

“It was effective because the volunteers didn’t need to explain it to people,”

Many of the volunteers had signs with words that have caused them harm at one point in their lives. Two volunteers carried a board around campus to allow people to write on sticky notes and place them on the boards.

Chuah said overall the campaign received unanimous support from their audiences which consisted of Taylor’s University students and administers and Chuah’s professors.

“No one questioned them [the volunteers], asked them why they did it; they understood why,” Chuah said.

Chuah said her group was prepared for the backlash they could see on campus, and their instructor told the group to prepare for comebacks to use to justify their campaign.

“I guess we just lost faith in humanity,” Chuah said, receiving laughs from those in attendance.

With all the stories from the university’s students shared, Chuah said no one disagreed or argued against their initiative.

“Faith in humanity was restored,” Chuah said, receiving another set of chuckles from her audience.

As soon as Vinz Faure began to speak, his accent was noticeably different.

Currently Faure is a teaching assistant in the Fulbright program at Central College in Pella, Iowa. Faure is originally from France and completed his studies in Europe prior to coming to United States.

In Faure’s “The Way We Speak Is the Way We Think, or Why We Need a Linguistic (R)Evolution,” he said while the English language does not have the gender nouns in the language, it does have gender biases.

Faure said the usage of saying “hey guys” to address a group of individuals with different genders is a widespread expression used everyday, but leaves people out.

“I’m not saying everyone in here who says that is sexist,” Faure said to clarify.

Faure spoke of how the French language uses gender nouns and lacks the presence of gender neutral pronouns.

Faure said the gender bias debate which is currently seen in the United States has been around since the 1960s.

Faure said in France, the concerns of the usage of gender nouns in the French language have been vocalized, but not as much as it has been in the United States and with the English language or even the Latin community with the usage of the term, “latinx.”

“Most gender bias is in slangs,” Faure said. “The uses of these expressions may not be accepted but is used widespread.”

Faure said he does not believe having just the usage of the “they” pronoun is enough that can be done to enter language into inclusivity.

Faure shared common gender bias terms and words that can be used to replace them. Words and phrases such as “hey guys,” “husband/wife,” “freshman” and “policeman.” Faure shared better expressions eliminating the gender bias such as “hey y’all,” “spouse,” “first-year,” and “police officer.”

“If we don’t reflect what we say or how we say it, we might enforce gender stereotypes and don’t even know it,” Faure said.

Faure said teaching children early and pointing out when individuals have made a mistake is important in moving forward.

In “How Twitter Users #SayHerName: Discursive Framing of Gender Justice in Black Lives Matter,” Darcy Besch, graduate student in sociology, wanted this presentation to be reflective of her master’s thesis.

“I believe that all black lives matter.” Desch said.

Besch started her presentation first by acknowledging Decynthia Clements, a black woman who had been battling with mental health illness, was shot by a police officer in Elgin, Illinois in mid-March.

Besch said her death was over spring break and Besch was about 30 minutes away from where Clements was killed.

“I want all of us to remember people like Decynthia,” Besch said.

Besch then spoke briefly about Black Lives Matter and what it was because she felt that there were many people misinformed about the movement.

Started by Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Khan Cullors, all queer black women, the movement began after Cullor’s made a Facebook post in 2013.

Besch said the movement is a critique that resists state violence against African Americans.

In 2015, Andrea Ritchie, an expert in the policing of women and LGBT people of color, came out with the report “Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women,” in response to the death of Sandra Bland.

The report led to #sayhername, which has been used on social media by activists. The report is to be used as a guide for media when covering events pertaining to the topic.

Besch said when doing her research she had decided to incorporate intersectionality, such as using the black feminist theory and important scholarly articles from the 1960s like the Combahee River Collective and the work of Kimberle Crenshaw from the 1990s, especially when looking at Black Lives Matter.

“I try to study people as complex human beings, not marginalizing their complexities,” Besch said.

Besch said through previous research she found social media users can interact with and shape a social movement on social media.

She also saw a disconnect between Black Lives Matter and the feminist movement. The two are separated and treated as separate things.

Besch said the disconnect negatively impacts African American women because they experience both racism and sexism.

In Besch’s findings she also saw callouts and reminders from twitter users of what she called positiving black men and making it seem like they mattered more than black women.

Besch said there were some mentions of black transgendered women, but with the emphasis on black men, it could be suggested that sexism resides in the movement.

“Does it matter how these people wrote those tweets?” Besch asked. “Bascially it does.”