I don't feel the phrase needs to be modified so much as the way it is (mis) interpreted here in this community needs to be pushed against. The problem isn't the phrase itself, it's the immediate way people who are already against what it represents tend to use it against others.
"Believe Women" is a perfectly good distillation of the sentiment behind this movement. You can't begin to make things right on a larger scale without that aspect coming into play.
I talked about it in a locked thread prior, but what keeps happening here is a pretty basic division: People react badly to "believe women" in many instances because their default when it comes to these conversations is "
Defend the Man."
Believe Women doesn't need to be changed. The default status of "
Defend the Man" needs to be examined more closely.
A large reason why more women don't even come into these threads once
Defend the Man has been established is because now the atmosphere for their POV is basically poisoned. It's partially what makes
Persephone 's thread
so useful/necessary, and also what makes it such a contrast to the parade of sexual harassment threads that typically crop up here.
