A resource is something that can be used to meet a need, such as money, materials, time, or skills. Natural resources are things like water, forests, and minerals that come from the Earth.
From French *ressource* meaning 'means of supplying a need', from *ressourdre* 'to arise again'. The original idea is of something that 'rises up again' to help you in difficulty.
Resources aren’t just things; they’re possibilities—ways to solve problems. A person with few financial resources but many social and mental resources may actually be better equipped than they first appear.
The language of 'resources' has sometimes objectified people, including women, as 'human resources' or 'reproductive resources,' reducing them to economic or biological functions. Care work, largely done by women, has often been treated as an invisible or free resource.
Avoid referring to people, especially caregivers or communities, as mere resources; describe their agency and expertise. Use 'resources' for tools, materials, or support systems, not for reducing persons to inputs.
["support","material","asset","reference"]
When discussing resources in organizations or communities, acknowledge the undervalued labor—often performed by women—that sustains those systems, and frame it as skilled work, not just a 'resource.'
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