To think that "wokeism" is for the privileged few?

[Mooscow]

Wokeism and identity politics seems rife at the moment in the UK. But Canada and the US seem even worse. There is this massive push to avoid the possibility of ever offending anyone, ever. For example, I work for a North American company and we've just been given a long list of words never to use. This includes "female", "blind", "deaf", "blacklist", "homeless", "rule of thumb" and it goes on and on and on. So you can't say things like "turn a blind eye" or "tone deaf" etc. any more in case it offends a blind or deaf person. Really?!

I've just read an article in the FT (sorry can't share) that says the US has only sent 111million out of its pledge to send 1 billion vaccines to poorer countries. The US has 2 and a half times the amount of vaccines it needs for itself and Canada has ordered 8 times what it needs.

I know that vaccines and wokeism has little in common but it just struck me how so much effort is put into this new purity culture whilst at the same time demonstrating utter selfishness and lack of compassion for anyone else.

It's also like the push to remove the word women from healthcare such as cervical screening in case a transman, as a "cervix haver" 🤮 is offended at being grouped with women, while 40% of women (especially those without English as a first language and those in lower socio-economic groups) don't even know what a cervix is. But screw them, let's let them get cervical cancer while we pat ourselves on the back and virtue signal at making sure we don't offend by telling the truth the tiny, tiny proportion of trans people.

I wonder if the whole work/identity politics stuff is based in the fact that privileged people can effortlessly virtue signal to feel better about themselves whilst remaining selfish, uncaring and apathetic towards people who are actually in need or vulnerable. AIBU?

Your post makes no sense and you lost me at the vaccine bit.

People throw around the term “woke” to shut down sensible debate about racism, sexism etc so I have little time for people that use that phrase in a derogatory way.

I have no feet you unfeeling person.

I’m deaf…I am no way insulted by someone being called tone deaf.

It’s gone too far really

By the way maybe the rule of thumb might be better understood if the use of a rule to mean a measuring implement (so a ruler in modern money) was understood?

So you stand there putting your thumb up and squinting or place the thumb on a surface: it's your ruler.🤷

@Soubriquet

I’m deaf…I am no way insulted by someone being called tone deaf.

It’s gone too far really

Am glad you said this because I was pulled up for using this recently. By someone who was not deaf.

@Marchingredsoldiers

That list of words not to say is annoying. I like the idea behind wokeness (a word?) - basically empathy. But when it become a tool to censor, it is self-defeating.

But why is "homeless" offensive? It is a important social problem. What do you use instead - or am i being horribly ignorant?

Homefree 🤷‍♀️😂

It's all just ridiculous.

You are following the tabloid definition of woke, which is surprisingly similar to the old political correctness trope. Which suggested that considering other people's point of view was some kind of impossible task.

The original definition of woke, which came from black activist circles, was entirely opposite to this. It was about seeing the systemic, structural inequalities that cause oppression, rather than being distracted by minutiae. Because the powers that be would really rather we were debating toilet signs than demanding equal pay or an end to pollution, child labour etc.

Taking the time to avoid hurting someone is a decent thing to do. Whatever you call it.

Wtf. Your company better tell the deaf and blind community they’re doing it all wrong.

YANBU. This is bonkers. And are you allowed to say male?

@ChooChooSan no I use a ruler or tape measure, I'm too indecisive, it would take me ages to figure out which thumb rule of thumb to rule with.

I'm also tone deaf, specifically 50% at 10kHz.

Oh silly me. Ignore that comment. Being a bit of a pratt this evening. Apologies pregnant (gravid) fish!

@vickibee

It originates from a stick where a man was allowed to beat his wife

I thought this was debunked. It originates from people using body parts to measure when rulers etc where too expensive for common folk. There was no laws limiting general wife-beating at all.

You have two differentiated thumb rulers which would give you far too much accuracy to be considered genuinely using "rule of thumb." I therefore recommend the back of a fag packet calculation (but use discretion and do not disclose this to any US colleagues.)

@Chickenkatsu

I thought that it might offend people with no thumbs.

🤣 me too!

@EnidFrighten

You are following the tabloid definition of woke, which is surprisingly similar to the old political correctness trope. Which suggested that considering other people's point of view was some kind of impossible task.

The original definition of woke, which came from black activist circles, was entirely opposite to this. It was about seeing the systemic, structural inequalities that cause oppression, rather than being distracted by minutiae. Because the powers that be would really rather we were debating toilet signs than demanding equal pay or an end to pollution, child labour etc.

Taking the time to avoid hurting someone is a decent thing to do. Whatever you call it.

This is true as well. It has been appropriated from black people and repurposed to suit some v silly people.

Someone will need to explain to me why FEMALE isn't allowed.

Let me guess, male is?

A lot of this isn’t “woke” though, people with lived experience of these things / the communities they are part of have themselves stated that they find the words or phrases inaccurate or offensive. Referring to “the homeless” or “homeless people” as if all people with no fixed address are some homogeneous mass, has been considered a bit dehumanising for ages. Many people with vision and hearing impairments dislike being called blind or deaf. We don’t say it’s “woke” that people with learning disabilities are no longer called retards, do we? Language is important, because words evoke feelings and help perpetuate stereotypes.

@RoomOfRequirement

Someone will need to explain to me why FEMALE isn't allowed.

Let me guess, male is?

So they don’t upset the transwomenn. Trans men don’t count cos you know..

‘The original definition of woke, which came from black activist circles, was entirely opposite to this. It was about seeing the systemic, structural inequalities that cause oppression, rather than being distracted by minutiae. Because the powers that be would really rather we were debating toilet signs than demanding equal pay or an end to pollution, child labour etc.’

Exactly. This is why I wince everytime I see the word ‘woke’ now as it’s been twisted out of all recognition. The whole original point of it was to say you were ‘awake’ and could see the bigger structural picture, not fighting over the silly stuff designed to distract you which is exactly what is being done now.

People seem to be conflating “wokeism “ with so called political correctness - especially politically correct language.

PC language and wokeism aren’t the same thing.

There was an interview on the other day and they said that Woke is just another stick to beat the masses with.
When words are being banned do people really intend to police this, I saw Christmas was being deleted in favour of Holiday Period,

I don't like tokenistic corporate approaches to this kind of stuff

But I've also seen people use the word woke to shut down legitimate challenges to racism, homophobia etc along with phrases like virtue signalling.

Some people go out of their way to be offended but equally, some people are outright offensive and hold views that should be challenged even when the response to the challenge is "oh you're just being woke".

I have only one friend who is woke and not even my teens can stand her. However, she has always tried hard to be on trend. These days she would be correcting you about which words not to say, quoting idiots and recommending the latest woke books. She tries hard. I avoid her as she is unbearable. I bet she will not take a refugee in or a homeless but is lecturing everyone all the time.

"I saw Christmas was being deleted in favour of Holiday Period,"

Were was this happening?

I don't see the issue with dropping some phrases. There's more specific, professional terms to use and sometimes confuses people who don't recognise their meaning.

I am both female and (partially) deaf and most definitely can't sing, so technically I am a tone deaf fanny. Why is the truth offensive? 🤷‍♀️