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?

@ChooChooSan

What's wrong with rule of thumb? Can't get that.

Might offend someone who has lost a thumb in an accident, especially if their surname is Rule

@DameFanny

There's no push to call women cervix-havers in healthcare, this is a myth along the lines of 'oh my god they're cancelling Christmas' and you're falling for it. Healthcare services are expanding the way they refer to people to include trans people, but the transphobes are pushing the narrative that you're swallowing

I'd love to see the memo where you've been told never to use female etc, I'd bet money you've misinterpreted or exaggerated that.

And 'wokism' is a good deal to do with awareness that whiteness, maleness, westernness, isn't the default and shouldn't be the whole story. It's wokeness that's shouting about making vaccines available to the global South - when it isn't health officials wanting to reduce variants - so you've got that wrong too.

Well if you'd bet you'd have lost your money. I obviously can't publish the list as it's a confidential internal document. But it was a list of terms that are "forbidden" and suggested alternatives. One of those terms was "females". Males did not make the list.

Interesting that you would assume I must have made this up or exaggerated. Do you normally choose to disbelieve things that don't fit your narrative?

Like saying there is no push to erase women from healthcare. You clearly don't read the news then. The Scottish government have deliberately erased the word women and I think it was today or yesterday that the Royal College of Midwives had to apologise for using "birthing people" instead of mothers. There are lots more examples but it sounds to me as if you are deliberately shutting your eyes to anything that doesn't conform to your own narrative.

Others may be along to give links to real life examples of this. It's not a myth.

@lastqueenofscotland

I have found an awful lot of “woke” people I’ve met tend to be white, from reasonably affluent back grounds and well educated who are often very sniffy to people who haven’t had the same educational opportunities as them. While I am the first person to agree that people who use racist/homophobic/misogynistic language should be pulled up I find a lot of the woke brigade tell people of colour how they should feel toward other peoples, how people from deprived backgrounds should behave and vote. How dare you tell someone that their experience is invalid because you feel your education is better, as that’s essentially what’s going on. It’s the language of superiority just through bizarre virtue signalling.

Exactly! It's always the same with any well meaning movement. When 'women's lib' was always being talked about anything with 'man' was banned, eg a manhole cover became an inspection chamber cover (I think). People spent a lot of time trawling the language for something about which they could feign offence and as a result a genuine movement was open to ridicule.

@ChooChooSan

Now I've put my foot in it.

Since we went metric surely this should say I've put my thirty centimetres in it.

@Mooscow
Others may be along to give links to real life examples of this. It's not a myth.

It’s not a myth but it’s real world impact is vastly overstated. Much of the so called Culture Wars is a few thousand holier than thou “woke obsessed” people tweeting/content creating on Twitter/TikTok/Youtube, which then gets gleefully exploited by traditional right wing media/right wing content creators for the entertainment/superficial outrage of tens of million of (mostly) right wing people.
The whole things is a farce.

And the only people really benefiting from the shouting match are the traditional media/content creators on both sides who profit from the whole circus very nicely indeed.

Manholes are called inspection chambers these days. Not a myth, also not a problem . Google surface water inspection chambers and you will get a spec for a manhole.

@elgreco

Manholes are called inspection chambers these days. Not a myth, also not a problem . Google surface water inspection chambers and you will get a spec for a manhole.

But what was wrong with manhole covers? Clearly they now have the tortured inspection chamber covers but the reasoning dates back to the use of 'man' in words, I was around in those days.

@ChooChooSan

Now I've put my foot in it.

I put my foot in it once. Took ages to wash it off of my shoes. Therefore any mention of putting one's foot in it is immensely distressing.

Well if you'd bet you'd have lost your money. I obviously can't publish the list as it's a confidential internal document. But it was a list of terms that are "forbidden" and suggested alternatives. One of those terms was "females". Males did not make the list.

a) "Females" is a noun. I'm not too fond of being referred to as "a female". I find it highly unlikely that any medical organisation could "forbid" the word female as an adjective - if it's true that would certainly be outrageous and make many medical discussions very difficult.

b) The notion that women are being "erased" by the use of inclusive language, or that "we're not allowed to call ourselves women" is really nonsense. Whatever language they choose to use to invite people tends to mean "women and transmen". If I extend my invitation to a Christmas midnight mass to "people from all denominations" it doesn't mean that I'm erasing Catholics and they mustn't call themselves Catholic any more.

In fairness, nothing wrong with the term but it was changed. Just being pedantic.

@ilovesooty

I can't take anyone seriously who uses the term 'wokeism'. It's perfectly possible to discuss the use of language without it.

THIS

A few years ago 'woke' just meant using enlightened and considerate language. But somehow that was changed with extreme examples, possibly encouraged by certain newspapers who want to fuel outrage (in the same way they did about 'political correctness gone mad' etc) and by using it the word in a negative way and using phrases like 'war on woke' - suddenly being 'woke' is seen as a bad thing. This could be in part a way for people who want to keep the status quo and want to use language that was seen as acceptable in the 70s and 80s and don't want to change!

@ComtesseDeSpair

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.

Many people with vision and hearing impairments dislike being called blind or deaf.

Odd then that there are so many charitable organisations for such people with the words 'blind' or 'deaf' in their titles.

Go on then, what was the suggested alternative for female @Mooscow? And 'rule of thumb' and 'tone deaf'?

@LobsterNapkin

OP, you might be interested in reading some stuff by Adolph Reed - you can find lots of articles online. He's an American academic. He basically says that the whole point of identity politics, which is what wokeism really amounts to, is to allow neoliberals and elites to go on exploiting people while deflecting criticism for doing so. They can maintain the moral high ground (look, we are anti-racist) while still exploiting the poor. So long as the poor are reflective of the population demographics, it's ok!

It's a bit like the greenwashing that goes on. Like Nestle going on about veganism while being a massive polluter and having many other dubious practices.

So who exactly are the privileged few ? White middle class educated liberal lefty types ? Or white upper class educated right wing types ? Like Rees Mogg for example ? Who doesn't have a liberal bone in his body and is against abortion, same sex marriage...So Rees Mogg is hardly woke but hugely privileged and hates the idea of women being in control of their bodies. Plenty of incredibly privileged unbelievably rich types around who are far from woke, happy to lie and manipulate the people you actually feel are left out by wokeism and have huge amounts of power to control the lives of us plebs.

Perhaps we shouldn’t say ‘legless’ when someone gets drunk, or an amputee like me might get upset. When actually I laugh more at the red faces when people realise.

"Homefree" is apparently allowed but "homeless" isn't.
How obscene. "Free" is a word with positive associations, therefore "homefree" conjures up images of travelling Europe in a VW Camper on some trip to "find yourself". Whereas "homeless" clearly describes someone who is missing a basic human right, and would not be in that situation by choice (real choice; not "you chose to walk out on the man who beat you").

@DameFanny

There's no push to call women cervix-havers in healthcare, this is a myth along the lines of 'oh my god they're cancelling Christmas' and you're falling for it. Healthcare services are expanding the way they refer to people to include trans people, but the transphobes are pushing the narrative that you're swallowing

I'd love to see the memo where you've been told never to use female etc, I'd bet money you've misinterpreted or exaggerated that.

And 'wokism' is a good deal to do with awareness that whiteness, maleness, westernness, isn't the default and shouldn't be the whole story. It's wokeness that's shouting about making vaccines available to the global South - when it isn't health officials wanting to reduce variants - so you've got that wrong too.

If what you said were true, then "woman" would be followed by whichever other term. Not obliterated. Plenty of examples to choose from.

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

Or can't I say that now?

Oh, and you should point out to them that rule of thumb has nothing to do with DV and everything to do with estimating measurements. Perhaps if you say you're offended by their associating the phrase with DV they might do something.

But go on, what are the recommended alternatives?

And what's your evidence that the Scottish government have 'erased' women?

I don't know what you're trying to say @DdraigGoch. What's been obliterated? Link? Example?

Don't you think it's great that people try to do stuff better, to be better, share how they're trying to make things better,
@DameFanny why don't they try and do something about the things which really matter? You know, starvation, lack of clean water, violence, poverty etc.

But then I suppose that an employer coming up with a document on how "turning a blind eye" is offensive is so much easier and cheaper than adapting the workplace so that blind people may be able to find gainful employment there.

@DuckonaBike

I think when concepts like being PC and woke first started they were genuinely about trying to treat people respectfully and avoiding unfairness. I completely agree that they are now often empty gestures and a way to distract from not actually doing anything to reduce injustice. It’s so much easier to police people’s language than to find ways to reduce real inequality.

My policy now is to make sure I use language that’s polite and accurate. If anyone objects because it’s not the currently fashionable term then I’m not bothered.

I think people really get the wrong idea about the term PC. Or at least the ones who want to say it is really just being polite and listening, and stupid Daily Mail readers complaining about PC gone mad etc.don't understand what it really means.

The term politically correct comes right out of the Soviet system and it refers to people being required to toe the line on issues decided upon by the Party, no matter how factually idiotic or obviously silly.

There were certainly people who just wanted to be nice back in the 90s when this was going on. But a lot of it was similarly about language control, and defining who was in the in-group who knew the right term of the moment. The claim that by changing such words, often ones that were never inherently rude or pejorative, will somehow conquer systemic inequalities was always pretty suspect and one has to wonder who was really served by it.

It’s not being ‘woke’ they are snowflakes! Every thing you say nowadays offends someone.... take me back to the days when you could say you didn’t like someone without race or sexuality brought into it.... you know you can hate people based on thier personality!