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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Why does 'wokeness' annoy people so much?

999 replies

twwindow · 27/12/2021 20:18

Isn't it just trying to make the world a better place but making people feel accepted no matter their race, gender etc?

It seems to wind some people up so bad - and it's usually those that are part of a majority group that gets wound up most by it (usually white/men) - is it because they feel threatened?

Whenever anyone stands up for a cause they are automatically called woke - and it's now as if it's a bad thing.

It's sad, I see people fed up with 'wokeness' as code for 'we can't get away with our racist, sexist BS anymore as people are calling us out'.

OP posts:
ForagingForMullberries · 28/12/2021 12:26

Third spaces would protect trans people and women.

Those who truly care about trans people and are not about male power would acknowledge and agree to this. A person's real true agenda can be seen when they dismiss third spaces. Anyone genuine would be advocating for third spaces as that is the only workable solution.

HoardingSamphireSaurus · 28/12/2021 12:26

Ah, come on Eresh stop asking. John is never going to proffer up anything to support their statements.

Save your breath! 😉

Ereshkigalangcleg · 28/12/2021 12:28

When you work out that trans people make up about 0.5 percent of the population and then half are transmen and transwomen

Where are you getting these figures from?

JohnHuffam1812 · 28/12/2021 12:30

There is plenty of data about transpeople and violence.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.advocate.com/crime/2021/3/23/trans-people-four-times-likely-face-violent-crime-cis%3famp

www.surrey.ac.uk/news/trans-people-and-cisgender-gay-men-uk-are-most-likely-experience-violence

The ONS even has data that they are more likely to.be the victims of crime over all.

ddl1 · 28/12/2021 12:32

Mostly it annoys people who believe in what they call Traditional Values (i.e. sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, often racism) and don't like to be challenged. 'Woke' is just the new term for what used to be called 'PC run mad'.

But sometimes even people who agree with the basic principles get irritated by the way that some people use it. E.g. people who are preoccupied with what words others use, or how many women/minorities are in high positions, but not with the bread-and-butter issues which affect poorer people, and often disproportionately poorer women and minority group members. I sometimes use the expression 'they worry about the glass ceiling but ignore the glass floor'. And there are some people who are progressive about everything except those things that they actually have control over: e.g. rightly criticizing the government for keeping EU citizens in a state of insecurity, but keeping their own employees in a very similar state of insecurity.

But usually it's just sneering at people to one's left, especially of a younger generation.

JohnHuffam1812 · 28/12/2021 12:33

@Ereshkigalangcleg

My mistake, its 1 percent including gender fluid. But still a tiny percentage of the population will actually be transwomen.

JohnHuffam1812 · 28/12/2021 12:36

@ForagingForMullberries I didn't dismiss third spaces, I said there may be risks involved in this.

I don't know what the solution is but it's evident that both camps are utterly entrenched and not willing to find a solution

Whatiswrongwithmyknee · 28/12/2021 12:37

It is trying to make the world 'better' for a small group of people at the expense of others whilst bullying anyone who says 'shall we actually try and make it better for everyone?'. People who think the issues are as simple as much wokeness would suggest simply have not bothered to try and understand the issues better as they are more interested in showing the world how absolutely fab and intellectually superior they are than actually making a positive difference. I would say people hate wokeness as they actually care.

bordermidgebite · 28/12/2021 12:38

[quote JohnHuffam1812]@ForagingForMullberries I didn't dismiss third spaces, I said there may be risks involved in this.

I don't know what the solution is but it's evident that both camps are utterly entrenched and not willing to find a solution[/quote]
Yes in a transphobic society the method of implementation of third spaces needs careful consideration

I am happy to discuss that ( in another thread) , I think you will find it's the TRA who tend to shut that down ( and for clarity TRA is a subset of transpeople and their supporters )

Blibbyblobby · 28/12/2021 12:43

@JohnHuffam1812

"This is happening" and I agree it needs to be addressed with more nuance than just identifying.

However the current anti stance paints all trans.peiple as prospective sex offenders who merely adopt their status in order to exploit it.

No. That is how the Gender Absolutist side - the side that demands “acceptance without exception” and insists any legal or social recognition that significant and material differences exist between female people (of any gender) and trans women is transphobic and verboten - misrepresent what is actually being said in order to dismiss any attempt to address the real injustices their ideologically driven demands imposed upon female people as “anti trans”.

If you listen to what people are really saying rather than what you are being told they say, no one is saying “all trans.peiple as prospective sex offenders” any more than the existence of (originally) single sex spaces is saying “all males are prospective sex offenders”.

What is really being said is:

Female people commit vastly fewer sex offences than male
There is no evidence that male trans women follow female rather than male sex offending patterns
The evidence from prisons would suggest trans women actually offend more than the male rate but this could be due to false claims of trans identities
If it becomes generally socially acceptable for male people to use female facilities, either through an official policy of Self ID or through “Stonewall Law” where the social consequences of challenging a self-declared trans identity produce de facto self id, female people will have no way of differentiating between the majority of males in their spaces who are “harmless”* and the minority of males who are not.

To put it briefly, if any male can gain access to female spaces without having to prove their true identity as a woman **, female people must consider all males in their spaces a potential threat, not because all males are a potential threat, but because the knowledge of whether any given male is a threat or not is not always available to them in the circumstances that male is encountered.

  • physically anyway. I believe the doctrine of Womanhood as an aspect of mind rather than a type of body is in itself damaging to female people, being after all exactly the basis on which we were denied the vote, ownership of property, rights over our own children, bodily autonomy and indeed full personhood, and because it by definition precludes analysis of how social constructions around the female body and reproductive role produce sexist outcomes. But that’s not the topic here.

** It is worth emphasising here that under the doctrine of gender identity, such proof is in fact impossible anyway, since the entire premise on which gender identity rests is that a person’s gender cannot be externally perceived, and therefore it must follow that the characteristics that would make one a “woman” or a “man” are never, indeed cannot be, defined.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 28/12/2021 12:43

The ONS even has data that they are more likely to.be the victims of crime over all.

Can you link to that? The Williams study is American, which is quite a different culture and population. The Surrey university study gives some U.K. figures but appears to combine violent threats with actual violence, which would mean that most gender critical feminists would meet that criteria, too.

JohnHuffam1812 · 28/12/2021 12:49

There have been people here who identify all transwomen as potential sex offenders.

I agree that the situation is difficult, is there a compromise, should someone be living as a woman for a certain length of time before they can use female spaces, a third space?

JohnHuffam1812 · 28/12/2021 12:51

Actually that's a conversation for another time and elsewhere.

Whatiswrongwithmyknee · 28/12/2021 12:52

There have been people here who identify all transwomen as potential sex offenders.

I follow a lot of the gender identity threads as I am worried about the dismantling of sex based protections in a world which is still to oppressive to women. I have never ever seen anyone identify all transwomen as potential sex offenders and would speak out against anyone who did. There is a complete lack of evidence in all of the gender ideology so what might be helpful is if, for a change, people tried to substantiate what they say. With that in mind, can you copy and post the comments where this has happened?

HoardingSamphireSaurus · 28/12/2021 12:53

@JohnHuffam1812

There have been people here who identify all transwomen as potential sex offenders.

I agree that the situation is difficult, is there a compromise, should someone be living as a woman for a certain length of time before they can use female spaces, a third space?

All men are potential sex offenders, that's the point being made.

That you insist that the compromise had to be women being made less safe us a perfect illustration of ignoring the voices of women.

Again, why not ask men to be less violent?

Why ask women to accept increased violence?

JohnHuffam1812 · 28/12/2021 12:54

Back to the woke.

There was a recent thread where people were discussing education outcomes for white boys on fsm. This whole issue has been used by people and thr government to dismiss any discussion of racism in schools and thr UK as "woke" . It almost feels like its used just to shut things down.

TurquoiseBaubles · 28/12/2021 12:55

What is the definition of "crime"? Hate crime such as "transphobia" or "misgendering" isn't quite the same as an actual crime so it would be interesting to see a breakdown.

Where are the posters identifying all transwomen as potential sex offenders? Transwomen are no more, and no less likely to be potential sex offenders as men (and women traditionally need safe spaces away from men).

No, no length of time "living as a woman" (has anyone defined that yet?) should allow any male person into women's single sex spaces as the entry of a male means it's no longer a single sex space.

JohnHuffam1812 · 28/12/2021 12:56

"Why ask women to accept inxreasd violence"

The persistent misrepresentation of points does not help the discourse.

JohnHuffam1812 · 28/12/2021 12:57

I like how the data on crime is now suggested to be incorrect.

bordermidgebite · 28/12/2021 12:59

@JohnHuffam1812

Back to the woke.

There was a recent thread where people were discussing education outcomes for white boys on fsm. This whole issue has been used by people and thr government to dismiss any discussion of racism in schools and thr UK as "woke" . It almost feels like its used just to shut things down.

Which is why focus on the word woke rather than the different types of injustice is counter productive
JohnHuffam1812 · 28/12/2021 13:00

I agree.

I don't find any people who are discussing injustice classing themselves as woke. It's more used a derogatory term.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 28/12/2021 13:02

Strange that there is no link to the claimed "more likely to be victims of crime" figures in that guardian article. I find with most statistics about trans issues, it's often not as it seems. Are these based on a convenience sample recruited through trans organisations, like most of the research? Which crimes? Illegal fly tipping? Or rape? Or more likely, being misgendered on the internet?

HoardingSamphireSaurus · 28/12/2021 13:03

You lack logic John

Including men, any men, in single sex female spaces increases the risk for women.

The question about crime us long discussed here and it is wholly appropriate to drill down into data to find out if the crimes reported include such things as hate crime - which includes men and women saying that human beings cannot change sex. Look up the very recent court case of man called Harry and the police recording non crime incidents.

You may think your posts are uncovering bias and hatred here but what you are really seeing is women defending the rights of women. And doing it with evidence, clarity of thought and consistent use of critical thinking.

Whatiswrongwithmyknee · 28/12/2021 13:04

@Whatiswrongwithmyknee

There have been people here who identify all transwomen as potential sex offenders.

I follow a lot of the gender identity threads as I am worried about the dismantling of sex based protections in a world which is still to oppressive to women. I have never ever seen anyone identify all transwomen as potential sex offenders and would speak out against anyone who did. There is a complete lack of evidence in all of the gender ideology so what might be helpful is if, for a change, people tried to substantiate what they say. With that in mind, can you copy and post the comments where this has happened?

Hi John, did you see this question? Genuinely would like you to cut and paste examples of this.