Sick of everything being about identity

[CalmMooCowNibbles]

Everything seems to be about identity nowadays in Britain. Ethnicity, gender, religion. AIBU? or is anyone else feeling this way? Is this this just life now? Makes me want to run off to Greece and live out the rest of my days in some remote mountain

Its so self important

Its supposed to be a show about sex and relationships 😭

Identity:

1. the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.
2. a close similarity or affinity.

I get it OP.

So much focus is on what people identify with rather than what the reality is.

I struggle with the term “neurodivergence” for example. It’s so inclusive that it means nothing. There is already a phrase “neuro-atypical” which means different from the normal range.

I often find that the people that use the ND term are more interested into publicly leaning into the ND as an victimising identity and expect others to take action, where as the people who use “Atypical” take on the challenge and eventually find their groove and will only talk about how they feel victimised by the systems privately.

I wonder if it’s things like this.

I had to fill out a form for something fairly serious this week. I could not submit without answering questions on my gender identity, race and various other things. None of which had any bearing on the matter at hand.

Really annoyed me that I had to answer all of these questions - I put no comment/prefer not to say for all which thankfully was an option.

Usually you can just say you don’t want to answer these questions and skip this aspect but this actually forced you to faff about selecting no for about 15 fecking questions that were irrelevant.

I know it’s data collection for future blah blah blah but for fucks sake. Time and a place and this was not it.

This. Every single fucking point. Hang out on the politics board to see the liberal elite waving their virtue signalling banners, whilst happily throwing the working classes under the bus... Labour is no longer for us anymore.

Your problem is with the assumption that modern left parties are in fact interested in or pursuing policies that are better for the less well off in society. It's not at all clear that they are, which is why they are losing the votes of those people.

They are mainly trying very hard to convince themselves they are still "the good guys". While pursuing policies that benefit the urban professional class.

I agree. It’s not about practicable fairness and wealth distribution anymore. They have taken the “vulnerability as strength” and the #bekind” bollocks and completely ignores the systemic inequities that prevents dependency.

I watched a bit of an episode and it seemed to be about the womenfolk getting stereotypically dolled up to have sex with their male partners - except for the fetishy lesbian couple who had fetishy sex in a pool because lesbians, especially one who doesn't want to be a woman, aren't so vanilla as to have sex in a bed. SATC always had some pretty old fashioned ideas but now it seems to tie them up in a 'progressive' bow and I'm not buying it.

The collective identities that people choose to form an allegiance with are often more personal and therefore create smaller groups. So yes, people can feel they are a part of something, but it is because it related specifically to them, such as in your example. It is therefore more about the individual than a collective care for others, who may have difference experiences.

Interesting view. To clarify, are you suggesting that a disabled person (for instance) who focuses on fighting for rights for disabled people can be criticised for only paying attention to the issue that affects them as an individual, instead of having a more collective perspective and campaigning for "care for everyone" regardless of their differences, experiences, identities, or ascribed status?

In other words, campaigning for "your" small group is a distraction from campaigning for a more caring society in general?

In the late 80’s there were people who would say things like ‘it’s political correctness gone mad’ when talking about closing the big psychiatric institutions and who might move into their streets, or changing what sort of child would be sent to a special school, employing the best candidate for a job even when they seemed a bit camp and should’ve kept all that ‘behind closed doors’ or should’ve ditched the sari for a proper business suit if they wanted to be taken seriously for a promotion.

Zooming in to one part of the OP, this isn’t a ‘nowadays’ new thing. Been going on for decades. What is ‘normal’, who gets to define that and what are the implications of not being whatever normal is in one circumstance, place or time? Should people who don’t fit in mask/pass/closet/turn-on-tune-in-drop out or get gobby and make ‘normal’ change?

The current major emitters are the developing nations. The current major investors in low carbon energy are the developed countries.

The historical beneficiaries of high carbon emission processes are (generally) in the industrialised west and the current big polluters in societies racing to catch up and get what we got. So much of this argument is, I think, overlaying ‘you can’t do what we did 150 years ago even though that’s largely what made us what we are and you want that too’.

Yanbu op. Mad times indeed. Thankfully the gender nonsense and BLM movement seems to be on the way out.

The word ‘chaos’ is derived from Ancient Greek. You’d literally be going to the home of chaos! 😆

But...... Everyone has an identity. That's just fact. It's how you would describe yourself.

For example parts of my identity are woman, wife, mother, leader, reader, mumsnetter, cook, camper and carer. All come together to make me.

It's impossible not to have an identity.

The issue is others forcing their identity onto others like it's all defining. Your identity will change as you go through life. In my younger years I would have said:

Hot, punk, blonde, singer, party animal, drug user, borderline alcoholic, low wage, anarchist.

Very different to now! 😂

So how do you think people who are different from you should think about themselves, and advocate for themselves? Or are they lesser than you, in your mind?

Nicely put @TourangaLeila. If I am experiencing difficulties in accessing employment, goods and services, public places as a result of one of the components of my identity then I’m bloody well going to say something*.

*accessing my crone (very few shits left to give, meno ate many shits) sub-identity there. For example, ‘I’m not invisible and/or irrelevant, I have bloody well earned my seat at this table and you, (insert other identity of your choice here) will stop talking and first, fucking listen until I have finished my sentence and then second, fucking stop it’.

I’m sure that’s me playing ‘identify politics’ to some who felt awkward about catching a bit that. But y’know, crone, whatever, call it what you like.

Sorry is this directed at me or the op?

Yes, such a relief to get back to normal, and acknowledge that black lives don't matter after all.

Regardless the UK is only 1% of world emissions and completely insignificant.

The US isn't..But this thread has gone all over the place because OP has dropped a post and run.

is this current or cumulative data?

They’re very different things though. Gender is made up. Sex is binary and to me you can’t identify your way out of those, you either are something or you aren’t. Religion is something people choose and can change and also be complicated- people from mixed religion backgrounds etc- so I believe people can identify as that. Again I think ethnicity is complicated- lots of people are mixed, born in one place, people from another. I don’t think it’s as simple as sex.

I'm having a bad day today as well. Woke up this morning thinking what's the point when everyone is just out for themselves?
I'm just hoping that tomorrow is a better day.

Younger generations always are/were. We just called it something different.