For those who have kids at university - wokedom

[Teal99]

I have no kids, never went to uni - but where I work there are of young graduates who all seem to be totally on board with the trans woman is a woman concept, using pronouns and all manner of wokedom. They all seem like one group who all say the same things, think the same way....

Just for curiosity, if you have children at uni, or just graduated - are there people in this age group who think differently, even if they don't publicly express to their peers/friends that they don't agree with them? I think there must be some individual thought, which must be hard if they want to fit in/not be ostracised.

I think I just want a bit of hope that this period of madness will pass by and people will start to push back against a lot of wokedom. Or is the toothpaste too far out of the tube?

I know I will probably get shot down here - but hey-ho. Anyway, I honestly think this is all a fad. This generation who all talk & think the same - and who will not listen to anyone who is older than them - will get to their 30s, 40s & 50s and think to themselves "what on earth was i thinking/saying?" I believe we have all been there with different fads when we were teens/ early 20s and then wondered what we were thinking when we get older.

It's a "fad" that has horrific irreversible consequences like double mastectomies.

Goths can let their hair dye grow out.

Casually I was responding to a point that there is a clear dictionary definition of woman. I agree and I’ve posted a couple of times what it says. As with ‘woke’ there are other definitions in common parlance that are substantially different to the dictionary definition. These are all just points of fact

Yeah cookies that would be cool if kids weren’t getting double mastectomies and being given un tested drugs

Children s futures are being changed for ever

Women are losing their jobs academics are frightened to speak out

A soap shop feel they are powerful enough to tell women what they can clothes the6 can wear to visit their shops

Council policies are being changed.

Action aid. A charity said there is no such thing as a biological woman 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Little stop being so ridiculous with your facts we were being told what woke means...get some perspective. 🙃

Cookies I would agree if legal rights women fought for for decades weren’t being chucked under a bus to accommodate this fad

Tbh it’s the thing that grinds my gears the most. blue haired teenagers only see it in terms of be kind/my friend is trans and have no concept of the damage they’re enabling by supporting this

No mama you were being asked what ‘woke’ means. There’s a big but important difference.

In answer to op. I don’t have kids old enough but I don’t know anyone in that age group who is a wokester.

As with ‘woke’ there are other definitions in common parlance that are substantially different to the dictionary definition.

Except that definitions of woman that include men aren’t definitions. They are beliefs, not grounded in fact.

I agree it’s a shame the word “woke” used to mean something else. But usage of words like “woke” changes over time.

The definition of a woman as an adult human female is never going to change. People may be forced to say it has, for fear of losing their job or being “cancelled”, but nothing material will ever change.

@RedtreesRedtrees

As above, I would define myself as woke by reference to the dictionary definition.

Do you believe TWAW? Do you support self ID and should anyone who self ID's ad a women should have access to all female single sex spaces? Looking at your previous posts I would say that you would answer yes to these questions (please correct me if I'm wrong). If so, you are not woke according to the dictionary definition because you are agreeing with an ideology that will exclude many women from ethnic minority or/and abusive backgrounds. Many f then from poor working class backgrounds too.

Excuse fat finger typos

I think another important piece of this is different experiences of internet usage. People who spend a great deal of time online may well be more susceptible to identity politics and mantras because it's true that online, you literally can be whatever you identify as. Your material, physical existence is all but irrelevant. People who live online, who socialise online, who form and maintain friendships online, are just more interested in 'likes' than representing material reality.

I see it with young people who wear extreme contouring make up out and about. Looks great in photographs and videos, utterly weird and ugly in real life. They don't care or understand that they look super weird, because it's more important to look good on instagram.

I think the age divide on the 'twaw' issue is partly to do with younger people being more likely to be internet-addicted and to have significant areas of their life conducted almost exclusively online. Another part of it is the absolute horror of being excluded, something we all feel to some extent, but for teenagers it is a much more pressing fear, and they are way more vulnerable to being excluded if they don't support the correct opinions. It was one thing to sit around smoking weed and chatting about politics - you may or may not have always agreed with your friends. But online, your statements are basically carved in stone. There is also a fear about what this will mean for a future career or relationship. The discussion now is so much more extreme with very little nuance - you either think A and that's correct, or you think B and you are a horrible bigot. There's nothing in between and no way of rehabilitating yourself and your reputation once you have made one wrong step.

So for those saying their children cry and refuse to discuss it, I think they are likely to be genuinely terrified and with good reason.

Agree knives. 👍

@RedtreesRedtrees

Edge I’m sure we’ve covered this already. There is a clear dictionary definition of ‘woke’ but very few posters here use it according to that definition. Instead it seems to be used as some sort of ambiguous pejorative. A few people have been kind enough to expand on what they think it means. Others I suspect don’t really know or haven’t thought about it. It’s interesting to have an entire thread of people describing other people (often their own children) as ‘woke’ with seemingly no consensus on what the term means. This from a forum that is usually (and rightly) obsessed by definitions.

Honestly, Redtrees, this really isn't the gotcha you seem to think it is.

There is a general consensus on this board as to what 'woke' means. We are all starting from the same point of view. Nobody disagrees entirely with the dictionary definition you have provided, and even other dictionaries offer alternative interpretations (e.g someone who perceives themselves to be socially aware etc. etc.) Wikipedia explains some of the ways in which the way the word is used.

On this board, contributors tend to take a rather jaundiced view of 'wokeness' but the general dictionary definition is not rejected. For instance, nobody is arguing that white supremacists should be included in the definition of 'woke'. Nevertheless, some degree of debate is to be expected: the word 'woke' is new, it is evolving and it is an adjective. Adjectives are always slightly more open to interpretation than nouns (eg how do you define 'beautiful'). It is telling that you asked us to define 'woke' rather than 'university'.

'Woman' is a noun. It has existed in English for centuries and its meaning is (for now) unambiguous. Laws are based on the meaning of the word. Women are entitled to women's spaces, women's sports, the right to request a female HCP etc. If the meaning changes to something other than adult human female, that has real world implications and it matters. So yes, the definition is extremely important. It is not just a mindless debating tool.

If laws were based on the definition of the word 'woke', we would not have the luxury of debating it as if we were in a sixth-form common room. We would need a fixed definition. It is a bit like whether a Jaffa cake needed to be defined as either a cake or a biscuit. It was a funny story, but ultimately it mattered because it affected the tax that should be paid on it.

I'm going to stop now, because I fear that this discussion has derailed the thread enough.

I think Abigail is it shriver her surname. Anyway in her talk she did was that the teens girls who came out as trans got huge accolades and their social standing rocketed.

@RedtreesRedtrees

“ Perhaps there needs to be a 'Complete Woke University Guide' so parents can decide which ones they're happy to fund their children to go to? That might make them think a bit about how they treat their academics for a start!”

At the risk of repetition, you’d have to first be able to define ‘woke’

a woke uni guide for parents so they know which institutions to avoid is a fab idea - I would definitely be interested as I would steer my dd clear of any on this list. Some parents might think differently to me and actively choose these uni's of course, and that's fine too - I think they'll be in the minority though!

I think parents can decide for themselves what "woke" means - we can all make our own decisions and read the guide and decide what we think ourselves - no need for a definition.

“The definition of a woman as an adult human female is never going to change. People may be forced to say it has, for fear of losing their job or being “cancelled”, but nothing material will ever change.”

I’m not so sure. Ultimately, there is nothing that anchors a descriptive term to a particular thing other than it’s use (and acceptance) by people to describe that thing. You need only observe the extent of public debate on this topic to see that many people are already using the term woman in a way that is different to the existing dictionary definition. Of course words can sustain different definitions in different contexts, something which is apparent even in a legal setting where the definition of something in one piece of legislation may differ to that in another. That I suspect is a pointer to where the future lies.

@littlbrowndog

I think Abigail is it shriver her surname. Anyway in her talk she did was that the teens girls who came out as trans got huge accolades and their social standing rocketed.

Yes! I can't wait to read her book 'Irreversible Damage' - I think she has a really good grasp of what's going on for girls. It ought to be a conversation-changer, the way research on anorexia was in the 80s and 90s. If it doesn't get suppressed, banned, cancelled etc, I think it will make a big difference. She doesn't seem to really get into the 'twaw' stuff even, but focuses on how teenage girls are being damaged and how they are affected by all this stuff. I heard her talking about how girls sense that they are not being protected and cared for and how they see women are not valued in society, and it rings so true, and I'm sure is a big piece of this. She also talks about the impact of social media and how it's a concrete indicator of your relative popularity (e.g. littlbrowndog got 100 likes for her selfie, but knives only got 3 -- imagine the impact on girls' self-esteem) Anyway, yes, I think it will really help to give a clearer picture of what's going on for young people.

"Woke" reminds me of "born again"

It describes those who believe themselves "awake" to various issues. Those who are "woke" believe themselves to be conscious of injustices of which the majority of people remain ignorant and uneducated.

It has a religious feel to it.

It is also an umbrella term which leaves it open to differing interpretations since it lacks specifics. It is a word a person might need to look up when they first come across it unlike for example "environmentalist" which is fairly self explanatory.

The first time I heard the term "woke" it was used with a derogatory implication.

Woke is a new and abstract concept unlike the word woman which is concrete, based in material reality and has been so since time immemorial.

Woke = abstract noun

Woman = concrete noun

We tend to have more room for debate around the nature of the abstract than the concrete, unless we are questioning the nature of reality itself.

Edge, thanks for summarising the views of everyone else on the thread. Very helpful 👍

GC DS loves his woke uni.

Who uses the word to describe themselves?

@BaronEssoStation

Who uses the word to describe themselves?

People who think they are "woke" but they're not!

Really?

They wouldn't feel like an arse saying it?