Woke friends

[shabanga]

Name changed, regular poster.

I just need some advice. How do you guys handle friends captured by wokeness?

I have an old friend who I noticed kept quiet about woke issues whenever I mentioned them, which I optimistically hoped meant she agreed but was too afraid to say, because she works in academia.

However after our last meet up I feel like she is totally captured and I was unable to say anything due to the circumstances of that meet up (kids around). I feel so sad about it because I know she is a good person. I feel like she needs her eyes opening but I just don't know how to do it. I'm so terrible at directness and want to be gentle with her.

Any advice much appreciated.

‘An alternative words for woke which probably fits better are probably moralistic, pious and evangelical.‘

The problem is that ‘pious’ and ‘evangelical’ do have specific and not necessarily pejorative meanings . I would define myself as ‘pious’: I read the office every morning, I honour many Saint’s days, I pray….( and I don’t care if the atheists laugh at me, he who laughs last etc. ). I don’t think my worst enemy would describe me as ‘woke’ though.

Similarly ‘evangelical’ has a specific meaning (although Capitalised) , and has a neutral usage in history. WOKE is still the best term, IMHO, because it was self produced, its adherents used to boast about being woke, and indeed ask other people if they were. (Mainly so they could launch into one of their boring and illogical rants). They have only got cold feet as it has sunk into the public consciousness, and rather a lot of people have realised that they don’t much care for the views and policies represented.

You sound like a patronising "friend". You don't get to dictate what others think, and it's arrogant in the extreme to be thinking that your role in life is to convert others to the "right way" of thinking. You wouldn't need to worry about such things if you were my friend - the minute you started your "conversion therapy" you'd be my ex-friend. If your basis for friendship is so shallow that you need your friends to agree with you, then it'll not be any great loss to her to find out that you aren't really a friend of hers.

I’ve had this, I have a good friend who works in fashion and is very much TWAW. It’s taken a few years but last time we spoke she didn’t cut me down as she had previously.
Interestingly it was the Pelicot case that helped as we were talking about how depraved men can be compared to women which led to me talking about crime stats and how they’re skewed when TW are classed as women.

I’ve started to use the term ‘penis person’ instead of man and talk a lot about ‘penis privilege’ instead of male privilege. It seemed to help her realise that it doesn’t make a difference what clothes cover the penis, the privilege is still there in terms of strength, body shape, offending rates, entitlement etc.

Firstly, if it can possibly be avoided I won’t bring up topics I am likely to disagree with my friends on. There are plenty of other topics to discuss.
If it is something I don’t know much about, I’ll listen to their pov and consider it, then go away to look into it if I think I need to.

If something comes up and I hear something I know I strongly disagree with (the scenario I think you are referring to here), I will make a mild comment of disagreement- they can then drop it if they don’t want to go there.

If they carry on to tell me where I am wrong then ok, we go there. I don’t make contradictory statements without knowing my ground. I will take their argument head on and discuss it. I’m willing to be persuaded to their pov if they can make the case (it’s happened) but will not back down if they cannot. I’m pretty good at defending my opinions as I don’t start unless I know what I’m talking about. It will then continue until they drop it. The ferocity of my discussion will match theirs. I’ll always drop the matter as soon as someone wants to.

Over time this has meant that if I start to defend a ‘controversial’ position, my friends know this is not due to lack of knowledge on the topic and generally only continue if they are genuinely interested in my pov rather than in ‘educating’ me.

Lost no friends so far - fingers crossed - but probably put a few acquaintances off closer friendship, if I’m honest.

but is woke not the new normal, i mean if society wants a star trek style utopia where everyone is respected ect then at some point society needs to become more woke overall ?

'Progressive' authoritarianism is more like it.

I have a friend that’s so woke I despair. It really makes me question everything I thought I knew about her as an intelligent, reflective human being. We skirt around the subject, but I’m increasingly uncomfortable in her company.

I also have a sister who in all seriousness holds up Eddie Izzard as the paragon of womanhood, and I’m a bigot for disagreeing. We don’t talk anymore.

Slightly blunt answer here, but if differences of views are affecting a friendship then (peacefully) end it and find new friends?

Thank you for all your replies. I've been feeling shitty about this whole situation,

Of course you can have differing views to your friends, no two people agree on everything and that's totally normal.

Until recent years I don't remember any issue coming between us or any other friend in this way. We have different political and religious views and neither of us cares about that and we are similar in lots of ways regardless. But believing humans can change sex? Using opposite sex pronouns or made up ones that don't relate to any sex? I just don't know where to go with that. And obviously lots of people feel the same because they won't even bring the subject up for fear of being ostracised.

I need to decide how to handle it but honestly it terrifies me and drains me too, the thought of bringing it up (or not) but it's eating away at me so either way I need to do something. I wish it weren't so.

Yes but according to the Daily Mail chicken sandwiches are also woke. I have also seemed it used as a blanket condemnation of anyone saying something politically to the left of the person calling them woke. If people want to say "progressive authoritarian" then people should say that rather than "woke" and having to explain which definition they are using.
But of course, if you start talking about "progressive authoritarian" rather than the issue in front of you (eg trans women in sports, general ridiculousness of TWAW) then you are straight away asking people to buy into your own world view/analysis of the overarching problem. Which is fine. In the same way it's fine to do consciousness raising feminism if that's your thing. But if you/the other person just want to talk about their ex or how their boss is a exist bastard it can be a bit alienating. Especially if any rejection of that analysis is met with disappointment by the OP. I might not care if my friend subscribes to radical feminist analysis. I might if she thinks her boss sexually harassing other coworkers is ok. Those two things aren't the same. Best not to confuse them. Likewise "I don't see all the fuss about woke" is not the same as "TWAW lemme get my flags out" for most people.

No biggie if you have no interest in understanding how all these seemingly disparate ideas fit together 🤷‍♀️

I can see that you might have found my post pretty rude. In fact, I'm religious myself and also (not as often as I should) read the office. But I recognise bad religion and I'm smelling a lot of it in places that aren't religious in the normal sense at all.