Thought Police: Are we allowed to query 'woke'?

[Richard]

it reinforces the idea that equality can only be bestowed by the ruling classes

Think of it as equality being recognised, rather than bestowed.

[The Legendary Shark]

Same thing - if the rulers decide not to recognise equality, there is no equality.

[Funt Solo]

Again, look at the 'all men are trash' thing.  It spawned the whole 'not all men' meme thing and then attempts to provide context there were decried as 'mansplaining' and any frustration at the whole thing is see as the 'fragile male ego' or being a gammon.

I'll confess to having lost track of the direction of your argument a little here. Partly, it's ignorance on my part, as I've never heard of "all men are trash". It sounds like a silly thing to say. I'm also unaware of this new "gammon" term.

What I do know is that I support feminism, and some crazy, edge-rhetoric won't make me abandon that view. I find it very hard to feel like a victim, as a white, middle-class man with one supportive parent.

I'm a few decades into life, and I've only ever felt like a victim of sexism twice. Once, in a bar job, when someone grabbed my crotch without permission. And once, when someone was complaining loudly in a staff meeting that "well, that's men for you".  The thing is - I was only momentarily a victim - on both occasions it was easy for me to set things right just by telling those people their behavior wasn't acceptable.

I cannot imagine any woman my age with a similar work pattern (I did hospitality work for over ten years) being able to say they'd only been the victim of sexism twice. Or that it was easy to switch it off just by exerting a brief moment of willpower.

So, any conversation that's aiming to create victims out of men (in general) just seems to be laughable, really. Not in individuals' experiences you understand, but in terms of the bird's eye view.

[repoman]

Sure, being a white male doesn't make you a victim and I see why that'd be laughable as a concept.  But if the intent is to try to make men feel like victims, then that's that's the shitty bit I guess.

The 'all men are trash' thing is very common. 

We're going round and round here.  I'm going to go and watch The Boys.  Have a good evening, folks. 

[Richard]

The Boys is really good this week.

[JayzusB.Christ]

The Boys is really good this week.

Fascist.

Actually, yeah, it is good, isn't it?

[Mardroid]

The Boys is really good this week.

Fascist.

Actually, yeah, it is good, isn't it?

Coincidentally (considering recent posts above) you get to see [spoiler]three ladies get it done! [/spoiler] 😆

[JayzusB.Christ]

By the way, can anyone fill me in as to how David Baddiel fits in to the racism thing?  Not denying it or anything; I just wasn't aware.  Seems very odd to me too, as I recently heard a very long interview with him where he mainly argued that antisemitism should be treated as seriously as other forms of racism.  (He's right, of course, but the notion that he's been complicit in those other types of racism is news to me.)

[Professor Bear]

"David Baddiel blackface"

If Baddiel is arguing that antisemitism is equivalent to other forms of racism, then that's a new development, because his arguing that antisemitism was the worst in a hierarchy of racisms and more deserving of attention than anti-black racism is what prompted the tide of "Is this U?" social media responses citing his blackface routine in the first place.
He's only in the last few months started to acknowledge the latter even happened, and this is why I find it hard to despise Jim Davidson - as shite and Tory as he is, he seems to know it, and was cleaning up his act as far back as the 1990s.  Later comedians like Baddiel should know better, especially if their whole schtick was being the politically-correct straight man in a series of comedy troupes and double acts for the better part of three decades.

[JayzusB.Christ]

"David Baddiel blackface"

If Baddiel is arguing that antisemitism is equivalent to other forms of racism, then that's a new development, because his arguing that antisemitism was the worst in a hierarchy of racisms and more deserving of attention than anti-black racism is what prompted the tide of "Is this U?" social media responses citing his blackface routine in the first place.

That may have been what he was saying alright. 

[Funt Solo]

This happens to me quite a lot where people say "so and so is this or that", and then I do a quick web search (like, literally the first thing I found in this case) and...




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On the topic of "men are trash" - I was curious and looked it up. One of the key points made in a rather philosophical article (with the word philosophical in the title) was that it's NOT "all men are trash".

I was discussing it with Her Indoors* [apply your irony bafflers and move on] and was trying to come up with something easier for people to digest - like the rather catchy "toxic masculinity is trash", which led to us trying to define what exactly masculinity is. (Even without the toxic bit attached.)

We found (certainly, I found) that an incredibly difficult exercise. It was either a terrible generalization (physically strong! ... but I'm not) or swerved immediately into either sexism or toxicity. Is there a positive masculinity?

*Blame the tv show Minder, and be aware that I'm aware that I spend entirely too much time indoors and my better half (another term I never use) is the social butterfly.

[Leigh S]

Interestingly, my Google threw up an article from the day after the apology shown there, from the guy whose career was trashed by Baddie and Skinnerl, stating he had never had a personal apologyfrom them - not sure if he has made one since?

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/jason-lee-david-baddiel-frank-skinner-apology-comedy-sketches-a9592741.html

As for wokeness, I mean, I can probably point to examples in film and TV where I felt diversity had been handled a bit clunkily -  New Who would be my go to for that - but of course, this is probably as much the fact diversity was not even an option for so long that any sign of it being attempted tended to stand out like a sore thumb.  The fact is loads of other things were just as clunky (not everyone can be Alan Moore or Wagner!), and the "diversity" angle only stood out further from that due to it being so rare up until then?  So picking on the diversity as the issue is probably missing the point, and says more about the viewer than the creator. 

TLDR: "White kids did it!"

[Professor Bear]

He's only in the last few months started to acknowledge the latter even happened

[Funt Solo]

Probably not too surprising that my few seconds of "research" didn't quite nail the details there. 

[repoman]

On the topic of "men are trash" - I was curious and looked it up. One of the key points made in a rather philosophical article (with the word philosophical in the title) was that it's NOT "all men are trash".

Like I said, mental gymnastics.  Compare these statements.

2000 AD fans are pricks.

All 2000 AD fans are pricks.

Does 'all' make a difference?

The reason it is difficult is that people shouldn't apply blanket statements to groups of people.  It's no more helpful than saying, to quote Kenny 'Bricks' Wangler from the sensational TV show Oz, "all women is bitches" or saying that all Chinese people are bad drivers (or whatever unhelpful stereotype).

Is there a positive masculinity?

That guy from Parks and Rec who eats a lot of bacon.

Here's the thing, masculinity can be seen as toxic but it could be seen as necessary for survival and helpful for breeding.  If there was a drug that reduced masculinity to woke-approved levels, you'd likely end up with a lot of really unhappy women who are attracted, at a biological level, to that type of guy.

Tattooed, thick-necked blokes seem to do well when it comes to that sort of thing.

That's the problem, the woke don't speak for everyone including women, gay people, trans people, people of colour.  But they sometimes act like they do, despite being mostly white.