Waterloo Gender Studies Attack Emerged In A Climate Of Hate | The Maple
Waterloo Gender Studies Attack Emerged In A Climate Of Hate | The Maple
“I wish it was more of a surprise than it is.”
“I wish it was more of a surprise than it is.”
This subtitle is bleak and accurate. Every single study on extremism in the US shows that white supremacists and "sovereign citizen" fanatics are killing an order of magnitude more people than all other groups (including religion!) combined. Canada is bound to observe similar symptoms.
12i really wish things like gender studies had not been drowned in a sea of hate from both ends.
if you so much as defend the 'wrong group', you are already hated by both sides for being the purist evil.
you can't be egalitarian and thoughtful without being someone's enemy, and that hatred has been spurred on because anger and frustration lead to website clicks. some companies and media sites were created purely to stir up heated dialogue and get more people fighting on what should be obvious things.
it's funny, since i was a child i've been very thoroughly in the mindset of "don't judge, harm, or treat people differently for the body they were born into, which consenting human adults they share their intimacy with, or what they choose to do with their own body, as long as others aren't being harmed."
things get grey around "public decency," but anything generally applicable should be generally agreeable. for me, no public nudity is an example, but some communities would disagree with this, so you could get into debates about nuance.
that's not what happens though. if you say "hey, these people shouldn't be judged or abused or neglected for being born with/as ____" you will be the enemy to whomever considers "people born with/as ____" the enemy.
if you don't advocate for and defend the hatred, abuse, and ill treatment of said group, then you are pure evil to these people.
yes, this means the group you personally think is evil for whatever reason. they didn't choose the skin or society they were born into, and you have no honest understanding of how those traits or qualities have affected that person personally in their life.
people suck. i don't like dealing with people anymore.
-8i really wish things like gender studies had not been drowned in a sea of hate from both ends.
I feel like gender studies in particular doesn't get much trouble from the left.
13depends on what you're trying to address and where. i feel a large disconnect in experience is to blame for how it usually goes. have you ever seen a "conversation" about men's rights?
i'll first state that i consider myself fully and wholly "on the left." also that this is in the context of responding to the statement of "I feel like gender studies in particular doesn’t get much trouble from the left."
i could make a similar and probably much more aggressively fueled argument about the actions of the "right." as far as "creating trouble" goes.
i will also state that the larger dialogue around the issue is a shitshow that allows no nuance. why i made my earlier comment.
i will state that i don't align when "on the left" is supposed to mean "100% A-OK with inflammatory bigoted speech when it's directed at the 'bad ones' because it's only bad when they do it."
i have enough anecdotal experiences that would encourage me to emphasize this being an actual issue, even if you think it isn't. i know it affected me, and i'm sure many others have been affected in similar ways. given the diversity of people, some would react more aggressively experiencing the things that i have, and then being insulted, shut down, and insinuated as evil regardless of my actual actions or thoughts.
i think situations like op's article are brought on by that kind of experience, mixed with toxic media making up additional reasons to be angry or hate x/y group. assuming that even 10% of any populace has some dummies or assholes in it, we can expect some of them to find each-other and take it to another level of reactive hate and violence, which is where i assume people like op's example come from. these things are not helped when the topic can't even be approached without intensely aggressive feedback.
not everyone responds in violence. in my old province there was a guy who tried having a shelter for men in need. there were no others in the country at the time for men, despite the hundreds for women. he killed himself after years of public harassment and abuse, and feeling completely hopeless in just trying to help others in need. i myself have been sent graphic images about male mutilation purely for taking an egalitarian neutral stance when it comes to generally helping people, male specific problems included. doesn't matter how nuanced my opinions were.
if you never saw how toxic tumblr became before it died off, you are lucky not to see the worst of it. the bad actors on the left can definitely make themselves known. some just become terrible people. i've had a manager out of nowhere tell me she wouldn't have hired me if she was there from the start because she doesn't hire boys. i've had a coworker tell me about their plans to falsely accuse someone they knew of rape because she didn't like him.
terrible people are everywhere on every side. if you are convinced your side has no bad actors, no bigotry or evil, you are deluding yourself. again, i consider myself far left on the political spectrum, and i'm hated by both sides because i don't outright dismiss anything that isn't 100% alongside the popular narrative, even if the popular narrative directly denies my existence and experiences.
so i'm left quite hopeless and despondent.
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i really wish things like gender studies had not been drowned in a sea of hate from both ends.
What hate are people on the Left/progressive giving gender studies?
9One myth says the left will arrest you, eat your babies, and socialism, if you dont use the proper pronoun.
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