I remember when I was a kid, anytime a black women would win a sport, the white adults in my life would all joke about them not being a “real woman” and that they “look like they’re secretly a guy”.
Transphobia, racism and sexism have all wrapped up together into a shit head sandwich for as long as I remember and I hate it.
I’d imagine it even goes further back. During the cold war east german athletes were routinetly accused of being men when they stood atop the podium. Fash gonna fash. : (
Being an adherent to an objective materialist view of the world basically guarantees you’ll always be correct or at least can reasonably predict how and why something is or will happen. Unfortunately in our world dominated by capitalists who will seek and provide any explanation besides the correct one… you’re also doomed to a lifetime of being right while no one listens.
The worst part is most people, sat down in a comfy safe place, can easily understand the driving force for basically all the bad shit they encounter on a societal level, which bleeds into the interpersonal. “Oh, just rich assholes fuck everyone! Same as always!” is probably a 99% agreed upon sentiment. And yet, when you say, “yes, that’s true, and here is how X group is exploiting Y narrative to get richer/more power to control capital” it often runs counter to some sort of liberal narrative sold by the media or something they just concocted in their own mind. So, logic goes out the window, “No, this has nothing to do with politics and the desire to control resources! This is about [protecting family or ensuring cultural purity or stopping terrorism, etc. from the list of bullshit]!” Every forced culture war pressure point is just an individualized quirk and proof of the “evil” of individuals who believe it (or don’t, depending). Nothing is tied together. It’s all the most important thing ever and yet, as a singular issue, the least important. When you tell people this is all interconnected in some way and most times the connections are not hard to see or speculate on it’s just conspiracy theories and crazy talk. They’ve all heard the insane shit from right wingers and in their passing, uninterested view, it’s just more bullshit.
It’s all rather depressing. Understanding why it’s happening, and knowing it’s not going to stop anytime soon almost makes it worse. When you get to the level of realizing that those in power don’t even care if you talk about the motivations openly because they see that you are absolutely no threat to them… no one will listen or believe you anyway… very very depressing.
So, logic goes out the window, “No, this has nothing to do with politics and the desire to control resources! This is about [protecting family or ensuring cultural purity or stopping terrorism, etc. from the list of bullshit]!”
You also get the morality play, “crony capitalist” apologists. Sometimes that ties in with the cultural rationale; the problem is too many foreign/minority capitalists without “Western values”, or there’s not enough girlbosses, too much machismo in the board room. But broadly, capitalism isn’t the issue the issue is capitalists lacking some virtue or moral fortitude. Hence arguments about needing better meritocracy or ensuring only self-made bootstrappers get to the top.
That’s generally when I stress that capitalism has no room for morality, that capitalism and morals aren’t simply ideologically opposed, but are actually mechanically incompatible. “And what happens to those good, socially responsible girlbosses when they go up against the ruthless crony capitalists? They adapt or die”
Simply put, whatever a system incentivizes, is what people are going to do. No amount of morality is going to overwrite the profit and growth motive. Morals either get tossed to the wayside or, more likely, the concept of what is moral gets reformed in the likeness of the system.
Same. What’s more this is exactly what was predicted to happen by the left. Women failing the woman test.
Caster Semenya was the canary in the coal mine long before TERFery was even a blip on the radar.
I remember when I was a kid, anytime a black women would win a sport, the white adults in my life would all joke about them not being a “real woman” and that they “look like they’re secretly a guy”.
Transphobia, racism and sexism have all wrapped up together into a shit head sandwich for as long as I remember and I hate it.
See also: CHUD conspiracy “theory” that Michele Obama was secretly AMAB
Yeah, I remember the Williams sisters getting it too.
Oh yeah, I remember the Williams sisters definitely getting their brunt of that, although some might have just settled for calling them fat and ugly
I’d imagine it even goes further back. During the cold war east german athletes were routinetly accused of being men when they stood atop the podium. Fash gonna fash. : (
Leftists Stop Being Right Challenge: Impossible
Being an adherent to an objective materialist view of the world basically guarantees you’ll always be correct or at least can reasonably predict how and why something is or will happen. Unfortunately in our world dominated by capitalists who will seek and provide any explanation besides the correct one… you’re also doomed to a lifetime of being right while no one listens.
The worst part is most people, sat down in a comfy safe place, can easily understand the driving force for basically all the bad shit they encounter on a societal level, which bleeds into the interpersonal. “Oh, just rich assholes fuck everyone! Same as always!” is probably a 99% agreed upon sentiment. And yet, when you say, “yes, that’s true, and here is how X group is exploiting Y narrative to get richer/more power to control capital” it often runs counter to some sort of liberal narrative sold by the media or something they just concocted in their own mind. So, logic goes out the window, “No, this has nothing to do with politics and the desire to control resources! This is about [protecting family or ensuring cultural purity or stopping terrorism, etc. from the list of bullshit]!” Every forced culture war pressure point is just an individualized quirk and proof of the “evil” of individuals who believe it (or don’t, depending). Nothing is tied together. It’s all the most important thing ever and yet, as a singular issue, the least important. When you tell people this is all interconnected in some way and most times the connections are not hard to see or speculate on it’s just conspiracy theories and crazy talk. They’ve all heard the insane shit from right wingers and in their passing, uninterested view, it’s just more bullshit.
It’s all rather depressing. Understanding why it’s happening, and knowing it’s not going to stop anytime soon almost makes it worse. When you get to the level of realizing that those in power don’t even care if you talk about the motivations openly because they see that you are absolutely no threat to them… no one will listen or believe you anyway… very very depressing.
You also get the morality play, “crony capitalist” apologists. Sometimes that ties in with the cultural rationale; the problem is too many foreign/minority capitalists without “Western values”, or there’s not enough girlbosses, too much machismo in the board room. But broadly, capitalism isn’t the issue the issue is capitalists lacking some virtue or moral fortitude. Hence arguments about needing better meritocracy or ensuring only self-made bootstrappers get to the top.
That’s generally when I stress that capitalism has no room for morality, that capitalism and morals aren’t simply ideologically opposed, but are actually mechanically incompatible. “And what happens to those good, socially responsible girlbosses when they go up against the ruthless crony capitalists? They adapt or die”
Simply put, whatever a system incentivizes, is what people are going to do. No amount of morality is going to overwrite the profit and growth motive. Morals either get tossed to the wayside or, more likely, the concept of what is moral gets reformed in the likeness of the system.