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A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

economist.com

981–990 of 1001 posts

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#981
post #926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm as left wing as they come, but being left wing means being able to have open, honest and sometimes uncomfortable debates. Being left wing is not, and never has been, about shutting down conversation, de-platforming, dogma, chilling effects. These are the things of the hard right, and the sooner people on the left start realising it and start being empowered to be vocal in defence of the freedom of ideas, the bet…

I hope you're aware that "left wing" doesn't mean "socialist" or "communist" and that plenty of liberal democracies have had social democratic parties in power for some period or another without there being any breakdown in tolerance to opposing viewpoints.

Of course it also means socialists and communists among other leftist parties. They represent the pure leftist ideology from which other leftist parties take ideas from, and the closer to center those parties are the more they tone the communistic ideals down. In essence the tip of the left wing is completely intolerable and illiberal.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#982

Can someone please tell me how important this topic based on the amount of news time and eyeballs it attracts relative to the number of people that it affects? The numbers I can find for US citizens is: 0.6% or 1,988,696 out 331,449,281 of people total for the entirety of the US in 2021. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_Unite... In the UK where the featured article took place the latest poll I…

This is how the ruling class controls us peons. They have us fight each other vociferously over things like this or abortion or gay marriage, while they stay above it and do nothing except minor moral victories. The sad thing is that this works.

Yep, most the activism is about politics, gender is just the current vehicle for it.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#983
post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sympathize with your overall point and agree that it's shameful how America treats diabetics like an ATM, but I think you're very far off-target if you envy the way transgender people are treated. Lots of anti-transgender people do just fine in our society. A person who actively fought against trans rights in California is currently the Vice President of the United States (though she has gotten much quieter on tran…

I'm not envious of the way transgender people are treated, and if I came across sounding that way I do apologize. My tone was for the disproportion of attention, not of action. In truth, very little action will be taken for good for the transgender population or health disorders. That isn't how these things play out, unfortunately. As a society, we only know the stick and not the carrot. While I sympathize with the s…

There is definitely some ground for solidarity between trans and diabetic people when it comes to access to healthcare - however, and I don't mean it to downplay the struggles of diabetics - discrimination against trans people has a social component that as far as I know doesn't apply for diabetics. People can be rejected by their family, struggle to find employment, be beaten and killed by their dates, harassed in the street, etc... Based solely on the fact that they are transgender.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#984

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the mechanism of this oscillation is people joining and leaving a movement. In the beginning the radical idea is a basic kind of equality where some kind of person shouldn't be disadvantaged for some characteristic. There is then a growth phase where many people join and small specific victories turn into general victories. There is then a shrinking phase where people leave the movement or lose zeal as general vi…

Did you get this framework from somewhere you can refer me to? It’s facially intriguing and I’d like to see it more fully explored.

[deleted]

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#985

Can someone please tell me how important this topic based on the amount of news time and eyeballs it attracts relative to the number of people that it affects? The numbers I can find for US citizens is: 0.6% or 1,988,696 out 331,449,281 of people total for the entirety of the US in 2021. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_Unite... In the UK where the featured article took place the latest poll I…

> It just feels like we're being distracted.

Some politicians would call this a feature and not a bug.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#986

One shouldn't expect courage from The Economist, but it's always wise to bet on their prudence. I don't read The Economist for facts or details so much as to get a sense of what topics a current establishment can no longer afford to ignore. The details are secondary to the neccessity that a writer, a sub-editor, and a senior editor with tremendous personal stake in maintaining access to the circles that define establ…

Thank you for your description of The Economist. I subscribed to The Economist in 1996 and at time it really was a different than the rest of the news papers. For example, Philip Tetlock identified reading The Economist as a predictor for ability to forecast future.

Then something changed. One important change was that they basically started publishing their authors names by allowing authors have blogs with their names. I also understand (would like to know more about this) that they started hiring journalists. Previously only subject experts were welcome but at some point there was a huge influx of Guardian-type journalists.

To me, first hint about the change in the articles was their coverage of feminism in work place where they really started to spout fashionable ideological points such as writing that women make better leaders, etc.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#987
post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Language is defined by the people who speak it, not by some authority. This may be true in case of English, but not necessarily in case of many national languages.

> > Language is defined by the people who speak it, not by some authority. > This may be true in case of English, but not necessarily in case of many national languages. Counterexample: The German Rechtschreibreform of 1996 was mainly retracted after a decade of popular resistance. Seems even languages that are ostensibly “regulated by a central authority” in the end follow the will of those who use the language. [1]…

English is already a counterexample. As for orthography reforms, well, they don't affect language as such, as languages are primarily spoken. An orthography reform won't ever change how people speak, so whether the German one was successful or not is irrelevant. And the fact that orthography reforms in particular may not be often successful is not surprising either since written words tend to more conservative as they have facilitated communication through time. Just look at the discrepancy between English speech and writing.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#988

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it bluntly, this is irrelevant. You put "debate" in quotes like it's somehow a dirty word, which is shocking and depressing to me. I DO care about what real transgender people have to say, and to be honest, especially on college campuses in the US, it is very easy to see they have a voice and are able to speak there opinion. I have no idea whether this academic's opinion is one I agree with. Primarily because…

She was allowed to speak far more than any trans people has been allowed to speak - she is speaking on The Economist. I do not see any trans people speaking on The Economist. The same applies across the entirety of published British media. That you willfully ignore this epistemological injustice, does not render it irrelevant. The university ground is one of the very few places where real transgender people, along wi…

Not "allowed" to speak? Jesus, the hyperbole doesn't help your case. Trans people are a tiny, tiny minority. That doesn't mean these organizations are actively excluding them. Get a grip.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#989

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren’t transphobic. They understand science. There’s a difference.

No, they are actively transphobic. Even the Economist agrees, having withdrawn a piece calling for the compulsory sterilisation of transpeople previously.

Again, no. One withdrawn article? That's it? Ok. They don't buy into the nonsense that males should be competing against females. Aka common sense.

Re: A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

#990

> Yet the most worrying effect is likely to be invisible. An unknown number of university employees avoid expressing their opinion for fear it will damage their career or turn them into pariahs. The report about Essex says witnesses described a “culture of fear” among those with gender-critical views. Why the hell is this a bad thing? I also don't want to hear from conservatives about their anti-women abortion stance…

Nothing wrong with neo-liberal stances. I'll take that over the progressive left who seem to have missed every Econ class when they went to college (and operate exclusively on identity politics, like you)
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