I have been wanting to write something about the ongoing project
of redefining words but I have not been comfortable with talking
about it in the context it is happening. I live in a country that
doesn't have a colonial history, so it is very clear to me that
the American dilemma is a reality I do not understand as well as
I would like to. We do have minority groups here too, but the
weight of history isn't as heavy.
But I think I can investigate the question from a bit different
point of view:
I have quite a few ideas that are rather feminist in their nature
but I was never comfortable with the term feminist because it
seemed to rhetorically allow an expansion of the implied mission.
You could go from "equality of sexes" to "matriarchy" within
the definition.
Now, at this point there would be a bunch of people that would
attack me and yell "of course it doesn't mean matriarchy".
Mind you, I am basing this example on discussions I had online
maybe ten years ago, so I don't really know what the Official
Twitter Definition of feminism is at the moment.
I always liked the word "inequality". It seems to encompass
all the things we would like to improve when it comes to the
lottery of life. It allows a united front that could in theory
focus on the core issues. If I am committed against inequality,
I can acknowledge that people are discriminated against based on
gender, race, status, looks, age, ability, personality, and
probably a dozen other features. There are ways that ANYONE can
get a bad deal.
You know why we will not see a movement against inequality in its
myriad forms? The solutions will inevitably be systematic safety
nets, in other words socialism, and that is still too much of a
taboo. The big companies are fine with supporting one oppressed
group instead of looking at the whole. It's a sort of divide and
conquer.
Ethically speaking, looking at the whole is a lot simpler. I can't
imagine how anyone would make an argument for keeping anyone down
based on their (genetically or culturally) inherited features,
whatever these features were. (Except of cource psychopathy
and sociopathy. I am fine with keeping these down.)
There are real injustices that need real answers, but the way
words are used as sort of traps and tools of division is not
useful. If you look at the way "systemic racism" is used now,
it is indistinguishable from "systemic inequality" except for
that the amount of victims is limited. So under systemic
inequality you could have a homeless white man uniting in the
same fight with a black university student, but under systemic
racism you cannot. Or if you can, the two people will not be
equal in the conversation.
By the way, the way the matriarchal feminism has influenced the
discussion is not unrelated. It is considered quite fine to
dismiss a man from a discussion based on their gender nowadays
in much the same way women were dismissed in the past. It
seems that the term "mansplaining" can be extended to include
not only the abrasive man-knows-best talk but also talk that is
more masculine in style but otherwise innocent as far as power
dynamics go.
It seems there are two general goals with this divisive wordplay:
1) Tactically you can tarnish people by having a word that
is considered vile. This goes for both "sexist" and "racist".
The trick is to use these words instead of "systemic
inequality" so that you get a stampede of people who
want to loudly distance themselves from whatever object
you define bad with these terms.
2) Strategically you create a situation where your group of
people is in control of the definition of the word, and so
can amass more power by leaving more people wondering what
the word actually means.
The combination of these two create the dynamic where you will
be able to weaponize the words as long as their vileness is not
diluded too much.
But does it really matter? They are just words, right?
The ability to speak is the most important human feature.
You are messing with the glue that keeps us together. I know
that I am pessimistic and hyperbolic, but really, I see really
dreadful possibilities with what is being done here.
