When you come out of the gate calling responsible use of language “ideologies of victimhood” you *know* who’s gonna love what follows.
Men, mostly. That was my facebook experience. I was going to respond on facebook and thought fuckit I have my OWN blog to rant on, why poop on the self-congratulatory parade of men who lined up to agree with every word? Oh, the mean things they said.
Not that any of you care, but I laughed my ass off when she said “For example, homosexuals have been hideously abused through much of history.” This is such a Canadian thing to say it’s quite amusing. You think she’s sticking up for homosexuals, but is she? Who’s she putting down in the process?
(I would argue the whole piece is full of these ideo-logic bombs but I just grabbed one.)
I can’t speak for anyone who’s First Nations, but it is a matter of documentation custom AND LANGUAGE you know that SOCIAL CONSTRUCT WE HUMANS USE TO THINK WITH that people who are gender non-normative have been living uncircumscribed lives here for hundreds of generations; the *assumption* of hideous abuse is a colonial use of language, all the more hilarious because McElroy identifies as an anarchist. She thinks she’s covered herself by using ‘much of history’ but no, she’s just revealing the ‘structural swiss cheese’ of her argument in her choice of words.
People are at different points along the justice spectrum. Yelling at them to move up doesn’t help and any sensible person with a long term view of social justice knows it. But some social justice enthusiasts are wont to yell, because they want a cookie for how hard they’ve worked on their isms and get shouty and irrational when unappreciated. I am that person. Except when I’m not. Wendy’s taking a normal human reaction to cognitive dissonance and trying to ‘other’, denigrate, condescend to and belittle SJWs by saying they’re mean sometimes. Fuck yeah. Get me drunk and in the same room as Wendy McElroy and I’ll be a right arsehole, you betcha.
But I’d rather be the arsehole defending the rights of those whom the state has deemed less worthy than white men, than the public intellectual who calls herself an anarchist and then sides with the oppressor with every sign of glee. Jumpin’ Jimmy Christmas, woman.
Oddly, personal experience and testimony to those who think they aren’t privileged do work to move the needle toward justice, but they are really inefficient strategies being one on one, and they put a lot of emotional pressure and expectation on disadvantaged people. If you are immune to the effects of sexism and racism and all those isms, you’re lucky in your life, and cursed in your head, because you aren’t seeing and feeling the world of your fellow humans except in the narrowest way, and while you can’t tell, other people can, and that is among many things an annoying feature of do gooders. Oh yes we will call you on your bullshit, yes we will. Who’s a good reactionary? Who’s a good reactionary? You are. Yes you are. You know you are, fuzzums!