'Mansplaining' the return of political correctness

Submitted by Mastodon on Tue, 2015-03-24 10:10

Article here. Excerpt:

'I've never seen the Vagina Monologues. Perhaps I'm incurious, but I just never had any interest in sitting through segments with titles like The little coochie snorcher that could.
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Anyway, the point is that the Vagina Monologues, so shocking when Eve Ensler wrote it in 1996, has become an entertaining relic. And its cancellation at Holyoke just seems like an attempt to find something new to protest.

Sorry, I know that sounds like old-man talk, but that's what it looks like.
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Political correctness, apparently, is making a comeback, like a sharp-tongued schoolmarm coming out of retirement. (Yes, that was a deliberate speech violation, but PC always seemed sort of schoolmarmish to me.)

New York magazine ran a long article on the subject recently, describing groupthink and ideological bullying by students (and faculty) at American universities.
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Eventually, the PC of the early '90s faded, partly because it annoyed audiences, and partly because university students do have to, well, grow up.

Cultural concerns yielded to economic concerns, first a rather serious recession, then the great big excessive party that followed.

Now, though, PC is back, but with new terminology.

Modern students are on the lookout for heteronormativity (for the unenlightened, that means the view that there are natural male-female roles); for anyone who might deny rape culture; and for micro-aggressions, which are little slights that belie racism or sexism in someone who tries to appear liberal and tolerant.
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My grandchildren will no doubt someday stare agape at their parents for using the term "people of colour," and inform them that any reference to colour is divisive and ugly.

Or that "transgender" implies that there was ever any validity to "gender" in the first place.

The urge to control other people's speech is atavistic. It will never lessen, and my guess is the technology to enforce it will only grow more sophisticated.'

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From the article: "If they wanted to actually do something useful, they would start their own campaigns designed to provide those men who do suffer the resources they need."

I have heard this passive aggressive dismissal of the MRA so often, I am getting angry.

During the 1970's feminists engaged in "consciousness raising" -- these were meetings NOT of DOING but of TALKING.

Now men are learning to speak up and try to address issues. And the first step is "consciousness raising." And rather than respect men for their efforts, feminists mock men who talk, forgetting that "talking" comes before "doing."

TANGENTIALLY related to this is the feminist response when men talk about the focus on breast cancer to the disregard of prostate cancer. They say: "then men should organize like women." But that response would be met with anger if people said "if blacks want relatively as much funding for sickle cell , they should protest (=racist)... if Jews wanted more funding for Tay Sachs, they should organize a march (=anti semetic)... if men want funding for prostate they should organize a march (=accepted).

And, finally, there is the issue that the nature of masculinity may preclude such touchy-feely marching (I take no issue with that -- men, by nature are more likely to be independent) and that society OWES it to men to be fair with funding (from EVERYONE's taxes) when some men are lacking in the "marching skills."

(The Marxist adage -- "From each according to ability, to each according to need" -- apparently does not hold when it is men in need but lacking in the skills to march, socially.)

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Submitted by ThomasI on Sun, 2015-03-29 21:04