h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You're allowed. I know we've all been there.

What I think is interesting - though not in a good way, mind you - is that there seem to be these pejorative terms cropping up all over the *developed* world. Which would seem to imply that there is a lot of verbal aggression going on in the developed world against people who talk about social justice.

Now, what does that tell us about:

a. the developed world?
b. the chances for success in achieving social justice there?

I'm suspecting that people like the Mabati women's groups in Kenya have more practical concerns than people calling them 'goody two shoes':

http://www.unesco.org/most/africa11.htm

that's an excellent report, thanks for that. It's probably what the Rawandan women used as a basis or model after the genocide there (the Rawandan parliament has the highest proportion of women members world wide - over 50%, which is great even though the reason for their empowerment is absolutely tragic)

Yeah, last week, I had to write an activity for our students that queried women's rights in different regions around the world - Morocco, Kenya, Indonesia. I was really impressed with those women's groups in Africa. UNESCO and USAID work with them. That's practical and useful.

And I was really annoyed with the stock photo people. All the pics of Kenyan farms had men doing the farmwork, although I found that women do more than 80% of the farmwork in Kenya. (And only control 1% of the land rights.)

Now, that's why you want people to 'get it right'. Because otherwise, we misunderstand what needs doing.

Well.....

One person's idea of social justice is another person's idea of injustice. When you throw gender roles into the equation. .

Progress comes too fast for some, and too slow for others. How long did it take to get rid of slavery? Add women to the voting rolls? Get men out of the saloons? Abolish the Jim Crow laws? There were people who did *not* want these changes to come. They did come, though, and now there's gay marriage in many places.

Surely there must have been people who thought the world would be just right once each of these things were finally in their grasp, but then along came along a new cause, and the drumbeat started again.

Now we're at a crossroads in terms of equal pay for equal work. It has already found its way into the U.S. Presidential race: Hillary Clinton pays her male and female aides pretty much the same, while Trump pays men more than woman. There's also a minority gap between the two campaigns.

Where are we going next? Do we get a chance to assimilate the recent changes.

In general who, would you say Paul, were the people who didn't want female emancipation? Who were the anti-abolitionists?

The cries of "SJW" as a slur generally come at me (a woman) from white men. Middle class, cis-gendered white men.

They might think that progress (as I would call it) is moving too slowly but from where I'm sitting glaciers would be whizzing past.

Equal pay laws were enacted in the 1970s in the UK and yet there is still a (and it is disputed by people who don't look at all the facts) gender pay gap. The gender pay gap is wider if you look at asian women compared to white men. If you compare black women to white men it is even wider. Just off the top of my head.

I can remember when my mum earned more than my dad and yet she was not allowed a mortgage in her name for a house her salary paid for unless my (less well paid father) signed off on it. And I'm only 52.

So looking at social justice from a women's point of view, where would you say it's going to fast? Where should we slow it down?
And if I change my point of view and look at things from the point of view of a black woman, where would I think it's moving too fast? Because I'm pretty sure that it would be nowhere.

Maybe we can look at something that we have successfully tackled recently: higher education. Currently more girls enter higher education than boys. not too many more but the balance has tipped (not across all subjects but anyway). And - gasp - research seems to suggest that female graduates earn (on average) more than male graduates when they first go into paid work.

But who hold all the well paid senior positions? So we're pushing and pushing for that. And it will come. But not fast enough for me. And not fast enough for most women I know. And what do those people in the powerful positions say? "let us sort it out for ourselves, it will come" and 10 years later? no change. So what happens? Forward thinking governments impose quotas (not even 50/50). you could hear the squealing about that in outer space.

So forgive us for campaigning for more social justice, but until we have it we're not going to stop

I think that summary is based on a strange premise, Paul. Not meaning you - you summarised the attitude well, and I'm not assuming you share it - but the people who say that.

Too many 'changes'...have to 'get used to' these 'changes'...why in the world should anybody insist that an unjust or even criminal situation (like slavery, child labour, paying women less than men for the same amount of work) was 'normal'?

Do we usually say, 'Gee, let's give all the thieves time to adjust to the trauma of not being able to steal things before we enforce that law?'

I mean, I'm just thinking aloud here, but that's always bugged me...

I think the gist of what we both said is: it's the people who think they 'lose out' who think it's going too fast. But it's not a zero sum game, I'm pretty sure that studies show that equality is good for society where as inequality isn't (Stieglitz wrote an excellent book on that subject - the Price of Inequality. I can highly recommend it)

(must find that!) and you're right: social justice is a win-win.

"why in the world should anybody insist that an unjust or even criminal situation (like slavery, child labour, paying women less than men for the same amount of work) was 'normal'?" [Dmitri]

Some of the early Christian Church leaders went along with slavery. If they lived now, they wouldn't because the world changed. Likewise the families who sent their children out to work because getting enough to eat was precarious at best. Things did change, and there are few who would want to go back.

I read a very long book about the 70-year process that brought Prohibition into being. Some of the strong women in the Temperance Movement were putting their efforts into it because the men would support their Temperance efforts but not their right to vote. They wanted to fight the battle that they had the best chance of winning. It's not that they didn't want the right to vote, just that it felt good to be on the side of a movement that was going somewhere.

The world takes things a step at a time. Most of the steps are forward, but a few are backward -- prohibition was determined to have been a huge mistake. It's too early to assess Gay Marriage.

How much more remains to be done? Has anybody got a list?

I think the question isn't what is left to do - but to ask why there is so much resistance to it?

This is an interesting read, and I think sums up well the distress and bewilderment that some people feel when others demand social justice.

https://weeklysift.com/2012/09/10/the-distress-of-the-privileged/

Makes some good points about how to respond and react to that distress, both in terms of strategy and in terms of acknowledging that those feelings and concerns are real, even if they're not the priority concern.

Good read, Otto - thanks!

And Paul, my theological view on 'Christians' who only know that religious war, slavery, the Spanish Inquisition, witch-burning, or homophobia are wrong...because *society* finally told them so, is...

The way I read what Jesus said, they're in a whole world of hurt when he gets back.

I don't mind trying to explain this to the heathen, but a 'Christian' who doesn't work for social justice - who feels 'privileged' rather than humble - in short, who doesn't act like Francis of Assisi isn't reading their departmental email. And may just be a 'person who likes to go to church'.

Or, as Mijnheer ten Boom, Corrie's father, memorably said, 'Just because a mouse is in the cookie jar doesn't make him a cookie.'

" a 'Christian' who doesn't work for social justice - who feels 'privileged' rather than humble - in short, who doesn't act like Francis of Assisi isn't reading their departmental email." [Dmitri]

I feel pretty much the same way. Maybe the reason I don't like to discuss religion with them is that they're a few chips short of a hard drive. They miss the essence of their own religion, making them the worst possible spokesmen for their cause. Jesus said, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." The conundrum of dealing with Jesus as a wise human versus Jesus as a divine figure is that some people will take a divine figure more seriously than a wise human.

I don't reject Jesus' teachings, I just get impossibly exhausted trying to explain why he shouldn't need to be divine in order to be listened to -- not that some people listen to crucial parts of his message.

"I think the question isn't what is left to do - but to ask why there is so much resistance to it?" [sho]

Some resistance comes from a combination of habit and fatigue. Some comes from a not unjustified perception that the years you've spent rising to whatever peak state you're in now have put you in the position where you have more to lose than gain by change. When I was a nearly-penniless graduate student living in a rooming house, I was up for changing the world. I had very little to lose. Now I have retirement nest eggs to protect and the probability that I'm never going to work for any significant amount of money ever again.

Not that I'm selfish. I do a lot of volunteer work for my favorite charity, which happens to be the trailer park I live in. I make the entrances and common areas look nice. Low-income people deserve to live in attractive surroundings just as much as anyone else.