I just can't see how this approach doesn't lead to relativism, which as a feminist who believes sexism is an objective moral evil I can't accept.
We're probably never going to completely agree on everything, then, which I am okay with. I think sexism is wrong, and racism and classism and homophobia are wrong, but I'm not the kind of person who even uses phrases like "objective moral evil" and I'm definitely not a moral absolutist in general--I can name a number of things that I think are always wrong like rape, torture, killing a person who has never done you harm and is not showing signs of intending to do so directly, stealing things you don't have an emergent need for and can't get, lying for personal gain, betraying someone who trusts you...but moral absolutism in general scares the fuck out of me just as much as completely untempered relativism does. I'm a wave/particle, absolutist/relativist, free will/determinism = OTPs kinda gal.
Also I think a world in which everyone behaved in exactly the same way at all times would be intensely boring to live in (so not a utopian) and I don't want to live in a world where there is no cultural diversity, which means that I think each culture will have to come to its own conclusions about how to right the injustices.
I'm reminded of an argument I had with my Chinese ex-mother-in-law who tried to defend sexist behaviour as 'cultural'. I told her that sexism was a universal problem and that even though it seemed to her that white culture wasn't sexist and feminism was Western, that wasn't so. I agreed with her that white people's ideas about how women should be treated shouldn't be imposed upon her, but at the same time, her daughter wasn't white, and her daughter was not, in my opinion, being inherently un-Chinese when she wanted to be given the same consideration that her brother got. Of course some of her issues were that she associated Chinese feminism with the communists in China, but the thing is, I agreed with her that white people shouldn't be telling Chinese people what to do and that there had been enough of that entirely--but her daughter was Chinese, and she thought there was a problem and she had the right to ask for what she felt she needed.
I mean, is sexist behaviour wrong? Yes. And language that some people find offensive should be reconsidered. At the same time, the answer isn't always that the offended person is right about the language of a group they're not part of being inherently offensive; misunderstandings sometimes occur in cross-cultural communication or communication across class lines.
no subject
We're probably never going to completely agree on everything, then, which I am okay with. I think sexism is wrong, and racism and classism and homophobia are wrong, but I'm not the kind of person who even uses phrases like "objective moral evil" and I'm definitely not a moral absolutist in general--I can name a number of things that I think are always wrong like rape, torture, killing a person who has never done you harm and is not showing signs of intending to do so directly, stealing things you don't have an emergent need for and can't get, lying for personal gain, betraying someone who trusts you...but moral absolutism in general scares the fuck out of me just as much as completely untempered relativism does. I'm a wave/particle, absolutist/relativist, free will/determinism = OTPs kinda gal.
Also I think a world in which everyone behaved in exactly the same way at all times would be intensely boring to live in (so not a utopian) and I don't want to live in a world where there is no cultural diversity, which means that I think each culture will have to come to its own conclusions about how to right the injustices.
I'm reminded of an argument I had with my Chinese ex-mother-in-law who tried to defend sexist behaviour as 'cultural'. I told her that sexism was a universal problem and that even though it seemed to her that white culture wasn't sexist and feminism was Western, that wasn't so. I agreed with her that white people's ideas about how women should be treated shouldn't be imposed upon her, but at the same time, her daughter wasn't white, and her daughter was not, in my opinion, being inherently un-Chinese when she wanted to be given the same consideration that her brother got. Of course some of her issues were that she associated Chinese feminism with the communists in China, but the thing is, I agreed with her that white people shouldn't be telling Chinese people what to do and that there had been enough of that entirely--but her daughter was Chinese, and she thought there was a problem and she had the right to ask for what she felt she needed.
I mean, is sexist behaviour wrong? Yes. And language that some people find offensive should be reconsidered. At the same time, the answer isn't always that the offended person is right about the language of a group they're not part of being inherently offensive; misunderstandings sometimes occur in cross-cultural communication or communication across class lines.