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Woke culture in Israel vs. The USA
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amother
Babypink


 

Post Mon, Nov 30 2020, 6:08 pm
amother [ Burgundy ] wrote:
I can't speak to Israel. But for explaining wokism, well I'm very liberal and I believe in civil rights for gay and transgender people even if I do not agree with their choices. I believe in reforming police to be true protectors of the people and not a militarized force that sees "civilians" as the enemy, especially if they are indigenous or black. I think America need a reckoning with its history of oppressing the communities of black Americans who are descendents of slaves.

However, there's now an extreme movement happening in the US. For example, it's becoming offensive to use the word "woman" because trans people might feel excluded. So you have nonsense like "people who bleed" or "menstruators" and dehumanizing phrases like "black birthing bodies" (see here) because "woman" and "mother" are not considered inclusive terms. This is creeping into the workplace. If you don't put your pronouns in your email signature at my work it's not considered inclusive enough (ignoring the fact that trans and nonbinary people are often uncomfortable with having to do this!). It's all "gender minority" now and there is no sexism anymore. My workplace no longer claims to not discriminate on the basis of relations, but on gender identity. If you're a rich white man you can claim you're a woman and boom, respecting your pronouns is more important than s-xual harassment or being fired on flimsy grounds if you're a pregnant woman.

The extreme left also is trending to dehumanization and infantilization of minorities in the US. Consider the contrived "race" Latino, which ignores the fact that there are millions of people multiple countries containing multiple cultures stretching from Tiajuana to Tierra del Fuego. Boy was the extreme left shocked to find that Cubans and US-born Americans of Mexican heritage voted very differently than they assumed. Same with other "brown people", such as Americans of Vietnamese heritage. The left also assumes that everywhere is the same as the US, ignoring the fact that different cultures struggle with equality in different ways and with different populations let alone that the rest of the world is not obsessed with the made-up concept of race like the US.

Wokism is rebranded racism and hadarat nashim in the US.


Ok. Thankfully that kind of thinking has not reached Israel. Unless maybe in certain departments at Tel Aviv U (I haven't been there for a few decades).
Nobody has ever sent me an email with preferred pronouns, and no one here would even get that. (It is understood that trans people change their pronoun, and usually their preferred pronoun is respected, but it stops there).
The word 'woman', thankfully has not yet been abolished.
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, Nov 30 2020, 6:08 pm
amother [ Burgundy ] wrote:
I can't speak to Israel. But for explaining wokism, well I'm very liberal and I believe in civil rights for gay and transgender people even if I do not agree with their choices. I believe in reforming police to be true protectors of the people and not a militarized force that sees "civilians" as the enemy, especially if they are indigenous or black. I think America need a reckoning with its history of oppressing the communities of black Americans who are descendents of slaves.

However, there's now an extreme movement happening in the US. For example, it's becoming offensive to use the word "woman" because trans people might feel excluded. So you have nonsense like "people who bleed" or "menstruators" and dehumanizing phrases like "black birthing bodies" (see here) because "woman" and "mother" are not considered inclusive terms. This is creeping into the workplace. If you don't put your pronouns in your email signature at my work it's not considered inclusive enough (ignoring the fact that trans and nonbinary people are often uncomfortable with having to do this!). It's all "gender minority" now and there is no sexism anymore. My workplace no longer claims to not discriminate on the basis of relations, but on gender identity. If you're a rich white man you can claim you're a woman and boom, respecting your pronouns is more important than s-xual harassment or being fired on flimsy grounds if you're a pregnant woman.

The extreme left also is trending to dehumanization and infantilization of minorities in the US. Consider the contrived "race" Latino, which ignores the fact that there are millions of people multiple countries containing multiple cultures stretching from Tiajuana to Tierra del Fuego. Boy was the extreme left shocked to find that Cubans and US-born Americans of Mexican heritage voted very differently than they assumed. Same with other "brown people", such as Americans of Vietnamese heritage. The left also assumes that everywhere is the same as the US, ignoring the fact that different cultures struggle with equality in different ways and with different populations let alone that the rest of the world is not obsessed with the made-up concept of race like the US.

Wokism is rebranded racism and hadarat nashim in the US.


I completely agree with this. This is what's so concerning and what I'm trying to get away from.
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chanchy123




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 02 2020, 12:35 am
amother [ Babypink ] wrote:
Ok. Thankfully that kind of thinking has not reached Israel. Unless maybe in certain departments at Tel Aviv U (I haven't been there for a few decades).
Nobody has ever sent me an email with preferred pronouns, and no one here would even get that. (It is understood that trans people change their pronoun, and usually their preferred pronoun is respected, but it stops there).
The word 'woman', thankfully has not yet been abolished.

Israelis (at least the ones I know and engage with) are very well aware of this phenomenon and overwhelmingly despise this woke cancel culture. I mean people from a very wide range of political and religious views, even most secular political left wing Israelis find this stuff ridiculous. I’m not talking about accept LGBT people or equal rights or even sympathy for certain aspects of the BLM movement and definitely support for illegal immigrants here in Israel. These are even the majority of the 30% of Israelis who despise Trump and were very happy to see Biden win. They are more like moderate left in the US.
It’s not that these things don’t exist here but it’s not yet mainstream, you can accept transgender teens here without canceling the identity of women or men. There is some PC culture here, but it is no where extreme like in the US.
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DrMom




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 02 2020, 1:01 am
I do agree that the whole "woke" phenomenon is less extreme here than in the US. I do worry that perhaps we are just a half-generation behind the US in this meshugas.

Certainly liberal arts departments of Israeli universities and mainstream media (very left-leaning here, as in the US) are rife with this sort of thinking; perhaps it is only a matter of time before it metastasizes into the general culture.

I recall last summer, my kids were watching some Israeli kids' TV show in which contestants (school-aged kids) compete in obstacle courses and win prizes. Not a particularly enriching program, but harmless enough for 30 minutes, I thought. They aired short 2-minute clips profiling each contestant. One clip was about one of the girls who was competing. She was ~10 years old. The clip - set to sympathetic music and followed by thunderous audeunce applause -- revealed that "she" was actually a boy who had undergone gender reassignment surgery and was now calling himself a girl (or maybe it was vice-versa). I found it appalling that my kids can't even watch some simple kids' show without this stuff being slipped in.

I do hope that Israeli straightforwardness will act as a bulwark against this nonsense.
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Rappel




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 02 2020, 1:17 am
DrMom wrote:
I do agree that the whole "woke" phenomenon is less extreme here than in the US. I do worry that perhaps we are just a half-generation behind the US in this meshugas.

Certainly liberal arts departments of Israeli universities and mainstream media (very left-leaning here, as in the US) are rife with this sort of thinking; perhaps it is only a matter of time before it metastasizes into the general culture.

I recall last summer, my kids were watching some Israeli kids' TV show in which contestants (school-aged kids) compete in obstacle courses and win prizes. Not a particularly enriching program, but harmless enough for 30 minutes, I thought. They aired short 2-minute clips profiling each contestant. One clip was about one of the girls who was competing. She was ~10 years old. The clip - set to sympathetic music and followed by thunderous audeunce applause -- revealed that "she" was actually a boy who had undergone gender reassignment surgery and was now calling himself a girl (or maybe it was vice-versa). I found it appalling that my kids can't even watch some simple kids' show without this stuff being slipped in.

I do hope that Israeli straightforwardness will act as a bulwark against this nonsense.


I don't know about TV (that sounds really awful!), But I think we're somewhat insulated from the university culture here. niversity is not a rite of passage in Israel the way it is in the US. It's not a cultural experience. People whom get a degree attend university at an older age, when their opinions are already formed, and mainly/solely for the purpose of gainful employment. I don't think the Israeli student body are going to be converted into a zombie horde of Meretz voters any time soon.

And even Meretz looks tame relative to the United States extreme left. There is such a strong undercurrent of religious values across all sectors of Israel. These values are only growing stronger with the passing years. I think, consequently, that those whom are post-zionist etc. will grow more so over the years, but that their sphere of influence will also shrink.
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chanchy123




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 02 2020, 1:18 am
DrMom wrote:
I do agree that the whole "woke" phenomenon is less extreme here than in the US. I do worry that perhaps we are just a half-generation behind the US in this meshugas.

Certainly liberal arts departments of Israeli universities and mainstream media (very left-leaning here, as in the US) are rife with this sort of thinking; perhaps it is only a matter of time before it metastasizes into the general culture.

I recall last summer, my kids were watching some Israeli kids' TV show in which contestants (school-aged kids) compete in obstacle courses and win prizes. Not a particularly enriching program, but harmless enough for 30 minutes, I thought. They aired short 2-minute clips profiling each contestant. One clip was about one of the girls who was competing. She was ~10 years old. The clip - set to sympathetic music and followed by thunderous audeunce applause -- revealed that "she" was actually a boy who had undergone gender reassignment surgery and was now calling himself a girl (or maybe it was vice-versa). I found it appalling that my kids can't even watch some simple kids' show without this stuff being slipped in.

I do hope that Israeli straightforwardness will act as a bulwark against this nonsense.

My kids have also watched the show (a really really dumb show but very popular among my tweens), trans culture is accepted on mainstream media - but not to the extent it is in America.
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DrMom




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 02 2020, 1:32 am
Rappel wrote:
I don't know about TV (that sounds really awful!), But I think we're somewhat insulated from the university culture here. niversity is not a rite of passage in Israel the way it is in the US. It's not a cultural experience. People whom get a degree attend university at an older age, when their opinions are already formed, and mainly/solely for the purpose of gainful employment. I don't think the Israeli student body are going to be converted into a zombie horde of Meretz voters any time soon.

Good point.
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amother
Babypink


 

Post Wed, Dec 02 2020, 1:57 am
Rappel wrote:
I don't know about TV (that sounds really awful!), But I think we're somewhat insulated from the university culture here. niversity is not a rite of passage in Israel the way it is in the US. It's not a cultural experience. People whom get a degree attend university at an older age, when their opinions are already formed, and mainly/solely for the purpose of gainful employment. I don't think the Israeli student body are going to be converted into a zombie horde of Meretz voters any time soon.

.


University isn't a right of passage, but it definitely has a big influence on forging a person's identity, even in Israel.

I have kids in uni here. It depends where you go of course - המכללה למנהל is pretty dry and just oriented towards getting a degree. But other places are social hubs (Ariel, Ben Gurion) and people are very influenced by their peers.
Many of the teachers' colleges are either dati and openly RW, or secular and openly LW (seminar Hakibutzim, for example).

ETA I do agree that people come to university at an older age here, after having already been influenced by sherut leumi/the army/shnat sherut/mechina and the plethora of things people do before university.
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chanchy123




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 02 2020, 2:27 am
I was part of university culture here and active in the debate club at Hebrew U (admittedly 20 years ago). Yes, there is more of a presence of woke culture on college campuses here, but students are in a different stage of life when they go to college, they have life experience and more or less a solidified world view, in college they are likely to strengthen views they already had developed. College students aren’t isolated from their families and the real world on campus. They generally live off campus and even if they are in the dorms everyone goes home at least once it twice a month (usually more). They spend time with their parents, many times they work in the real world. Of course there is college life, it’s just very different. These aren’t teens who’ve left home for her first time in their lives and live far away from their parents in a bubble. So of course you’ll find very far left enclaves in universities both among faculty and students but it’s less influential.
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