What happened in 2012

[communicator]

I was just thinking that the biggest change I saw in 2012 is a kind of waking up about misogyny and sexual exploitation. Up until recently you just could not say that something (say a joke) was sexist or misogynist without being jeered at just for saying it. Suddenly it is something you can at least say sexism is bad in general conversation, even

Comments

[kerravonsen]

You make good points. It's rather cheering.

[communicator]

On the downside I think attitudes to the poor and disabled are still unexamined

[steepholm]

Yes, it's like watching the tide creep up the beach: each individual wave recedes, but the next one comes a little higher. So too, we may hope, with understanding and the possibilities of discourse!

[communicator]

There is tide in the affairs of men that taken on the flood leads on to... well, some small change for the better I hope

[vilakins]

I haven't seen that here yet, going by some of the jokes in my previous office, but that's very encouraging. I always thought we'd be the last to achieve respect and equality because sexism goes across so many cultural borders.

[tehomet]

You are being optimistic! :D

But no, seriously. I agree with you. I think a lot of it may be the existence of the internet for a certain number of years, facilitating women having conversations about rape culture.

I don't know if that's true but either way: I wonder what the/a major contributory factor was in the Seventies regarding racism. Maybe more diversity of representation on TV after it had existed for a certain number of years? Or maybe that's a chicken/egg situation.

Big changes in a culture sometimes happen fast. Some people here think a major improvement in the whole Irish nation's self-esteem happened due to one interval dance at freaking Eurovision. :) And maybe they're right.