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I am so sick of people excusing -isms because "that's just how things were back then." My grandfather was a decent employer to his Mexican fieldhands who worked in his orchards. He was still fucking racist. He didn't attend my parents' wedding - his own son! - because my mother is Mexican.
Women weren't allowed to be sexual, so they had to "allow" a man to "entice" them into sexual situations, so it wouldn't be "her fault". That's still fucking sexist and rapey, even if "everyone did it that way". The very definition of Rape Culture is that coercion, manipulation, assault, and rape are so normalized in society that it's "just how things are".
Benevolent -isms go hand-in-hand with malicious -isms. The "nice" version can't exist without the "bad" version. And, in fact, when someone upholds the "nice" version, they are more likely to "punish" someone for failing to live up to the high standards and fit in the narrow box of the "nice" version.
So, like, women are "nurturing", which is heralded as a virtue, right? Until a woman *isn't* "nurturing", and then she's punished for it and forced back into that role.
So, sure, the people "back then" didn't see anything racist or sexist or whatever-ist about what they were doing. IT WAS STILL FUCKING RACIST OR SEXIST OR WHATEVER-IST.
Maybe they can't be "blamed" for "not knowing any better", but I can still fucking hate examples of them reveling in their ignorance because their behaviour violates my own value system and what they "didn't know any better" about "back then" is WHY I'M FIGHTING WITH RACIST SEXIST WHATEVER-IST ASSHOLES STILL TODAY.
That behaviour "back then" directly led to everything I'm fighting against now, and the struggle to maintain control over my own agency every single fucking day. Because "back then" is the precedent that we still haven't crawled out of.
Today, we supposedly "know better", but the whole fucking reason we're in the political mess we're in is because enough people wanted to go back to the "good ol' days" when all that shit was "just how things are" and nobody seemed to mind because they didn't have the power to speak up if they did.
So no, I'm not going to forgive my predecessors just because they "didn't know any better back then", because they're the reason why things are still fucked up today.
Women weren't allowed to be sexual, so they had to "allow" a man to "entice" them into sexual situations, so it wouldn't be "her fault". That's still fucking sexist and rapey, even if "everyone did it that way". The very definition of Rape Culture is that coercion, manipulation, assault, and rape are so normalized in society that it's "just how things are".
Benevolent -isms go hand-in-hand with malicious -isms. The "nice" version can't exist without the "bad" version. And, in fact, when someone upholds the "nice" version, they are more likely to "punish" someone for failing to live up to the high standards and fit in the narrow box of the "nice" version.
So, like, women are "nurturing", which is heralded as a virtue, right? Until a woman *isn't* "nurturing", and then she's punished for it and forced back into that role.
So, sure, the people "back then" didn't see anything racist or sexist or whatever-ist about what they were doing. IT WAS STILL FUCKING RACIST OR SEXIST OR WHATEVER-IST.
Maybe they can't be "blamed" for "not knowing any better", but I can still fucking hate examples of them reveling in their ignorance because their behaviour violates my own value system and what they "didn't know any better" about "back then" is WHY I'M FIGHTING WITH RACIST SEXIST WHATEVER-IST ASSHOLES STILL TODAY.
That behaviour "back then" directly led to everything I'm fighting against now, and the struggle to maintain control over my own agency every single fucking day. Because "back then" is the precedent that we still haven't crawled out of.
Today, we supposedly "know better", but the whole fucking reason we're in the political mess we're in is because enough people wanted to go back to the "good ol' days" when all that shit was "just how things are" and nobody seemed to mind because they didn't have the power to speak up if they did.
So no, I'm not going to forgive my predecessors just because they "didn't know any better back then", because they're the reason why things are still fucked up today.
