“Oppression porn” will ruin us all
Elevator going up…
I was once in a lift with a woman who was headed to the same floor I was. When the lift opened, even though I was closer to the door, I gestured to let her exit first.
She got offended and insisted I get off first.
She assumed I’d offered this gesture because she was a woman. And she insinuated from this that my brain must have been infected by sexist ideas like “the weaker/fairer sex” and misguided chivalry.
But she was wrong.
I didn’t make the gesture because she was a woman—I did it because I make that gesture to everyone. Men. Women. Children. Old people. Young people. Everyone. Ironically, I do this because the women who raised me trained me to behave that way and, in my adulthood, I agreed that it is a good way to be.
Never mind that I could have flipped her simplistic mode of analysis on her and insisted that she was racist for criticising me (she was white and I am black). I could have suggested that had I been white, she’d have seen the gesture as classy, not crude.
I could have turned the emotional manipulation dial to 11 and analogised using stories like Emmett Till’s. I could have insinuated that she’s part of a tradition of white women deepening the oppression of black men by perceiving as faults in us, that which they’d see as strengths in others. I’d have had her. The fact that I could’ve convincingly made these arguments, even though I knew them to be false, says a lot about the ease and carelessness with which these SJW-style arguments can be used to manipulate discourse.
In the end, I didn’t go down that road because, clear as day, the real problem — oppression porn—became apparent to me. I use “porn” to mean an exaggerated and unhealthy characterisation of a thing—in this case, oppression—which is (nonetheless) fleetingly and sensually satisfying to adopt.
Somewhere along the way, this woman had plugged her brain into an operating system that programmed her to be suspicious of men. To see herself as “woman”, and anything “man” as anathema to woman. So, any time she has an experience with a man that she (for whatever reason) finds unpleasant, she jumps to the conclusion that it must be because she is “woman” and he is “man”.
But there’s a flaw in such reasoning. Any time an event is taking place, there is an infinite number of other things also happening—the overwhelming majority of those things is not related to the chain of cause and effect within any single phenomenon. In short, it is much (much) easier to draw spurious (yet seemingly plausible) conclusions than it is to draw accurate ones. If you plot US spending on science, space and tech against suicides by hanging, a strong positive correlation emerges—does that mean one is causing the other? If most engineers are men and most nurses are women, does that mean it is because of men that women don’t become engineers or because of women that men don’t become nurses? Hence, the science of discovering the objective truth lies not in drawing superficial conclusions, but in toiling to uncover the hidden ones.
A truth that we seek to impose on all of society should be objective—it should be falsifiable, verifiable and reproducible. Otherwise we end up drawing superficial conclusions—like saying the sun revolves around Earth—and imprisoning innocent people for pointing out that these fall apart under scrutiny. My point is, our brains are pattern-finding machines and they will always find patterns if we insist that they do. But if we programme them with faulty rules of operation, they’ll find flawed patterns—not unlike an AI algorithm or the lift lady.
She had primed her brain to find oppression and she may spend as much as her whole life “finding” it—even when it isn’t there.
What a tragedy.
The existential jackpot of a human brain—a gift that has given us space exploration, the cure for polio and greater economic wellbeing for more people on Earth than ever before—dedicated to hunting nothing but obstacles to one’s dreams… instead of the fulfilment of the dreams themselves.
Coming to this realisation made me ask another question—why are people today so eager to fetishise oppression? We absolutely hate admitting that things are getting better for people in the world.
I think it’s partly because we think refusing to fetishise oppression is the same as denying the existence of oppression—which is so far from the truth that it feels like an understatement to call it false.
But I also think there’s something more corrupt at the heart of the matter.
Humanity going down…
Let’s take the “gender pay gap”. Jonathan Pie, a liberal pseudonymous reporter, is only the most recent in a long list of people—male and female, left and right wing—to mock the deception in the verbiage of that concept. Some people become unhinged whenever these facts are excavated from the scrapheap of manipulative, hyperemotional headlines… but it’s a fact that women have not been proven to be paid less than men for doing the same jobs, at the same level, in the same organisations. In fact, when all these salary-influencing variables are accounted for, the pay gap basically disappears (and that’s according to the Economist)—or, as in the case of the younger generation, women earn more than men on average. Every study that normalises for these variables finds the same outcome—starting as far back as 1981, with Thomas Sowell.
What is very real is a “lifetime earnings gap”—over their lifetime and on average, women tend to earn less money than men. A lot of this has been explained by everything from caregiving norms, to men working more daily hours and negotiation skills. Whatever the reasons, I’d much prefer for women not to earn less, on average and over their lifetimes, than men.
There are many solutions we could propose to this:
- We could insist that the government heavily supplement the earnings of the primary caregiver in every home—it is, after all, a role on which the future of humanity depends (no trivial thing)
- We could insist that companies increase the remuneration packages attached to paternity and maternity leave
- We could run studies to decipher, conclusively, all the variables causing the lifetime earnings gap so that our proposed solutions are more effective
- We could promote (or even legislate on) the adoption of flexible working arrangements, so that primary caregivers can continue to earn while at home
- We could increase the average wage for flexible workers who are new parents
- We could make it easier for primary caregivers to return to work, once their maternity or paternity leave is done
There are many more routes that more qualified people than I could propose… but the overwhelming public response has not been to hunt the truth—it’s been to jump to a conclusion.
First of all, that there is unequal pay for identical work and secondly, that it must be because men mean to exploit women. But even when the distinction between a “gender pay gap” and a “lifetime earnings gap” has been established, why do we insist on painting the false image that men are colluding to exploit women? We stick with the “gender pay gap” narrative because it is more inflammatory than the “lifetime earnings gap” narrative. It’s loud. It’s sensationalist. It’s oppression porn.
Instead of any number of ways in which these statistics could be interpreted and acted upon, we’ve gone with the most primal and destructive one—tribalism.
We’ve looked at all the desirable jobs (and only the desirable jobs) in which men are overrepresented, and launched a vendetta to force feed women into those professions. Because this is about men vs women, of course—not simply fair remuneration across professions. Even forgetting that people tend to ignore the desirable jobs in which women are overrepresented—or the undesirable jobs in which men are overrepresented—there are still many dangerous consequences resulting from this mentality.
First of all, the focus has shifted from correcting the lifetime earnings gap to making women identical to men—in attributes and outcome. We can implement changes that mean women earn just as much as men without pressuring them to pursue exactly the same careers or outcomes. But the goal here is different—to pit women against men in some kind of zero sum game. That’s counterproductive because it increasingly encourages women to measure their worth based on how similar they are to men—flaws and all. I won’t even delve into the “gender paradox”—as a society becomes more egalitarian, people are more likely to conform to the gender-typical behaviours we keep demonising. A fact that suggests we may be harming many women by pressuring them to do things they don’t really want to do.
Second of all, this mentality urges women to see every man as a threat—even when no evidence suggests that he is. This makes some (not all) women go into the world with huge chips on their shoulders, just looking for men who confirm the narrative they’ve already concluded to be true. They carry an attitude of hostility (that is wrongly celebrated as “strong”), which alienates men who not only wish them no harm but—in many cases—would like to lend their support. The mentality of oppression porn sends us into the world charged with negative emotions and desperate to find an outlet. I see it with sub-sections of all marginalised groups—people looking for a fight because they’ve convinced themselves it’s coming no matter what. This doesn’t help women or anyone else—it hurts them. People—powerful people, resourceful people, kind people… people who can help you—will avoid you. And it won’t be because you’re a woman. It won’t be because you’re a feminist. It won’t be because you hate oppression. It will be because you have a terrible attitude and combative mindset.
Thirdly, every tribe has a leader (or leaders) and it is in the leader’s interest to keep the tribe suspicious of outsiders. I’ve written more about this topic in my article, “Why I live by ideas, not isms,” but I’ll summarise here. There are individuals with selfish intentions who have figured out that leading a tribe gives them power. So, they create tribes—which is easier than ever in this age of social media—around the most emotionally charged topics. These tribal leaders spread oppression porn.
The dominance of emotions over reason makes people easier to manipulate because emotions drive impulses, and impulses are unexamined reflexes to stimulus. In short, your impulses can make you do things that make no sense and in which you don’t even believe—as long as you’re exposed to the right stimulus.
The raison d’être of tribal leaders is to prove to you that you’re more oppressed than you’ve ever been, and you always will be… unless you join their tribe. And once you do, they weaponise your brain and use it as an instrument of tribal violence. They foster such a co-dependence that all they need to do is tell you someone is bad and you’ll seek to do harm to that person… without investigating for yourself and deciding whether you believe this person (or people) truly means you harm. These power-hungry types don’t care about the cost to society—their satisfaction comes from being able to manipulate people. If you need evidence that this pathology exists, look no further than Allison Mack’s use of “female empowerment” to recruit women into sexual slavery. Or a family in Canada which, during a climate of “Islamophobia”, used a fake hate crime to gain media attention. Or Khalid Abdul Muhammad, who preached against race hate by weaponising the minds of young black men to spread racial violence. Or the big one—the “fearless girl” statue which was used by a company that underpays its women, to exploit people’s outrage at gender inequality (and corrupt the meaning of an innocent man’s sculpture). The creator of the bull of Wall Street was ruthlessly mocked by news outlets and politicians who wanted to cast him as a sexist—even though he stressed that he was for women’s rights. He simply urged society not to fall for a cheap marketing stunt… turns out he was right. If this is not a masterclass in the dark arts of propaganda, I don’t know what is. And if you want to dismantle power, start by tearing down the power of those who seek to weaponise your brain in pursuit of their own ends.
Finally, this tribal mentality keeps people in a state of arrested development—perpetually trying to prove that they’re “equal to” because deep down, they’re programmed to see the ingredients of their identity as “lesser than”. This mentality suggests it’s not that you receive inferior treatment because you’re a woman, it’s that the qualities of womanhood make you inferior—an even more damning outlook. This is why the insecurities of those who drink this Kool-Aid are never sated. The more accommodating the world becomes, the angrier they get because they just can’t understand why they still feel so bad about themselves.
Where the two things meet…
One of the weirder and more omnipresent experiences in my life has been that of many (not all) black people calling me “white”, or “coconut” or “Oreo”. Some white people do it too. When I ask why, the answers leave me disappointed. “You read philosophy and write poetry… that’s white people shit.” “Who says things like ‘transitive verb’? You’re like a white professor.” “Most of your friends aren’t black people? How come?”
There’s a set of qualities—intellectualism, eloquence and openness—associated with being white, and all those qualities are (clearly) more productive than their inverses. If you embody those qualities, you can’t “really” be black—because black identity is obviously marked by physical prowess over intellectualism, grammatically flawed but “cool” slang, poor elocution and being culturally closed. We’ve overdosed on images of oppression for so long that we can’t see ourselves as anything but “lesser than”.
If there’s a “lesser than”, it must be ours… because “more than” certainly isn’t—we’re the downtrodden and perpetually oppressed, remember? Embracing freedom from this plague is seen as “abandoning the tribe” (again, not unlike in Plato’s Cave).
And the “liberal” extremists (white and black) who want to soothe their consciences or egos (or both), encourage us to hold on to this destructive view of ourselves. I want neither my blackness nor my non-whiteness—and these are two different things—to define me, because both of those things are meaningless. What I am is not who I am.
Unfortunately, I see a different form of this dysfunctional mentality infecting the discussion around female empowerment.
Women are only described as “badass” or “strong” when they do things perceived as male-typical, like climbing to the top of a corporation or acquiring huge amounts of material wealth. Things that, evolutionarily speaking, men—not women—have been incentivised to do. There may be a woman capable of doing things in a different and better way than any man or woman before her has, but we’ll never know if her obsession is to prove she can do things just as a man does—if her standard is male performance. Psychology is dominated by women and I can think of few lines of work more important to society’s wellbeing—is this less worthy of celebration simply because it isn’t as lucrative as some other fields? Where are our monuments to amazing social care workers? Or amazing nurses? Or veterinarians? I guess it’s much easier to jump on celebrity-driven obsessions with “sexy” professions like coding, acting or entrepreneurship. You can’t have two groups of people, one “bred” to compete for (and win) the affections of a mate, and the other to protect and nurture the continuation of life… and expect the two to present the same behavioural patterns. But this doesn’t mean we must ascribe the tag of “lesser than” or “greater than” to either behavioural pattern, then pit the two groups against each other.
And, of course, the way we try to rectify these unfounded obsessions is aggressive social engineering, which leads to unwanted side effects—like,for example, Asian Americans being hurt by race quotas at top universities. Women are just as important and valuable as men, even when they’re doing things men don’t typically do—and it goes the other way too. So, what a vote of no confidence it is to suggest women really really want to do all these things men typically do… but will only do so if all obstacles are cleared out of their way and there’s someone on hand to nourish their perpetually low confidence every step of the way. If it’ll please you more, you can hear this from a woman—a feminist even—instead of me. More and more members of “minority groups” are getting tired of the soft prejudice of low expectations—even if it comes from well-meaning (but ignorant) people. Before any human built a mechanical computer, Charles Babbage did. Before any human wrote a computer algorithm, Ada Lovelace did. Both, and countless others from times past, pursued their dreams (big and small) against odds that would be unthinkable today. How low has our view of women sunk that—in spite of all the legal protections, incentives and free tools available today—we don’t believe they are driven enough to pursue their dreams of becoming coders unless we nag them to do so… and shelter them in women-only offices, away from the unmanageable “prowess” of manhood? I think we should support women but I’m not sure we need to infantilise them. And I don’t know of any civilisation that became more advanced by deepening lines of division in its society.
In the end, “cui bono”?
Problems like racism and sexism are just like any other vice or crime — murder, theft, assault, lying etc. But I’ve never heard anyone claim that they just can’t live their life because of all these murderers and thieves running around the place. We all know bad things happen to other people but, unless these affect us directly, we don’t assume they will and simply give up trying to live a normal life. We don’t dedicate our lives to proving that theft or murder is everywhere, and worse than ever. We don’t assume that most people are thieves or murderers, unless a specific individual gives us reason to do so. And we certainly don’t try to prove that any one group of people is responsible for the existence of a particular crime or vice (e.g theft or lying). But if you “genderise” or “racialise” the crime /vice— e.g. rape or police brutality — suddenly the whole picture changes. Suddenly, it is OK for people to anticipate the crime and behave as if it has already been inflicted on them — simply because someone, somewhere, sometime suffered this crime. It is OK to pursue a vendetta of making the crime seem as rotten and as widespread as possible. It is OK to assume that innocent people are guilty of or inclined towards the crime, even when they’ve given you no reason to do so. And it’s certainly OK — celebrated even — to try and prove that an entire group is to blame for the existence of that crime, proliferated by a minuscule minority.
In short, any emotional attachment to one’s identity as “the oppressed”, isn’t constructive or in one’s interest. It continues only because it is making certain people rich or powerful, or both. Therefore, it is in their interest to saturate you with the message of oppression.
Humans have proven, time and time again, that we will exploit almost anything and anyone to achieve power or money, or both.
Do not assume that humans are beyond using noble causes like gender equality and racism, to achieve selfish ends. “News” companies (on the left and right wing) will do it for things as trite as clicks and ad impressions (even CNN is more than comfortable lying to you). Politicians will do it for things as volatile as personal insecurities and bottomless egos. But we must resist these intoxicating calls into uncritical self-absorption. We should not revert to our primal, tribalistic state, just because it feels good to do so. We should not project all the things we hate in ourselves on some generic idea of a villainous “other”. While that will give power to the tribal leader and satisfaction to you, it will also mire the tribe and everything around it in fatal conflict. There are bad people in the world, who mean to do you harm—but the thing they have in common is not a cosmetic trait, it’s a psychological dysfunction. That’s why drawing lines of oppression and power based on cosmetic traits is erroneous and ineffective—there were men who helped the suffragettes, white people who supported civil rights, Germans who helped Jews during the Third Reich, straight activists who supported gay rights, and so on. The nexus of oppression is not as simplistic as the oppression porn cartel would have you believe. They avoid painting a more accurate picture because that would release the emotionally charged stranglehold around your weaponised brain.
There’s a wonderful latin phrase originating from the legal profession—“Cui bono?” or “To whom is it a benefit?” The next time you encounter an “advocate” hellbent on convincing you to luxuriate in your oppression, ask yourself, “Who benefits?”
Is the world truly so hostile that it has never been harder for you to achieve your goals? Or, will your believing the world to be more hostile than ever simply help someone else achieve their goals?
