Social justice warrior

"Social justice warrior" (commonly abbreviated "SJW") is a pejorative term for an individual promoting socially progressive views, including advocacy for women's rights, identity politics, multiculturalism and civil rights.[1][2][3]

The phrase originated in the late 20th century as a neutral or positive term for people engaged in social justice.[3] During the Gamergate controversy, the negative connotation gained increased use, and was particularly aimed at those espousing views adhering to social liberalism, political correctness or feminism.[1][3] Vice reported that the accusation of being an SJW implied a person was engaged in disingenuous social justice arguments or activism to raise their personal reputation.[4] Vice assessed the problematic use of the term: "The problem is, that's not a real category of people. It's simply a way to dismiss anyone who brings up social justice—and often those people are feminists."[4]

The term has entered popular culture, including a parody role-playing video game released in 2014 titled Social Justice Warriors.[5][6] The game was focused around debating an Internet troll, and its creator was motivated to encourage users to engage in critical thinking.[7]

Origin

For more details on this topic, see Social justice.

Dating back to 1824, the term "social justice" refers to justice on a societal level.[8] Abby Ohlheiser wrote in The Washington Post that "social-justice warrior" or variations thereof had been used as a laudatory phrase in the past, and provided an example dating to 1991.[3] She quoted Katherine Martin, the head of U.S. dictionaries at Oxford University Press, who said, "All of the examples I’ve seen until quite recently are lionizing the person".[3] According to The Washington Post, use of the phrase in a positive manner continued from the 1990s through the 2000s.[3] At the time of the article's publication in October 2015, The Washington Post noted Martin said "lexicographers there haven’t done a full search for its earliest citation" of the term.[3] Kristina Marusic of MTV News stated that prior to its usage in a negative fashion, "social justice warrior" had been used to refer to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. describing their efforts on behalf of social justice.[9]

Pejorative use

The term began gaining traction with a negative connotation in 2011.[3] The term's negative use became mainstream due to the Gamergate controversy,[10] emerging as the favoured term of Gamergate proponents to describe their enemies.[3] In internet and video game culture the phrase is broadly associated with the Gamergate controversy and wider culture war fallout, including the 2015 Sad Puppies campaign that affected the Hugo Awards.[4][11][12][13][14] Usage of the term as a pejorative was popularized on websites Reddit and 4chan.[15] The term has also been classed as an outgrowth of individuals belonging to the men's rights movement.[2]

The motivation for using the term has been described as being an effort to degrade the motivations of the person accused of being an SJW, implying that their motives are "for personal validation rather than out of any deep-seated conviction." [16]

The negative connotation was particularly aimed at those espousing views adhering to social liberalism, political correctness or feminism.[1][3] According to Vice, the accusation of being an SJW implies that a person is engaging in disingenuous social justice arguments or activism to raise his or her personal reputation.[4] Vice observed: "It's awfully convenient to have a term at the ready to dismiss women who bring up sexism."[4] The magazine assessed the problematic use of the term: "The problem is, that's not a real category of people. It's simply a way to dismiss anyone who brings up social justice—and often those people are feminists."[4]

"the 'social justice warrior,' i.e., the stereotype of the feminist as unreasonable, sanctimonious, biased, and self-aggrandizing."

 —New Literary History[17]

The term is commonly used by participants in online discussion in criticism of feminism.[17] An article in New Literary History described their behavior patterns on the Internet: "they often make personal criticisms of what they see as a type: the 'social justice warrior,' i.e., the stereotype of the feminist as unreasonable, sanctimonious, biased, and self-aggrandizing."[17]

In August 2015, the derogatory term "Social Justice Warrior" was one of several new words and phrases added to Oxford Dictionaries.[3][18][19] In discussing the term's origin, Martin outlined the similarity with the pejorative use of "political correctness" to denigrate something, stating that "the perceived orthodoxy [of progressive politics] has prompted a backlash among people who feel their speech is being policed."[3] Hussain Khan, president of a group at University of British Columbia to address issues of racism and discrimination, agreed with this definition of the term.[20] Khan lamented that use of the term was a method of stopping open debate and discussion.[20] He commented: "These days, if you speak even mildly about social inequality, instead of people having conversation, people will be like, 'Oh, you're an SJW (social justice warrior) or something,' and it really just silences the conversation."[20]

Reappropriation

For more details on this topic, see Reappropriation.

English columnist and author Laurie Penny wrote in October 2014 that the term was ineffective: "'Social Justice Warrior' just doesn't work as an insult, because a great many people care quite a lot about social justice and are proud to fight for it."[21] In the article "Social Justice Warriors and the New Culture War", she reappropriated the word itself, writing: "Us Social Justice Warriors—this is me, stealing that word in order to use it against my enemies—are winning the culture war by tearing up the rulebook, and there's nothing the sad, mad little boys who hate women and queers and people of colour can do about it."[21] Penny concluded: "Every time they make an example of one of us, ten more stand up in outrage to hold her up or take her place. We are stronger, smarter and more numerous than anyone imagined, and we are not to be fucked with."[21]

"In the spirit of taking back the term Social Justice Warrior", MTV spoke to feminist activist Laci Green as well as LGBT support group Everyone Is Gay founder Kristin Russo in February 2015 about their efforts on the Internet to advance the cause of social justice.[9]

In February 2016, the first QueerCon event was held at the University of Cincinnati, with the theme for the event being an attempt to reclaim the term 'Social Justice Warrior'.[22] Panels at the event also focused on topics including feminism, LGBT, politics, diversity, and social justice.[22]

In popular culture

In May 2014, the concept was incorporated into a parody role-playing video game titled Social Justice Warriors.[5][6] Developed by Nonadecimal Creative, Social Justice Warriors involved the concept of debating online against Internet trolls who make racist and other provocative comments by choosing from different responses such as" "'dismember their claims with your logic,' rebroadcast their message to be attacked by others, or go for the personal attack".[6] Users were able to select a character class; and gameplay involved changes to user meters of Sanity and Reputation.[6] The game became available on the computer platform Steam in February 2015.[7] Game creator Eric Ford explained that the game was designed to foster critical thinking and was not "intended to suggest that racist, sexist, or other offensive comments shouldn't be confronted online. The goal is to encourage critical thinking on how it can be done more effectively, and at less cost to the real-world social justice warriors."[7] He commented: "Once you’ve embarked down the path of correcting every incorrect statement an anonymous stranger is making online, the only inevitable outcomes are that your patience is exhausted by frustration, your reputation is obliterated by the trolls’ defamation or your own actions, or you give up in disgust."[7]

Actress Caitlin Barlow described her character on the 2016 U.S. comedy television series Teachers as a social justice warrior.[23] Barlow explained: "I play Cecilia Cannon, who is a super-crunchy hippie social justice warrior who is always trying to save the world, whether people care or not. And she's always pushing her left-wing agenda on her students."[23]

The Hollywood Reporter journalists Lesley Goldberg and Kate Stanhope noted in March 2016 that actress Isabella Gomez was cast in the Netflix remake of One Day at a Time and portrayed Elena, a character content to self-identify as a social justice warrior.[24] Goldberg and Stanhope wrote: "A proud nerd, idealist and social justice warrior, Elena is opinionated and not afraid to speak her mind."[24]

When the trailer for Doctor Strange was released, the film was accused of whitewashing the Tibetan character, The Ancient One, by casting actress Tilda Swinton in the role.[25] In response, one of the film's writers, C. Robert Cargill, while being interview on the Double Toasted podcast, said that "The social justice warriors were gonna get mad at us for something this week. They were just gonna do it, there was no way to avoid it."[26]

Bill Maher has used the expression on his show, Real Time with Bill Maher.[27][28]

While promoting his film The Green Inferno, Eli Roth said "I wanted to write a movie that was about modern activism. I see that a lot of people want to care and want to help, but in general I feel like people don't really want to inconvenience their own lives. And I saw a lot of people just reacting to things on social media. These social justice warriors. 'This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.' And they're just tweeting and retweeting. They're not actually doing anything. Or you see people get involved in a cause that they don't really know a lot about and they go crazy about it. I wanted to make a movie about kids like that."[29]

While talking about the film Blazing Saddles in their video entitled Top 10 Most Politically Incorrect Movies, WatchMojo commented: "It is an unflinching parody of life in the Old West, complete with N-words, cultural stereotypes, and offensive characters... In today's politically correct age, the very mention of such words and subjects draws the ire of social justice warriors everywhere. And, even in the context of a satirical comedy, the reputational fallout would be devastating."[30]

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

Look up social justice warrior in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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