Whooo boy, spoken like the true voice of privilege. "Your oppression doesn't bother me all that much, so I think you should pretend it doesn't really hurt or bother you. Because that's what's going to actually make it better." Even though there is zero evidence that such a thing has ever done anything but embolden oppressors, halt progress, and further traumatize victims.
Undoubtedly we have made huge social progress in the past 100 years, and particularly in the middle of the last century, but in the past 10 years has regressed substantially - in part as a pushback on the progress. The whole Brexit debacle is one example, but the increased hateful rhetoric and new anti-LGBTQ laws are another. As is the rise of the Andrew Tates of this world, and his huge popularity despite very clearly being a misogynistic bastard.
I'm going to tell you a little story about how what you see as performative actions can absolutely change the culture of something for the better. As you probably are aware, my husband and I are polyamorous and we used to go quite often to what one might call a swinger's club. Inside this club, where women were often quite scantily dressed, and sometimes even completely topless, there was none of the casual harassment that fully dressed women regularly experience out in the world. There was no gawking, leering, groping, pinching, menacing, following, etc., because those sorts of behaviors were not tolerated within the confines of the club. There were bouncers to enforce the rules, but they almost never had to be called in except for in a few instances with new guys who didn't quite get that you couldn't behave the way you do in the outside world in there. The people who were regulars not only obeyed the rules of the club because they wanted to stay, but their actual attitudes about how you behave also shifted in many cases. Creating a different environment helped to create a different culture. So, you can scoff at that, but I would have assumed that you'd have enough social/psychological savvy to understand how and why that works as it does. Just as going through the motions of smiling tends to help you to actually feel more upbeat, going through the motions of kindness and inclusiveness tends to help to create an actually nicer atmosphere.
Glad to hear you've got better working protections over there, but I would also imagine that if someone were discriminating against Penguins in the workplace, rather than just being generally rude, you'd have a chat with your union rep about that. Because although being shitty to someone is not usually a crime, being shitty to someone of a protected class in a way that discriminates against them on that basis is. This is why Peterson objected to the Canadian law being expanded to add gender identity and expression - because he wanted to reserve the legal right to continue being shitty to such people.
The resurgence of the political right has come about because they are scared witless about their "way of life" i.e., the white, male-dominated world going by the wayside and they are fighting tooth and nail to stop it. If they weren't so vociferously fighting equality, we wouldn't have this problem. Although the political left is far from perfect, you can hardly blame them for reacting to this reactionary uptick.
I'm actually enjoying the mental image of you as Penguin instructing members of The Proud Boys or whatever right-wing equivalent you have over there on how to be nicer and to interact "properly." Ha!
