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Yesterday, I heard a woman casually, as though it were self-evident, explain an undesirable outcome in her life with "because I'm a woman." I have heard this used by many women to explain: -Why they are not managers -Why their students cannot read -Why they follow pointless workplace rules that no one ever enforces and most employees don't follow -Why they live in fear of the disapproval of superiors -Why a waiter was rude to them -Why a waitress was rude to them -Why they must conform to community norms
Though the explanation sounds like a confession ( "I can't be a manager, I'm just a girl!"), in all cases it is an accusation, intended to imply that the patriarchy is manipulating things behind the scenes, or that "everyone knows" men never get punished/demoted/frowned upon, so only women have to actually worry about their behavior/reputations/whatever. I have been shocked both by how readily this explanation is confirmed/affirmed by other women present when it is offered, and also the wild confirmation bias on display. The women are not managers, but they never applied for the job, and their bosses are women. They have never been reprimanded at work, but neither has anyone else. The male students can't read, but neither can the female ones. None of this is considered. It boggles the mind.
Nevertheless, it is a fact about how a certain class of Western woman explains the world to herself. If people so privileged are so certain of how the deck is stacked against them, what hope is there for people with stronger evidence for that belief about themselves? How does a standard right-thinking (from "to right-think") respectable Westerner expect anyone else to transcend their culture or overcome oppression or break the cycle when their default, axiomatic explanation for why they only make 100k and three trips to Mexico per year is "society cheated me." What is a black kid supposed to think? Or a kid on a reservation? "I'll give it my best shot"? I have heard black dissidents make this argument against the idea of systemic racism- that even if it is real, thinking about it stops black people from trying things. But how can self-exculpatory models of the world be eradicated in people with somewhat credible claims to oppression when they are so popular even among the most privileged members of society? How do the "it's the culture" people expect the culture to change if the winning culture tells itself the same story as the losing one?
As the classic /r9k/ meme alleges, in life man often faces a binary choice that can be neatly summarized as “cope or rope”.
Most of human civilization is the product of the former, because the latter is by definition final. This is why self-pity is the most powerful emotion, because its nuances sort our response to each failure into one category or the other.
Some story is always necessary to explain failure. Universal self-criticism is an evolutionary dead-end; very few successful people always blame themselves, because this is the route to rope (in spirit or reality). So an alternative is necessary. If you can find someone else to blame for each defeat, you live to fight another day.
Broke: "It's my fault that I failed so I should just give up."
Woke: "It's other people's fault that I failed, so I should try again."
Bespoke: "I am responsible for everything that happens to me and everything that happens to everyone else. I have failed before and I always will fail, but I'll keep trying anyway because as the Kierkegaardian Knight of Faith I embrace the absurd. God is that all things are possible, and that all things are possible is God."
From Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, chapter 90:
People really run away from agency/blame when it casts shade on their own actions or their political commitments. This is an incredibly basic egoistic primitive. E.g., when you have an abortion, you're not "killing" it, you're simply removing it from the uterus, and it's not your 'fault' that it doesn't survive out in the elements. Might as well be pushing a stroller off a cliff and blaming gravity.
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