Nathan Cofnas has the (so-far) best definition of woke. My favourite go-to definition was this: the making-sacred of previously marginalised groups (@epkaufm, who calls it/called it a moral or emotional regime). That's obviously correct, but @nathancofnas' version adds in a motivation: it's what happens when you take the equality thesis seriously, but you still end up with group-level disparities in outcomes. Wokeism is the result of forcing the equality thesis and then looking for ever-more subtle causes to explain the different outcomes once all the more obvious discriminations have been taken care of. My redpilling happened when I was working in science research funding for the European Commission, and I had to help communicate to the public that they were sexist because there were fewer women in STEM fields. This was after all of the obvious legal barriers to women choosing STEM careers had been removed, and the norm-changing campaigns had been happening for most of my life. More than half of university students were female, and almost everyone in the meetings about sexism were women. It was a hunt for invisible causes, without ever considering that personal choice or abilities (fewer female spergs) could have anything to do with it. That could never be even said aloud.

"Did you consider coming out in defence of those women, at all?" I asked Mary Lou McDonald and the Lord Mayor of Belfast (both of @sinnfeinireland) about the exclusion of Women's Rights Network Northern Ireland from this year's Féile festival in West Belfast. @ni_wrn