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"Social Justice Warrior" ("SJW") is a pejorative for someone advocating for social justice issues such as racism, sexism, or homophobia. The term is used to accuse ideological opponents of sanctimony, to insinuate pretense, and as a general purpose negative.
Blogger Andrew Sullivan, an opponent of what he calls "left-feminism," used the acronym "SJWs" in the headline of a post (The SJWs Now Get To Police Speech On Twitter) where he argued that Twitter's efforts to control harassment of women on its platform amounted to an effort to police speech. Writing in The Nation, Michelle Goldberg responded to Sullivan's accusations: "Perhaps he would argue that the loss of some voices, the voices of those who can’t withstand daily torrents of threats and slurs, is a worthwhile price to pay for an absolutely unfettered Twittersphere. If so, he should make that case, rather than fantasizing that feminists are more often the silencers than the silenced."
Although most commonly used to cast negative implications, some have reappropriated the term as a neutral or positive source of identity.
See also
- Political correctness
- Feminazi
- Gutmensch (German expression for "do-gooder")
References
- Hill, Max (17 November 2014). "In Defence of Social Justice Warriors". The Peak.
SJWs are generally young, white, and spend their time on social media condemning those who fail to live up to their own moral and ethical standards.
- North, Anna (29 August 2014). "Why a Video Game Critic Was Forced to Flee Her home". New York Times OP Talk.
"For certain segments of the gaming world, she writes, the term refers to "people who, according to Urbandictionary, engage in 'social justice arguments on the internet… in an effort to raise their own personal reputation.' In other words, SJWs don't hold strong principles, but they pretend to.""
- Ringo, Allegra (28 August 2014). "Meet the Female Gamer Mascot Born of Anti-Feminist Internet Drama". Vice.
People who, according to Urban Dictionary, engage in "social justice arguments on the internet... in an effort to raise their own personal reputation." In other words, SJWs don't hold strong principles, but they pretend to. 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. It's awfully convenient to have a term at the ready to dismiss women who bring up sexism, as in, "You don't really care. As an SJW, you're just taking up this cause to make yourself look good!"
- "Gamers Misogynistic? Some Certainly Are". Irish Times. 18 October 2014.
The term "social justice warrior" GamerGate: A Closer Look At The Controversy Sweeping Video Games(surely a good thing) has been used pejoratively to describe those writers who choose to examine the social and political subtexts of contemporary video games
- "The Only Guide to Gamergate You Will Ever Need to Read". Washington Post. 14 October 2014.
..."SJW," for social justice warrior -- a kind of shorthand insult for liberals and progressives.
- "Understanding the Jargon of Gamergate". Recode. 10 October 2014.
any person, female or male, who argues online for political correctness or feminism. "Social justice" may sound like a good thing to many of our readers, but the people who use this term only use it pejoratively.
- The SJWs Now Get To Police Speech On Twitter. Sullivan, Andrew, The Dish, 10 November 2014
- Andrew Sullivan Versus the Social-Justice Warriors. Goldberg, Michelle, The Nation, 12 November 2014
- http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/edwest/2014/11/why-social-justice-warriors-are-losing/
- http://www.the-peak.ca/2014/11/in-defence-of-social-justice-warriors/