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Social justice terminology for university physicists

[ jump to: Glossary ]

Types of discrimination to learn about

Most of this list is taken from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Ontario Human Rights Code.

Sex/gender: sexism, misogyny; sexual harassment, sexual assault
Gender identity: transphobia†
Sexuality: homophobia†; biphobia†
Marital status, Pregnancy status
Body size: fatphobia†
Health status: physical health (visible/invisible) ableism‡; mental health ableism‡
Wealth, Receipt of public assistance: classism
Chronological age: ageism
Race, Colour, Ancestry, Ethnic origin, Place of origin: racism (e.g. anti-Black racism); colonialism
Immigration, Documentation status
Religion: Islamophobia†; anti-Semitism

† Psychologically and linguistically, -antagonism is a more accurate suffix than -phobia.
‡ ableism is also known as disablism in the UK

Glossary

ally: We become an ally to marginalized communities when we show consistent support for their liberation through our words and our actions -- without burdening them by asking for free education on demand or by expecting rewards. Ally is an earned designation which cannot be awarded to oneself, and it is revocable.
axes: Different aspects of human identity (e.g. gender, race, health) can be thought of as a bit like axes in a multi-dimensional identity space.
de-centring: This describes the intellectual and emotional effort that grownups make to recognize that our own identities and cultural assumptions are not the defaults. Learning to de-centre our identities is especially important when we are amongst folks who are more marginalized than we are.
discrimination: This happens at interpersonal, institutional, and ideological levels. Newbies to inclusiveness work often make the mistake of assuming that the interpersonal one-on-one kind of discrimination is all there is. Structural discrimination is orders of magnitude more pernicious, and only it is referred to as an -ism (e.g. sexism, racism, anti-Semitism).
identity politics: When a comfortable privileged person feels that their identity is in danger of no longer being centred in an event or discussion, they often use this phrase in a disparaging fashion to try to force the discourse back to centring them and their own kind. This tactic is best left in the dustbin of history.
implicit bias: Also known as implicit social cognition, this refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. (Here are some online tests of implicit bias from Harvard that can be taken in private.)
impostor syndrome: When a person who has been somewhat successful feels like a fraud or an impostor because they struggle to internalize their accomplishments, this is called impostor syndrome.
intersectionality: This term was coined by Black scholar Prof. Kimberlé Crenshaw in analyzing intersections between gender and race, but is also used to describe other intersections. It is about power structures, and it highlights how being marginalized along more than one axis compounds the difficulty nonlinearly. (For example, while White women and Black women have common concerns as women, they also face fundamentally different challenges.) In physicist terms: different aspects of our identites are interwoven, with order one couplings. See also: Intersectionality, illustrated.
lived experience: One of the key insights of modern approaches to inclusivity is the importance of listening conscientiously to folks with lived experience of discrimination. For example: is not necessary for men to try on sexism for a short period to certify that sexism exists -- it is enough that women (and people perceived as women) say that it does.
marginalization: This is the opposite of privilege. A marginalized person is being affected by oppression (such as sexism) along some axis.
oppression: Oppression is the combination of prejudice plus power. Without a power structure behind it, prejudice does not rise to the level of an -ism, and the person feeling its sting is not a victim of oppression. Oppression results in differential access to material necessities of life, like housing, health care, education, and employment. (e.g.: there is no such thing as reverse racism against White Canadians. Racism is when a person gets carded on the street by police for the crime of walking while Black in an affluent neighbourhood, or is denied strong painkillers in a hospital Emergency room because they are Indigenous and assumed to be an addict.)
pluralism: Pluralism has three fundamental facets: recognizing more than one set of fundamental principles, fostering independent cultural traditions of minorities, and sharing power with people who are different from us. Psychologically, it is kind of like relativity on steroids.
political correctness: This is a term used disparagingly by comfortable privileged people to refer to social justice activism that makes them feel uncomfortable.
privilege: Privilege is an invisible package of unearned advantages and benefits. It is axis-specific. e.g.: a person may have male privilege and White privilege while being marginalized because of his homosexuality.
privilege fragility: Privilege fragility is when a privileged person feels sufficiently uncomfortable upon hearing that they did not earn structural advantages they enjoy that they express hostility towards those critiquing injustices. The better and more strategic response is to sit with our discomfort, learn, and do better -- throughout our lives.
race and racialization: Race is socially constructed differences among people based on characteristics such as: accent or manner of speech, name, clothing, diet, beliefs and practices, leisure preferences, places of origin, etc. Racialization is the process by which societies construct races as real, different and unequal in ways that matter to economic, political and social life.
respect: This refers to fundamental respect for the humanity of others, not to deference towards authority figures.
stereotype threat: This term was coined by Black scholar Claude Steele to describe the phenomenon whereby marginalized students primed with oppressive stereotypes about their group's general abilities just prior to a test/exam perform worse than if they were not so primed, while leaving privileged students unscathed.
tone policing: This is the term for the process of discounting a marginalized person's message or their entire voice on the grounds that their tone makes the recipient feel too uncomfortable. It is smarter and more strategic to listen for the substance of the message, and not obsess over the package it is delivered in. Marginalized folks have just cause to be angry about their oppression.
trauma and microaggressions: Trauma changes us. It occurs in big chunks known as major traumas. It also occurs via microaggressions -- smaller chunks of order ε which, when integrated over timescales of order 1/ε, produce order 1 effects. PTSD (post traumatic stress) affects a lot more people than just emergency first responders. Many university students in our classes manage PTSD, e.g. from sexual assault, transphobia, or ableism.
trigger warnings and safer spaces: These are mechanisms for making an environment (such as a classroom) more hospitable to folks managing a history of trauma. Particular phrases, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations can suddenly throw a person managing PTSD back into a past trauma. We give trigger warnings before discussing traumatic subjects (like war bombings) to give folks with PTSD the tools to safeguard their own emotional health.