Worldwide Wokeness: A Cultural Comparison

“Woke nonsense and cancel culture,” is what second-year Anushka Demer associates with Americans. Abroad, Americans face many culture shocks and are often criticised for their inability to take what many Brits view as good-humoured jokes. 

The term ‘woke’ was originally made popular by the African American community in the twentieth century as a way to describe being aware of racial prejudice. Since then, the term has become more closely associated with Demer's description and is often used derogatively. Especially in the US, there is a large cohort of people (some would argue typically identified by their iced coffees and carabiners) who are incredibly keen on speaking in a politically-correct way. However, these people are often criticised for using the right words but failing to take action toward systemic change regarding inequality. 

While there are people like this in the UK, many students agree it is to a far less substantial degree. As Scottish student Rebecca Mellville said, “I do think the Americans are more sensitive to jokes than my Scottish friends, so there are probably some jokes I wouldn’t make around them that I would make around my Scottish friends.” 

The argument for choosing woke or ‘politically correct’ language is that it helps to promote equality — by being conscious of the words we use, we can improve our society. So the question becomes, does a culture of wokeness actually help ease tensions and create growth and progress? Or is it performative, a method of deflecting the difficulties it would take to actually reform systemic issues? 

Take the US and UK as examples: While the two countries share a language and, to some degree, share a culture, there is a fundamental difference in the ways both countries approach being ‘politically correct.’ 

This difference is evident to American students at St Andrews. To second-year Maya Brooke, she feels “like the woke culture, specifically the cancel culture, in the United States is a lot more prevalent. For example, there are a lot of harsh emotions surrounding making jokes about race and sexuality. Whereas here I feel there is a lot more leeway for making those kinds of jokes and there is not as much pressure to be woke.”

Is it possible that, without constantly self-censoring our own speech or worrying that we will anger the so-called ‘P.C. police,’ we could better create a space for genuine and challenging conversations, in which people can ask questions and engage critically with their own ignorance without feeling judged? 

“It is nice to have a more relaxed culture,” Booke said. “I don’t mind making some light-hearted jokes about my own ethnic background, and that’s more acceptable here.” 

“As a woman, I don’t mind the jokes if they are not malicious. There is too much dark[ness] in the world; there has to be a little bit of light,” explained Melville, a Scottish student.

Brooke believes that the lack of cancel culture is ultimately beneficial: “When there’s such a harsh cancel culture, people can be scared to say anything, and I think that’s not good.” 

While Melville pointed out that, “in Scotland, there is a culture of these jokes, but I do think that it could be covering for them actually being racist or homophobic.”

In contrast to the relaxed attitude in the UK, in the US, there is more judgement for how you choose to discuss certain issues, your romantic choices, and even the words you use. 

Second year Julia Emery attended an all-girls school in the southern United States, a historically conservative area. Emery described how her school stopped referring to itself as an “all-girls school” and instead as a school for those “assigned female at birth” in an attempt to be more inclusive. Despite this change, “we were expected to perform [our] social roles as women,” Emery said. She recalled that if one didn’t have a male date to a dance, it would be difficult for them to attend. While Emery’s school’s language changed to be more inclusive, “to participate in large-scale social events you still had to fulfil the gender role associated with your biological sex.”.

This example summarises the critique generally made against woke culture. While the school attempted to use inclusive language, there was no genuine change made to the culture — so what was the point? 

In contrast to her American school, “you’re not expected to have a date in the same way, there is less pressure [in the UK],” Emery said. 

Second-year American student Olivia Medrano agreed. “I think there is more pressure in the US because of the film culture to always either have a man on your side or for men to show women off,” she said.

Second-year American student Paisley Andrews described the cultural difference between often criticised words in the US and UK. “I used to live in Belgium, and people said words that weren’t okay. I had no idea. So I went back [to the US], and I said a word that we don’t use. One of my friends heard it and was like, ‘We don’t say that word.’ Here, people use it all the time.” At the time, Andrews was only in eighth grade — yet there was a collective understanding and norm that the word was offensive, as enforced by her peers. 

When asked if she felt that the norms around proper terminology that exist in the US actually translated into changing systemic issues, Andrews replied, “Yes, we are using different terms, and I think we are being more conscious and more aware about it, but I don’t think anything is truly being changed. As much as I say ‘we are so woke,’ I don’t know if it’s actually translating to anything.” 

Illustration by Alexandra Lehrell