I just want to point put there that your argument's exact same rhetorical structure could be (and has been) used to deny "rape culture":
E.g.
- "Rape is illegal and prosecuted, so how can we have a 'rape culture'?"
- "That's not rape culture, that's just individual bad actors"
- "People criticizing women's clothing choices is normal social interaction"
- "Rape culture is a partisan feminist concept like [insert dismissive comparison]"
The parallel is that both involve:
1. Demanding an impossibly narrow definition (complete silence vs. systematic legal tolerance)
2. Dismissing patterns as "just normal social behavior"
3. Focusing on whether the most extreme version exists rather than whether there's a meaningful phenomenon worth discussing
4. Using the term's political associations to avoid engaging with the substance
The irony is particularly sharp when you argue that "telling someone to shut up" is quintessentially social while simultaneously arguing that coordinated efforts to damage someone's reputation/livelihood for speech don't constitute a distinct social phenomenon worth naming.
E.g. - "Rape is illegal and prosecuted, so how can we have a 'rape culture'?" - "That's not rape culture, that's just individual bad actors" - "People criticizing women's clothing choices is normal social interaction" - "Rape culture is a partisan feminist concept like [insert dismissive comparison]"
The parallel is that both involve:
1. Demanding an impossibly narrow definition (complete silence vs. systematic legal tolerance) 2. Dismissing patterns as "just normal social behavior" 3. Focusing on whether the most extreme version exists rather than whether there's a meaningful phenomenon worth discussing 4. Using the term's political associations to avoid engaging with the substance
The irony is particularly sharp when you argue that "telling someone to shut up" is quintessentially social while simultaneously arguing that coordinated efforts to damage someone's reputation/livelihood for speech don't constitute a distinct social phenomenon worth naming.