Is dismissing someone’s opinion or experience because they are a ‘straight, white man’ ever acceptable? 

Last week, the Irish Times published an article with the headline Sorry if my heart doesn’t bleed for straight white men at work on the issue of paternity leave. 

Some believe that it is perfectly acceptable to point out that the lives of straight, white men are in certain ways easier because they generally do not experience homophobia, racism or sexism.

However, on Newstalk Breakfast, columnist Ian O’Doherty described identity politics as a “bankrupt, fraudulent ideology”.  

“If you were a straight white male, you were at the bottom of the list,” he said. 

“There was a victim hierarchy; while we were at school, we were talking about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and that changed to a hierarchy of grievance. 

“It just became complete nonsense.” 

Mr O’Doherty added that such rhetoric is “one of the reasons why Trump was voted in” for a second term. 

“This had completely taken hold in American universities and American advertising,” he said. 

“And it had done here as well; it always struck me as being completely just utterly intellectually fraudulent.”

Main image: Straight white men socialising. Picture by: Dusan Petkovic / Alamy Stock Photo