rock the boat

present singular third person rocks the boat · participle present rocking the boat · participle past rocked the boat · past rocked the boat

1. idiomaticTo disturb the status quo or go against rules or conventions, as in an effort to get attention.

   I'd just jump in and fix it, but that's not my job, and I don't want to rock the boat.

   3 more examples

   A lot of gay people I know, female and male, are conservative — perhaps even more conservative than they would be if they were non-gay because they've had such a hard struggle in life, they don't want to rock any boats.

   1978 August 19, Tim Cwiek, Karen DeCrow, “Interview: Former NOW President DeCrow Talks About Gay Issues”, in Gay Community News, volume 6, number 5, page 7

   Just when I'm asking myself if it's worth it to rock the boat and wondering if I should compromise, something will happen to keep me going. Like one year I got an award from a women's group for, "exposing the jockocratic values of society.

   1984, Jim Bouton, Ball Four Plus Ball, page 410

   But they're [Rupture] quite the opposite- they're very respectful of other people. They say offensive things to rock the boat and cause some turmoil in the world of safe, homogenized P.C. punk rock.

   1994, Chris Dodge, quotee, “Slap a Ham Records”, in Chaotic Noise, number 3, Roanoke, Va., [https://archive.org/details/chaotic_noise_3/page/n43/mode/2up page [44]]

   Synonyms: make waves