status quo

plural status quos · plural rare statuses quo · hypercorrect plural rare stati quo · alternative statu quo · alternative status in quo

1. The state of things; the way things are, as opposed to the way they could be; the existing state of affairs.

   1 more example

   “As a black woman,” Jemisin tells me, “I have no particular interest in maintaining the status quo. Why would I? The status quo is harmful, the status quo is significantly racist and sexist and a whole bunch of other things that I think need to change. With epic fantasy there is a tendency for it to be quintessentially conservative, in that its job is to restore what is perceived to be out of whack.”

   2015 July 27, Noah Berlatsky, “NK Jemisin: the fantasy writer upending the 'racist and sexist status quo'”, in The Guardian