Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

> You've basically repeated what I said, except you seem to think sexism a good thing as long as it targets someone you perceive as "advantaged".

First World Male Privilege | First World Female Privilege | Third World Female Privilege

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What good does it to tell the First World Female how much better she has it than the Third World Female?

Should we go around devaluing the accomplishments of a person in the First World because they were born into the life they got? Do we tell them that everything they achieved was purely a result of the luck of the draw, and that their hard work and dedication means nothing?

> "Teach men not to rape."

That is word-for-word the way I hear it phrased, and no context can make it right. It implies that men are rapists who don't know any better, and need educated on what rape is and how not to do it. It implies that all men are sociopaths, and need to be taught basic human empathy.

Saying that all/many/most men are rapists is an unsupportable claim, as in much of the Western world rape has been (and still is) defined specifically as unwanted male-on-female penetration. Until statistics can be presented that have substantiated backing, this is an unfair assessment.

"Teach X not to Y" is an ineffective method for preventing Y. You can put everyone in the world in a class telling them not to mug, murder, rape, pillage, stab, shoot, or use the Oxford Comma. People will still act according to their own personal motivations and (presence or lack of) morals. If I want to prevent myself from being mugged, I will learn to recognize the sort of dangerous situations that could lead to that eventuality. I will take personal responsibility for my safety. I will also understand that there will be times that there was nothing I could have reasonably done to prevent it from happening, if it should.

> Physical attraction alone does not disregard a person's humanity or personal agency.

Your argument is perfectly reasonable, it would be nice if other feminists understood the difference. In my experience, it is more often used as a spark for a larger confrontation or an excuse to bash males in general.

> I never said anything about forcing or denying abortions, only that a woman has the right to cede responsibility for reproduction whereas a man has none. If a woman chooses to abort or put a child up for adoption, she is well within her rights to do so. If a man suggests the same thing, he is a "deadbeat".

In an ideal world, a father would be told of the pregnancy immediately, and given the opportunity to absolve himself of responsibility for it. With this knowledge in hand, the mother would have the opportunity to decide to abort, give up for adoption, or keep the child with the understanding that there would be no (legally mandated) financial support from the father.

> So as long as an exaggerated body image is accompanied by power and dominance, it shouldn't place unfair expectations on impressionable viewers?

I most often see it as a corollary to arguments about the representation of women in movies/TV/video games. If the representation of a fictional woman is attacked for unrealistic standards, the rebuttal will be that the men are held to the same standards by male characters in the same space. Feminists then reply that it is a "male power fantasy" and does not count.

A perfect example, and most of the women's "before" representations aren't even unrealistic to begin with!

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/lara-croft-gets-a-realistic...

> The idea of sexuality as being negative is also unhealthy, for both genders.

A "sex positive" outlook would not care whether or not Bayonetta was designed by or for men. Bayonetta would have the inherent right to dress and behave as she pleases, with no care for the viewer's tastes.

> Men also can and do suffer terrible experiences as the hands of women, and can be dominated by them. If a woman gets "safe spaces", so, too, should men.

If you go to a college campus and attempt to set up a "mens center" in the same vein as the womens centers that are increasingly common, you will most likely be 1) called a misogynist, 2) not taken seriously, 3) not succeed.

You will also very likely be harassed and carry the "misogynist" label for the remainder of your tenure there. School newspapers will have carte blanche to drag your name through the mud in any way they can. An "example" will be made of you.

> You must have missed the part where I mentioned men also get serious threats to their person, and that there are documented cases where those threats have been acted upon.

https://soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/enough

Anyone, man or woman, that disagrees with feminist narratives, can be immediately and unquestionably be labelled a harasser and misogynist.

In case you don't care to listen to that SoundCloud, it involves a case where a man tries to remain a voice of reason in an online debate that has extremists on both sides, and because he adhered more strongly to ethical standards than "choosing a side" he was labeled the enemy. He has seen harassment and vitriol slung at him primarily from the "feminist" side, and even a great deal from people that could be considered celebrities. Those people will gladly attack him, and have absolutely no fear of reprisal for doing so.

The only time they face the consequences for their actions is when they upset their own compatriots. In those cases, they will not hesitate to turn on them like a pack of rabid dogs on an injured prey. But that is only the same hatred that is flung at men every day in that space.

> http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_gender....

http://gothamist.com/2013/04/29/male_teachers_get_longer_sen...

This is a small example, however every time it's brought up it's immediately shut down by popular feminist voices.

"Longer prison sentences for men" is not a stated goal of feminism, but maintaining that status quo which greatly benefits women and greatly disadvantages men, is time and again strongly implied by their words and actions.

You describe objectification as patterns of behaviors and speech. However, the most common use of that term I see these days refers to female characters in fiction and advertising. There is a gigantic difference between these two notions.

In a similar fashion, your entire post is misaligned with the kind of feminism I see on the daily basis.

If the first world female (or male) was asking why the third world female didn't: e.x. "Just go to the hospital" or "Pull herself up by her bootstrings" or "Move somewhere nicer" or w/e, then it would make all the sense in the world to explain things like "There is no hospital within 200 miles and nobody in the village owns a car", or "The last time she made any money it was taken away by a corrupt official" or "Legal immigration into a first world country is almost impossible for someone in her position."

People don't seem to have any problems understanding that: if I was to start saying that villagers in (African or Asian country) who live on less than a dollar a day (or whatever) should just go to a good US college and get a tech degree (when, say, no post-primary or even just primary school education is available), nobody has any problem looking at me and going "Really? You f'ing serious right now?"

That doesn't devalue the fact that I worked hardish in high school, got into a good US school, finished two undergraduate degrees and almost finished a masters degree in four years and from that and my extensive programming hobby got a job, where I've been recognized for being a solid developer: those are all meaningful accomplishments that I worked hard or work hard on and things I can (and do!) celebrate!

However, realizing that they aren't necessarily options that are as readily available to everyone or as accessible to everyone is basic empathy. This is something I don't understand: we both have no problem acknowledging this when the person in question a black woman from Uganda, where the structural inequalities are so stark it'd be impossible to miss them, but when it's only a black man from Detroit or even a white woman from New York who might not have had the opportunities and support I had, it somehow devalues my accomplishments? The deck I was given at birth was stacked in my favor, with (quite literally) almost every educational + societal opportunity: that doesn't reduce my accomplishments, but I can't say it definitely didn't contribute to them! (And that even means acknowledging the subtle things, like the fact that I was able to work on my second undergraduate degree and the masters coursework over the summers instead of needing to support myself or save money for the next year, or things like the fact that my high school had a lot of AP courses and I didn't have to start working as soon as I was legally able to in order to help my family's financial situation.) Acknowledging things like that may explain how I managed to do what I managed to do: but that doesn't mean that I just walked in the door and was handed two degrees without any work or was handed a job simply for being who I am. It doesn't devalue my accomplishments, but if someone had achieved the same things as me from a less advantaged position, then that would certainly be more impressive. And I'm fine with that: if someone had to work harder to get what I had to work hard to get, then their accomplishments are that much more impressive. If someone else, say, was genetically engineered and then programmed to know everything about computer science and modern mathematics, then maybe their getting degrees in CS and math would be less impressive... in the same way of if I went back to college knowing everything I learned and got an A+ in a class I used to TA, maybe that isn't really much to celebrate.