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At no point did I say that the inequality was anything less than awful. I pointed out that it would be very easy for a person to read your initial comment and

At no point did I say that the inequality was anything less than awful. I pointed out that it would be very easy for a person to read your initial comment and think that you're implying there exists an obstacle between women and everything that matters in the world. Really, what is true and worth saying is there is an obstacle between women and some of the most coveted forms of power. I think it's a very important issue, but by not including context is vastly undermines the argument and any empathy you might have incurred. I was suggesting a way to improve your argument, but inevitably I digressed into the fact that the argument is (at best) a squabbling. I can never help but feel like every form of infighting between the lower and middle classes, races, genders, etc is a waste of time as compared to maybe working together to end our collective oppression under the super rich... so I end up digressing every time. Also, I know a lot of broke ass artists, and a bunch of tree huggers who are way fucking happier than pretty much everyone I know who really cares about money (no matter how much they make).

dahart 7y ago
I appreciate the discussion, and the attempt to add what context you believe is missing, but to be very honest, the context you're proposing rubs me completely the wrong way, because I believe it's wrong. I very much disagree with the point you're trying to make. By calling it 'coveted' money and power, you're choosing to frame the desire for equality as a negative attribute, painting the quest for equality as something selfish and greedy and unnecessary, which is very far from the truth, most especially considering the actual real-world context. Do you consider your own high school education to be you striving for coveted money and power over happiness? By talking about broke artists and tree-huggers and people you know, you're framing this against your personal experience, and not accepting that we're in a completely different world over here than Africa. People in the U.S. or Europe who (statistically) got to go to college, and had a house and stable family and enough food to eat and medical help when they needed it, those people choosing to pursue an art career, and/or choosing to care about the environment over money, those people don't even represent our own poverty, let alone the poverty in the third world and oppressed countries. Your comments feel like a perfect example of a rich westerner living in a world so distant from the problem you're talking about that you don't have the context or experience to even understand what the problem really is. What makes you think the problems of women in Africa are even comparable in any way to artists and tree-huggers in the western world? Do you think you'd personally be happy as a woman in Africa or Saudi Arabia or India? Please go read about and try to understand what's actually happening and imagine yourself in the same situation before you presume to summarize it in black and white as infighting between genders or that women need to seek happiness because life is about more than money and power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia#Guardianship_system,_segregation,_and_restrictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia#G... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Africa#African_women's_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Africa#African... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_India
- seph-reed 7y ago
  Trigger warning: If you'd like to do some reading yourself, here is one of the worst ways a man and a woman have ever been tortured to death in Japan: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta > https://www.reddit.com/user/willowoftheriver/comments/7czmvt/83_days_of_radiation_sickness_the_death_of/ https://www.reddit.com/user/willowoftheriver/comments/7czmvt... Abuse is really, really bad. I know exactly where you are coming from. But ponder this: what if women's suffering is just a drop in an ocean? The reason I bring this up is because I'm a very empathetic person, and I know quite a bit about human rights violations, and every bit I learn pushes me further from being able to look at gender/race/nipple color/hair style arguments meaningful. There's no reasoning with it, no point in taking sides. At this point I've boiled it down to this: Abuse is Bad. It doesn't have to be about how your gender gets to wah wah wah, and my gender herpa derp doo. Abuse is bad, full stop. Doesn't matter who is doing it, or why, 99.9% of the time abuse is bad. Every little bit of energy you put into trying to re-balance some shit like this, to try to make it fair, it all just becomes more fuel to the fire. So please, if you're really trying to help the world, don't focus on what the gender or skin color is. Don't imply that suffering is a group thing, it's not. Don't hold onto grudges, nobody will win. Just focus on who's abusing who right at this moment and point out the fact that abuse is bad. That's all you have to do, and anything more (ie "typically women have faced obstacles") is just undermining the very act of trying to help. IN CONCLUSION: Helping is really, really, really hard. Like, it's so much easier to make things worse. > Your comments feel like a perfect example of a rich westerner Fuck this statement. You're fine, but that statement is bullshit.

dahart 7y ago

I appreciate the discussion, and the attempt to add what context you believe is missing, but to be very honest, the context you're proposing rubs me completely the wrong way, because I believe it's wrong. I very much disagree with the point you're trying to make. By calling it 'coveted' money and power, you're choosing to frame the desire for equality as a negative attribute, painting the quest for equality as something selfish and greedy and unnecessary, which is very far from the truth, most especially considering the actual real-world context. Do you consider your own high school education to be you striving for coveted money and power over happiness? By talking about broke artists and tree-huggers and people you know, you're framing this against your personal experience, and not accepting that we're in a completely different world over here than Africa. People in the U.S. or Europe who (statistically) got to go to college, and had a house and stable family and enough food to eat and medical help when they needed it, those people choosing to pursue an art career, and/or choosing to care about the environment over money, those people don't even represent our own poverty, let alone the poverty in the third world and oppressed countries. Your comments feel like a perfect example of a rich westerner living in a world so distant from the problem you're talking about that you don't have the context or experience to even understand what the problem really is. What makes you think the problems of women in Africa are even comparable in any way to artists and tree-huggers in the western world? Do you think you'd personally be happy as a woman in Africa or Saudi Arabia or India? Please go read about and try to understand what's actually happening and imagine yourself in the same situation before you presume to summarize it in black and white as infighting between genders or that women need to seek happiness because life is about more than money and power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia#Guardianship_system,_segregation,_and_restrictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia#G... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Africa#African_women's_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Africa#African... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_India

seph-reed 7y ago
Trigger warning: If you'd like to do some reading yourself, here is one of the worst ways a man and a woman have ever been tortured to death in Japan: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta > https://www.reddit.com/user/willowoftheriver/comments/7czmvt/83_days_of_radiation_sickness_the_death_of/ https://www.reddit.com/user/willowoftheriver/comments/7czmvt... Abuse is really, really bad. I know exactly where you are coming from. But ponder this: what if women's suffering is just a drop in an ocean? The reason I bring this up is because I'm a very empathetic person, and I know quite a bit about human rights violations, and every bit I learn pushes me further from being able to look at gender/race/nipple color/hair style arguments meaningful. There's no reasoning with it, no point in taking sides. At this point I've boiled it down to this: Abuse is Bad. It doesn't have to be about how your gender gets to wah wah wah, and my gender herpa derp doo. Abuse is bad, full stop. Doesn't matter who is doing it, or why, 99.9% of the time abuse is bad. Every little bit of energy you put into trying to re-balance some shit like this, to try to make it fair, it all just becomes more fuel to the fire. So please, if you're really trying to help the world, don't focus on what the gender or skin color is. Don't imply that suffering is a group thing, it's not. Don't hold onto grudges, nobody will win. Just focus on who's abusing who right at this moment and point out the fact that abuse is bad. That's all you have to do, and anything more (ie "typically women have faced obstacles") is just undermining the very act of trying to help. IN CONCLUSION: Helping is really, really, really hard. Like, it's so much easier to make things worse. > Your comments feel like a perfect example of a rich westerner Fuck this statement. You're fine, but that statement is bullshit.