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What I'm more interested in seeing is whether or not being in a dominant group in society reduces empathy. Historically, we might have looked at the lack of em
by moosey 7y ago
What I'm more interested in seeing is whether or not being in a dominant group in society reduces empathy. Historically, we might have looked at the lack of empathy of specific groups and made assumptions about the group in general, but perhaps it simply has to do with whether or not that group finds itself dominant in society whether it be economically, politically, or socially.
All of these groups in Western societies have been, and often still are, dominated by men. Looking at how things are changing, with women slowly gaining power in the workplace, I'm finding a lot of men are behaving differently than I remember 30 years ago. Whether or not this is due to gaining empathy, or due to fear of punitive measures, I don't know, but for me personally I feel it is the former.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- humanrebar 7y ago> All of these groups in Western societies have been, and often still are, dominated by men. But not by all men. If all of the top 1% are men, for instance, there are still 49% of men out there that are both make and not elite. It's possible you are just observing different men now. Or observing men differently.
- moosey 7y agoI agree. I'm not denying this. This is exactly why it should be called dominance and not privilege. And it does have real impacts on both groups.
- djsumdog 7y agoHow do you accurately measure empathy though? I'm not sure I agree with the methods they used in this study.
- PeterStuer 7y agoOr maybe societies are dominated by overambitious sociopaths, regardless of their gender? I feel we are long past the 'no true Scotsman' defense of woman in public office on average just exhibiting the same ruthless self-interest as the men they replaced.
- collyw 7y agoTrue, the most sexist (in the sense that men were treated differently from women) boss I have seen was a woman. She seemed to prey on weaker personalities, an d treated men better than women.
- blanche_ 7y agoThat is a known pattern for people in discriminated group that they want to behave like the majority and take it to the extreme. So female bosses in environment when females are underrepresented may behave like that. It goes hand in hand with internalized sexism (and she tries to prove that she is not like 'other girls/women'). This and more interesting patterns like that are described in What works for women at work.