5 ms·

Is it really that hard to understand the difference between a historically oppressed minority and the minority that historically was doing the oppressing?

by TylerE 4y ago

badpun 4y ago
Let's not forget that most white men on Earth were always in the "oppressed" group. In Europe, you were either in the aristocracy, in some semi-privileged class like clergy, or you were working super hard for a living, and sometimes (fairly regularly in some countries, e.g. France) died due to starvation. In America, it was similar - yes, there were some slave owners, but majority of white men were living and working in abhorrent, dickensians conditions in the slums of New York etc. or living a tough, poor and primitve live rural life, while being opressed by nature itself.
tonightstoast 4y ago
> the minority that historically was doing the oppressing? Is it so difficult to realize those oppressors are dead and these men weren’t alive in 1920?
- TylerE 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - ZGDUwpqEWpUZ 4y ago
    https://www.vox.com/2019/5/20/18629644/abortion-gender-gap-public-opinion https://www.vox.com/2019/5/20/18629644/abortion-gender-gap-p...
  - tonightstoast 4y ago
    Please check out the Vox article linked by the other poster. I want to preface with saying I’m pro choice. But are you really going to argue the 5 men and 1 woman that vote to affirm Dobbs is representative of the nation? People (including me) have been complaining about how the court hasn’t had a majority blue nomination since the 50s even though the political pendulum has swung multiple times since then. And grouping every male into the ruling .01% is not a good faith argument.
    - reducesuffering 4y ago
      Those 5 mens' and 1 woman's actions would be moot if the conservative states upheld abortion rights. But we all know that when finally given the choice, those states, with representatives run on anti-abortion platforms by popularity, took away those womens' rights. There were tens of millions of men in the South and Idaho involved in those decisions.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- Zigurd 4y ago
  Who killed all the gamergaters?
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    These are like a few thousands people, maybe in the tens of thousands at the most. There are about 1 billion men on the internet, give or take. The internet is very good at amplifying a bunch of very motivated nutjobs. I can, if I wanted to, send death threats and all sorts of horrible things to hundreds of people before breakfast. And tomorrow again. And the day after that. And I'm just one guy with a crummy laptop. Go out on the street and I'll bet you that most men haven't even heard of gamergate, or have only vaguely heard of it and don't really know much details. And those that do at least roughly know what it was all about will think they're a bunch of idiots.
    - Zigurd 4y ago
      The point is: men with this grievance are doing it to themselves. If you think Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate are going to break you out of "the matrix" and restore the proper roles of men, that's only going to make you hideous to normal people, especially women, even if you 'roided up and got a Joe Rogan neck size. There is no shortage of these men that filled the ranks of gamergaters, the various "patriot" brownshirt gangs, etc. They are very much among us and they are horrible misogynists. Pretending they died off three generations ago is unproductive and nutty. It's not being amplified without effect, recruitment, and numbers. Jordan Peterson would not be a podcast star without a large population of followers. Those followers are being misled into misogyny and related "red pill" ideologies.
friedman23 4y ago
Ok, so when do historical victims stop being victims and stop being treated like victims?
- Mezzie 4y ago
  This is a fascinating question because we're in a transitionary period. Like my mother, who is very much alive and still working, was 100% a victim of sexism: She was alive in and grew up in times where she couldn't have a credit card or mortgage, when jobs were sex-segregated, and wasn't allowed to go to college to be an engineer like her brother because she was raised to stay at home and pop out babies. (She bailed at 15 instead of conforming.) On the other hand, that's very different from the experience of a woman born in 2003. They're both adult parts of society. And that's without getting into the experiences of women in their 30s and 40s which, depending on where they grew up, could go either way.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    What makes that super weird for me is the inheritance by gender. I get reparations, e.g. for enslaving people. In its simplest form, you break it down to "should have been paid instead" and make that a claim that can be inherited. There are arguments about collective guilt and claims against collectives etc, but that's a second step. But women aren't an ethnic group. Children are pretty much a 50/50 split between male and female. Those claims (for reparations, and extra privileges because other women elsewhere in a different century were disadvantaged) are very different, and make no sense to me, at all.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      That is a really interesting perspective. Even if you buy into intergenerational guilt and benefit for groups, each new generation (without exception) must come from both groups.
    - Mezzie 4y ago
      I agree that reparations make no sense for sex based oppression historically. The only/main type of reparations I might agree with is something like extra social security for women of an age where they were legally prevented from earning more. (You can't turn around and tell a 65+ year old woman she should have chosen a higher earning career if you didn't let her). Or providing state support to child brides (I'd also support this for minor males married to of age females). Then again, I think reparations in general are a terrible idea. It's just interesting because our society is moving so quickly that you have some people alive who genuinely were personally oppressed and some in the same group who weren't.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
This is a classic problem of binary thinking, identity politics, and crab bucket mentality. Any progress and help will always be met with resistance if you lump huge swaths of the population together and view it as a competition.

Is it really that hard to understand the difference between a historically oppressed minority and the minority that historically was doing the oppressing?

by TylerE 4y ago

Is it really that hard to understand the difference between a historically oppressed minority and the minority that historically was doing the oppressing?

badpun 4y ago

Let's not forget that most white men on Earth were always in the "oppressed" group. In Europe, you were either in the aristocracy, in some semi-privileged class like clergy, or you were working super hard for a living, and sometimes (fairly regularly in some countries, e.g. France) died due to starvation. In America, it was similar - yes, there were some slave owners, but majority of white men were living and working in abhorrent, dickensians conditions in the slums of New York etc. or living a tough, poor and primitve live rural life, while being opressed by nature itself.

tonightstoast 4y ago

> the minority that historically was doing the oppressing? Is it so difficult to realize those oppressors are dead and these men weren’t alive in 1920?

TylerE 4y ago
[flagged]
- ZGDUwpqEWpUZ 4y ago
  https://www.vox.com/2019/5/20/18629644/abortion-gender-gap-public-opinion https://www.vox.com/2019/5/20/18629644/abortion-gender-gap-p...
- tonightstoast 4y ago
  Please check out the Vox article linked by the other poster. I want to preface with saying I’m pro choice. But are you really going to argue the 5 men and 1 woman that vote to affirm Dobbs is representative of the nation? People (including me) have been complaining about how the court hasn’t had a majority blue nomination since the 50s even though the political pendulum has swung multiple times since then. And grouping every male into the ruling .01% is not a good faith argument.
  - reducesuffering 4y ago
    Those 5 mens' and 1 woman's actions would be moot if the conservative states upheld abortion rights. But we all know that when finally given the choice, those states, with representatives run on anti-abortion platforms by popularity, took away those womens' rights. There were tens of millions of men in the South and Idaho involved in those decisions.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
Zigurd 4y ago
Who killed all the gamergaters?
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  These are like a few thousands people, maybe in the tens of thousands at the most. There are about 1 billion men on the internet, give or take. The internet is very good at amplifying a bunch of very motivated nutjobs. I can, if I wanted to, send death threats and all sorts of horrible things to hundreds of people before breakfast. And tomorrow again. And the day after that. And I'm just one guy with a crummy laptop. Go out on the street and I'll bet you that most men haven't even heard of gamergate, or have only vaguely heard of it and don't really know much details. And those that do at least roughly know what it was all about will think they're a bunch of idiots.
  - Zigurd 4y ago
    The point is: men with this grievance are doing it to themselves. If you think Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate are going to break you out of "the matrix" and restore the proper roles of men, that's only going to make you hideous to normal people, especially women, even if you 'roided up and got a Joe Rogan neck size. There is no shortage of these men that filled the ranks of gamergaters, the various "patriot" brownshirt gangs, etc. They are very much among us and they are horrible misogynists. Pretending they died off three generations ago is unproductive and nutty. It's not being amplified without effect, recruitment, and numbers. Jordan Peterson would not be a podcast star without a large population of followers. Those followers are being misled into misogyny and related "red pill" ideologies.

friedman23 4y ago

Ok, so when do historical victims stop being victims and stop being treated like victims?

Mezzie 4y ago
This is a fascinating question because we're in a transitionary period. Like my mother, who is very much alive and still working, was 100% a victim of sexism: She was alive in and grew up in times where she couldn't have a credit card or mortgage, when jobs were sex-segregated, and wasn't allowed to go to college to be an engineer like her brother because she was raised to stay at home and pop out babies. (She bailed at 15 instead of conforming.) On the other hand, that's very different from the experience of a woman born in 2003. They're both adult parts of society. And that's without getting into the experiences of women in their 30s and 40s which, depending on where they grew up, could go either way.
- luckylion 4y ago
  What makes that super weird for me is the inheritance by gender. I get reparations, e.g. for enslaving people. In its simplest form, you break it down to "should have been paid instead" and make that a claim that can be inherited. There are arguments about collective guilt and claims against collectives etc, but that's a second step. But women aren't an ethnic group. Children are pretty much a 50/50 split between male and female. Those claims (for reparations, and extra privileges because other women elsewhere in a different century were disadvantaged) are very different, and make no sense to me, at all.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    That is a really interesting perspective. Even if you buy into intergenerational guilt and benefit for groups, each new generation (without exception) must come from both groups.
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    I agree that reparations make no sense for sex based oppression historically. The only/main type of reparations I might agree with is something like extra social security for women of an age where they were legally prevented from earning more. (You can't turn around and tell a 65+ year old woman she should have chosen a higher earning career if you didn't let her). Or providing state support to child brides (I'd also support this for minor males married to of age females). Then again, I think reparations in general are a terrible idea. It's just interesting because our society is moving so quickly that you have some people alive who genuinely were personally oppressed and some in the same group who weren't.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

This is a classic problem of binary thinking, identity politics, and crab bucket mentality. Any progress and help will always be met with resistance if you lump huge swaths of the population together and view it as a competition.