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> "Now I really empathized with all the women who were victims of assault or rape." You interacted with a bad person or two and suddenly you're able to empathi

by meritt 13y ago

> "Now I really empathized with all the women who were victims of assault or rape." You interacted with a bad person or two and suddenly you're able to empathize with victims of assault and rape? What? Exactly how minimal is your understanding of those issues to equate them accordingly?

skrebbel 13y ago
You're right, of course, but comments like these teach me only one thing: don't blog, write or talk about sexism. Someone will find one sentence that you wrote or said that's not OK and flame your ass about it.
- saraid216 13y ago
  And then you'll get super defensive about it and refuse to actually accept the useful feedback provided. Everyone loses!
krstck 13y ago
I didn't read that as the author actually claiming to have some understanding of what it was like to be assaulted, but rather that he gained an understanding of how people often blame women for their own assaults.
sp332 13y ago
He didn't say anything about equating them. He also didn't say he felt the same as those people. (You might be confusing empathy with sympathy?) Edit: she -> he
- meritt 13y ago
  I didn't confuse empathy with sympathy.
  - sp332 13y ago
    Hm, maybe. Anyway I don't think the empathy was for being raped, but for being ignored.
jotux 13y ago
Here's a fundamental problem with text-based communications. You interpret, "Now I really empathized" as "I've never empathized before but now I do", whereas it seems the intention was to state, "I empathized with them before but now that I've had a new experience I can understand their situation more and have greater empathy."
- meritt 13y ago
  Actually I didn't think he wasn't empathetic before but even if I had, that's not the issue here: I interpreted him as saying experiencing workplace sexism provided him with first-hand insight into sexual assault and rape.
  - jotux 13y ago
    >I interpreted him as saying experiencing workplace sexism provided him with first-hand insight into sexual assault and rape. Again, a terrible problem with text on a webpage. Someone will interpret your statements in an unexpected way and there's no face-to-face dialog to explain your reasoning or reword your statement to better explain it to your specific audience.
waterlesscloud 13y ago
The next sentence is far worse, in that it explicitly says the situations are "equivalent". >"To me, this was equivalent to videoing an assault or rape, doing nothing to stop it and later claiming you didn’t have a part in it."

by meritt 13y ago

skrebbel 13y ago

You're right, of course, but comments like these teach me only one thing: don't blog, write or talk about sexism. Someone will find one sentence that you wrote or said that's not OK and flame your ass about it.

saraid216 13y ago
And then you'll get super defensive about it and refuse to actually accept the useful feedback provided. Everyone loses!

krstck 13y ago

I didn't read that as the author actually claiming to have some understanding of what it was like to be assaulted, but rather that he gained an understanding of how people often blame women for their own assaults.

sp332 13y ago

He didn't say anything about equating them. He also didn't say he felt the same as those people. (You might be confusing empathy with sympathy?) Edit: she -> he

meritt 13y ago
I didn't confuse empathy with sympathy.
- sp332 13y ago
  Hm, maybe. Anyway I don't think the empathy was for being raped, but for being ignored.

jotux 13y ago

Here's a fundamental problem with text-based communications. You interpret, "Now I really empathized" as "I've never empathized before but now I do", whereas it seems the intention was to state, "I empathized with them before but now that I've had a new experience I can understand their situation more and have greater empathy."

meritt 13y ago
Actually I didn't think he wasn't empathetic before but even if I had, that's not the issue here: I interpreted him as saying experiencing workplace sexism provided him with first-hand insight into sexual assault and rape.
- jotux 13y ago
  >I interpreted him as saying experiencing workplace sexism provided him with first-hand insight into sexual assault and rape. Again, a terrible problem with text on a webpage. Someone will interpret your statements in an unexpected way and there's no face-to-face dialog to explain your reasoning or reword your statement to better explain it to your specific audience.

waterlesscloud 13y ago

The next sentence is far worse, in that it explicitly says the situations are "equivalent". >"To me, this was equivalent to videoing an assault or rape, doing nothing to stop it and later claiming you didn’t have a part in it."