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Why do people say heterophobia is nonexistent?

Last posted Jun 07, 2016 at 08:26AM EDT. Added Jun 04, 2016 at 03:10PM EDT
20 posts from 16 users

I just don't understand. But I honestly want to know. The idea of homophobia is gradually being shamed upon in society as we speak. However, the idea of being heterosexual is also being shamed upon. Yet, when you call someone out for this, some might say, "Heterophobia isn't real". Why, even when it's evident, do people reject the existence of heterophobia? Just because it's lesser know to the public doesn't mean it's not a problem, right?

Because it doesn't work for those people's agendas.

Whenever someone says something like that they only want the people they make out to be victims to look like victims. If everyone looks like a victim than gee, people might realize we all have some form of discrimination to deal with in society and their narratives will crumble.

Can't have that though, amirite?

Last edited Jun 04, 2016 at 03:36PM EDT

Honestly because it's borderline irrelevant. Who cares if the majority sometimes faces some discrimination that is honestly nowhere near as bad as the other way around.

It doesn't mean it isn't shitty, it just explains why nobody cares or believes it doesn't exist.

Edit: wow guys really, people really think it's 100% because "agendas agendas"

ooooookey

It's really not that hard to understand and it has nothing to do with anyone's agenda. Basically society only has limited resources and will attempt to address what it views as bigger problems first. While it's true that you don't fix problems by making new ones, Heterophobia is overlooked because the net gain towards society is more positive if you address Homophobia, which is a much bigger problem, than if you addressed Heterophobia as an alternative.

It's a simple logical understanding of the inability to do everything at once.

It's like people believe everything has unlimited resources or something. :p

Last edited Jun 04, 2016 at 04:25PM EDT

a real penis in the ass wrote:

Honestly because it's borderline irrelevant. Who cares if the majority sometimes faces some discrimination that is honestly nowhere near as bad as the other way around.

It doesn't mean it isn't shitty, it just explains why nobody cares or believes it doesn't exist.

Edit: wow guys really, people really think it's 100% because "agendas agendas"

ooooookey

It's really not that hard to understand and it has nothing to do with anyone's agenda. Basically society only has limited resources and will attempt to address what it views as bigger problems first. While it's true that you don't fix problems by making new ones, Heterophobia is overlooked because the net gain towards society is more positive if you address Homophobia, which is a much bigger problem, than if you addressed Heterophobia as an alternative.

It's a simple logical understanding of the inability to do everything at once.

It's like people believe everything has unlimited resources or something. :p

You can't take a logical stance while taking an illogical representation of the OP's statement. That's just illogical.

The OP is not talking about what problems we are trying to fix as a society. He's talking about acknowledgement and the absence of such regarding the problem.

Also, if you want to talk about net gains, I'm curious where you get your information. Being as the population is largely heterosexual, to outstanding degrees, it would make far more sense for more gain to be had the other way around, wouldn't it?

And you just said that you don't condone the creation of problems as the solution of other problems, but you also state that one needs to be ignored for the good of the other.

It's like you don't care about things if they aren't about you or something :p

a real penis in the ass wrote:

Honestly because it's borderline irrelevant. Who cares if the majority sometimes faces some discrimination that is honestly nowhere near as bad as the other way around.

It doesn't mean it isn't shitty, it just explains why nobody cares or believes it doesn't exist.

Edit: wow guys really, people really think it's 100% because "agendas agendas"

ooooookey

It's really not that hard to understand and it has nothing to do with anyone's agenda. Basically society only has limited resources and will attempt to address what it views as bigger problems first. While it's true that you don't fix problems by making new ones, Heterophobia is overlooked because the net gain towards society is more positive if you address Homophobia, which is a much bigger problem, than if you addressed Heterophobia as an alternative.

It's a simple logical understanding of the inability to do everything at once.

It's like people believe everything has unlimited resources or something. :p

No offense and not to get involved, but in order to dismiss that this is about agenda, you literally used an agenda as the crux of the reason this isn't an agenda.

The agenda to create a society with a net positive while dealing with limited resources, is an agenda nonetheless. "Heterophobia is overlooked because the net gain towards society is more positive if you address Homophobia" is an Agenda to create a society where the good outway the bad in whatever way is possible.

So in your attempt to say that ignoring problems has nothing to do with an agenda, you have actually created an agenda to ignore problems in order to save on limited resources.

You can’t take a logical stance while taking an illogical representation of the OP’s statement. That’s just illogical.

OP's statement can be summarized as

"Homophobia is considered a major problem in society. But heterophobia exists as well. Why don't we value both?"

Explain where I got it wrong, sometimes I screw stuff up.

My comment was more oriented at Iamslow but to be frank I'm quite confused about your position.

Also, if you want to talk about net gains, I’m curious where you get your information. Being as the population is largely heterosexual, to outstanding degrees, it would make far more sense for more gain to be had the other way around, wouldn’t it?

Incorrect.

My information is based on a logical model of the situation, which does not require a "source" since any specific values are arbitrary and would not really conflict with the model. Instead, I will explain the logic behind my model and you can decide for yourself whether or not you believe it is adaquate:

The model works as follows:

Say you are working in a group towards a unified goal. This is essentially what society is, although the "goal" is merely continuing to self sustain and improve itself. But in our example it will be a business trying to implement a new infrastructure. Now, within a group, there are challenges that are presented that prevent you from achieving that goal and must be circumnavigated in some way to reach that goal. In a business setting, this might be a system that needs to be upgraded, hardware that needs to be obtained, or even getting the money necessary to integrate or design this infrastructure.

Now, you might think that we need to go and complete everything all at once but you simply can't do that because your resources are limited. You cannot do everything at once so you must prioritize more urgent issues over less urgent issues. In fact, many business infrastructures center around building a ticket system that tiers these problems and addresses them by severity.

This is where the "net gain" comes in – it's not some number from a paper but rather an abstract concept in this business model – think of it as an abstract variable that doesn't have an exact measurable value, but can be measured approximately by whether it improves the system or is a detriment to the system. Each change has both a cost and a benefit and these must be considered before implementation.

This is how a business functions. My source on this is someone who has worked professionally in business oriented environments and has managed similar projects in the past. And this is also how society functions. Why? Because it would be logically impossible for society to exist otherwise – while this system is not followed 100%, it logically holds that a self sustaining system must orient itself towards this structure because it will be unable to sustain itself otherwise. Logically, if a system continues to make negative net changes, it will eventually be unable to make any more changes, because all resources are consumed. So therefore, conservation towards positive net change is a requirement for sustained systems, and they will naturally orient towards it because those that don't will collapse.

This is why businesses fail, this is why animals go extinct, this is why countries collapse, this is why pretty much every infrastructure or system will eventually collapse – because it can no longer manage this problem to have a positive net gain.

This model is a "proof", similar to a mathematical proof in the sense that I don't need sources to prove it but I show all of my logical steps to show how I reached my conclusion. Because evidence needs to have a source in some way or another, this is also the ultimate source of all evidence, so I don't really see what your problem is. If you disagree with my model, explain why instead of trying to seem clever and edgy.

Now, since I've explained the model, I'll apply it to society to explain why this applies to heterophobia/homophobia.

We have two defined problems – heterophobia and homophobia. I'm not arsed to prove with a long search for something extremely obvious as heterophobia vs homophobia, but we can accept that heterophobia is not as prevelant of a problem than homophobia, even though heterosexuals are more common. Why? Because heterophobia does not affect most heterosexuals, while homophobia affects a sizable percentage of the homosexual population. There's also the fact that homophobia affects the individuals more severely.

While these cannot be quantified, it's easy to see since heterophobia usually ends in social conflict, while homophobia can range from that to death. Please cite instances where heterophobia has ended in deaths of an individual and compare those deaths to those caused by homophobia, and then we'll talk. (Where's your evidence?)

Therefore, the social net gain of addressing heterophobia is not as positive as the net gain of addressing homophobia, because overall, more people are more negatively affected by homophobia than heterophobia. Since we don't have the social resources to address both, homophobia is targeted.

Done.

And you just said that you don’t condone the creation of problems as the solution of other problems, but you also state that one needs to be ignored for the good of the other.

It’s like you don’t care about things if they aren’t about you or something :p

Instead of trying to be edgy, can you actually explain your point? This is a serious debate after all :p

No offense and not to get involved, but in order to dismiss that this is about agenda, you literally used an agenda as the crux of the reason this isn’t an agenda.

The agenda to create a society with a net positive while dealing with limited resources, is an agenda nonetheless. “Heterophobia is overlooked because the net gain towards society is more positive if you address Homophobia” is an Agenda to create a society where the good outway the bad in whatever way is possible.

So in your attempt to say that ignoring problems has nothing to do with an agenda, you have actually created an agenda to ignore problems in order to save on limited resources.

How is what any of what I said an "agenda"? Please review my model as explained above and explain. You're essentially making a claim with no real evidence.

Protip: Before reading any more, I recommend reading up on Problem Management. It seems like there's a woefully poor understanding of it in this thread. Not only will it help you have a better grasp of what my model is talking about, and help you understand why I don't need to link an article for it, but also it might even help you in your own personal life – it's an extremely helpful set of skills to have.

Most people are only exposed to it after working a white collar job or going into a business degree, so this is likely why you guys don't know much about it.

Last edited Jun 04, 2016 at 05:11PM EDT

You've managed to completely misunderstand the OP's statement. He's not saying "both are a problem and why can't we focus on both". He's saying that why do people reject the existence of one and claim it doesn't exist. It's right there in the OP, I have no idea how to managed to misconstrue it.

And your model is highly inadequate, embarrassingly so.

If your group is unable to perform the task, why wouldn't you just replace your group with a far more capable one?

And there lies the fault with your model. You're applying a model that has no basis in reality. Maybe it does in a business or even mathematics. But with real people and real social problems, all you're really doing is blinding yourself to one side to benefit the side you fall under. And that's just selfish.

You continue to say that this is how society works, but you provide no proof of such. In fact, you dodged the desire for proof by saying "It's just a model, bro". That has to be the most half-assed attempt at dodging I've ever seen. If you're making these claims, commit and defend. Don't go hiding behind concepts and then claim that your concepts are absolute.

And mathematical proofs can actually be proven using data and mathematics itself, so I don't know why you think mathematical proofs don't need to be proven.

As for heterophobia vs homophobia, I'm not talking about the problem or how widespread the problem is. I'm talking about who stands to gain from fixing one side. A general population, if you will. And I think anyone could conclude that 90% gaining is a lot better than 10% gaining (arbitrary numbers).

As for my side of proof? I don't see the need to provide you with any if you're not willing to provide some yourself. You can ask all you want, but if you don't give, don't expect to get.

And I don't see how I'm being edgy, I made a comment on how you seem to believe the growth of one problem is okay as long as another is fixed. I then drew a conclusion imitating and mocking the same conclusion you gave. Both of which were valid criticisms of your argument. But you decided to circumvent that whole notion by calling it "edgy".

The sad thing is that other mods were impressed by you at one point. I have yet to see the appeal.

Your Waifu wrote:

I just don't understand. But I honestly want to know. The idea of homophobia is gradually being shamed upon in society as we speak. However, the idea of being heterosexual is also being shamed upon. Yet, when you call someone out for this, some might say, "Heterophobia isn't real". Why, even when it's evident, do people reject the existence of heterophobia? Just because it's lesser know to the public doesn't mean it's not a problem, right?

I'd say it all comes down to the fact that it's difficult to quantify "heterosexual[ity]… being shamed upon" in the same way it's difficult to quantify heteronormativity, i.e. "heterosexuality being presented as 'more normal' than other sexual orientations."

There haven't been too many famous court cases or hate crimes or rallies against heterosexuality, and those are easy to quantify, unlike firsthand accounts. Therefore it is much easier to pass off as nonexistent or negligible, especially if the person in question hasn't experienced heterophobia before.

To many people, heterophobia really isn't actually evident, unless they've experienced it themselves, just because of the nature of news. Even deaths by vending machines are brought up online or on air (usually as a comparison to death caused by sharks annually) but heterophobia just really isn't really a "hot issue" and thus not really given much attention. Therefore, it's easier for people to consider evidence of heterophobia as anecdotal or mere conjecture, since it isn't as popular of a topic and thus, there are less examples of it in the public consciousness that one can point to.

I'm not saying heterophobia doesn't exist or shouldn't be dealt with (in a calm, rational way) or that it doesn't cause harm to humanity. I just don't think people talk about it much, and it's easier for people to dismiss arguments (perhaps illogically) if they haven't heard of much evidence to support said argument.

Granted, my whole argument rests on my own observations of the preveleance of heterophobia, which may be way above or below the curve; I don't know if either is the case, so I'm merely trying my best to make the most reasonable conclusions I can with the limited information I have.

Last edited Jun 04, 2016 at 05:34PM EDT

I would argue that although heterophobia is indeed real, it does not carry with it the social and economic consequences for heterosexuals that homophobia does for homosexuals.

As I'm writing this, I noticed that spellcheck doesn't recognize heterophobia as a valid word. I loled.

You’ve managed to completely misunderstand the OP’s statement. He’s not saying “both are a problem and why can’t we focus on both”. He’s saying that why do people reject the existence of one and claim it doesn’t exist. It’s right there in the OP, I have no idea how to managed to misconstrue it.

Except it's not. The reason why people don't believe it exists is because the problem isn't addressed by society. I said that in my first post but I didn't lay it out clearly enough apparently.

Logically, the problem "people denying the existence of heterophobia" is a derivative problem of "both are a problem and we don't focus on both", because the ignorance of heterophobia is spawned from the lack of coverage it receives. In fact this is a major problem in many social issues.

Done.

If your group is unable to perform the task, why wouldn’t you just replace your group with a far more capable one?

Oh boy, I can tell you've never worked close to Human Resources!

You can't just terminate a whole group of people because it costs a shit ton of money and time, that's why. You have to spend a good 2-3 months usually just to find talent, then you have to perform background checks, often times drug tests, then you have to train them, which costs many times up to YEARS of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars over that period.

This applies to the other models too. Imagine if you had to replace every single cell in your organ at once because there was a tumor on it. That's what you're basically saying you should do. Most times this is not an option that produces a net benefit.

Honestly, if what you were saying was true, why even fire the ineffective people? Just hire everyone you can and the net loss of the ineffective people will be lost in the sheer volume of resources you'll have. Problem solved! Wow, you're so good at business, think of all the problems you could solve on Wall Street~

This fits into my model because the act of replacing a component within the group is an action in of itself that costs resources (time and money), with an intended net benefit (getting better resources to do the job). If the cost of replacing resources is too much, then it won't get done – which is often the case.

Anyways Bob after that hilarious comment I'd like to see you run a business. Please film it and upload it onto Youtube. :)

And there lies the fault with your model. You’re applying a model that has no basis in reality. Maybe it does in a business or even mathematics. But with real people and real social problems, all you’re really doing is blinding yourself to one side to benefit the side you fall under. And that’s just selfish.

lol no, your failure to have basic understanding of how systems work is NOT my model failing, that's just you being uneducated. le

In fact, you dodged the desire for proof by saying “It’s just a model, bro”. That has to be the most half-assed attempt at dodging I’ve ever seen. If you’re making these claims, commit and defend. Don’t go hiding behind concepts and then claim that your concepts are absolute.

I'm not hiding behind anything, I explained with a super long post and everything!

I'm saying I don't need evidence because I literally explained everything I needed to. The reason why society functions on it is because as I pointed out earlier it is logically impossible for it not to because it would have collapsed otherwise, and therefore no longer exist. How about instead of saying "omg link link link or else ur wrong" why not use that little noggin of yours to think, "why is blind spy wrong?"

You do realize debates aren't just fact sharing competitions, right? You gotta use that noggin a bit too.

And mathematical proofs can actually be proven using data and mathematics itself, so I don’t know why you think mathematical proofs don’t need to be proven.

Well I'm not saying that my model can't be proven, in fact I've given several examples of my model as proof so I'm not sure what you're going on about here (examples in business, evolution, design processes, politics – much better than your provided examples). Mathematics in of itself is a model for that matter as well.

As for heterophobia vs homophobia, I’m not talking about the problem or how widespread the problem is. I’m talking about who stands to gain from fixing one side. A general population, if you will. And I think anyone could conclude that 90% gaining is a lot better than 10% gaining (arbitrary numbers).

Well as pointed out earlier it's not just simply a percentage game. Again, you have to use more than just facts, you have to connect those facts together. I thought I didn't have to explain this and yet here I am.

Protip: These facts and numbers are arbitrary because regardless of what they are the model will still hold for various other reasons – namely because the severity of a problem isn't just how many people could potentially be affected by it. If we told every heterosexual that they were ugly and then killed every homosexual, even though we affected more heterosexual people, the intensity of the effect on homosexuals greatly outweighs that effect. This is part of the reason why this cannot be easily quantified.

As for my side of proof? I don’t see the need to provide you with any if you’re not willing to provide some yourself. You can ask all you want, but if you don’t give, don’t expect to get.

> posts literally long ass essay to explain every logical step in my proof
> "didn't provide proof"

nigga u realize that's how those mathematical proofs are done right

And I don’t see how I’m being edgy, I made a comment on how you seem to believe the growth of one problem is okay as long as another is fixed. I then drew a conclusion imitating and mocking the same conclusion you gave. Both of which were valid criticisms of your argument. But you decided to circumvent that whole notion by calling it “edgy”.

You still haven't fully explained your stance and you act as if you have dominated the carcass of my argument because of your own misunderstanding of human resource practices. And pretty much every response you've been just trying to insult me. I mean, I don't really care but no man, you've been really edgy this round.

The sad thing is that other mods were impressed by you at one point. I have yet to see the appeal.

Probably because you're just not very smart. :^)

p.s. dunno why you're not bitching about not giving resources I gave you an entire field within business science to get started with

Last edited Jun 04, 2016 at 06:17PM EDT

People don't acknowledge heterophobia because it really rare and doesn't affect them. Even on the internet, I've not even seen a case of heterophobia (granted i don't use tumblr so that might be why).

Why do people consider a hatred of anyone with black hair non-existent. I bet there is someone who believes this, it's just that to me, it's non-existent because I never came across such a person and I think the likelihood of this is so slim its not even worth bothering about.

Also if someone was to be heterophobic, people would assume its mostly harmless, because there really isn't much of a history of gay or bi people beating on heteros because of their sexual preference. Heterophobia has shown no prominence in history too, where as homophobia has not only been around for so long, in a lot of cases it was encouraged or the norm. And then with stuff like the WBC existing people are reminded of that sort of malicious thought that has existed for so long.

If you said to someone what do you think of someone who hates all straight people, they'd probably think that person is wrong, but they also might say they understand why they might feel that way. It's because people would assume that is reactionary to extreme homophobia, because that makes sense in our heads.

Except it’s not. The reason why people don’t believe it exists is because the problem isn’t addressed by society. I said that in my first post but I didn’t lay it out clearly enough apparently.

As was pointed out by spider, there were many cases where homophobia was encouraged or even the norm in the past (and still is in the present). Same can be said about racism, or transphobia if we wanna relate this to you.

If homophobia is encouraged or even considered the norm, then it is clearly not considered a problem by society. So your point that heterophobia doesn't exist because "society says so" is absolute and utter bull.

I don't seek to pursue this point futher, but just wished to point it out. OP asked if people intentionally ignore heterophobia, and you are evidence that they do. Case closed.

Global society isn't something you can throw in a model. Go build train tracks if you want a model.

Last edited Jun 04, 2016 at 07:52PM EDT

Heterophobia does exist, but it's not significant enough to warrant much attention. It's so uncommon, people who haven't seen it often question whether it exists. That's all there is to it.

Heterophobia exists, but, as mentioned, it's so rare that it's practically negligible. When was the last time you saw a bunch of people gang up on a heterosexual person and beat the shit out of them?

I believe someone over on NationStates put it best. (although they're talking about feminism, it's a similar discussion and reasoning)

"So there's something I wanted to bring up as a point of discussion: The common attitude in social justice these days that two wrongs make a right.

More specifically, the idea that the crimes of the past somehow serve as an excuse for bad behavior today. This is something I see popping up in a lot of discussions, mainly gender and race politics, but for the sake of things, I'm going to focus on gender. It goes a little something like this: Someone does or says something that is sexist against men. Someone points out that sexism is supposed to be wrong even when it is against men, and they are responded to with the excuse that because men are not the ones who have suffered through centuries of oppression the way women have or that they are not the sex most often oppressed even today (this usually takes some form of arguing for the existence of the patriarchy, though it can also extend to the overall state of the world including developing nations), the behavior is therefore okay, because they are not truly being "hurt" by it the way women would be hurt by it. To consider men in the context of combating sexism in their eyes is to "ignore history."

As some of you might imagine, I have a problem with this line of thinking. The core of it comes down to the fact that I truly believe that if you do not have an understanding of why sexism against men is wrong, then you also do not understand why sexism against women is wrong, and thus cannot be trusted as a champion for the rights of anyone. Why? Because such excuses demonstrate a lack of a fundamental understanding of why we consider sexism wrong in the first place and instead only demonstrate a case of social conditioning. The person in question is parroting what society has taught them about the history of gender and sexism, but like with many social norms, has not truly critically absorbed the actual weight or meaning behind these norms and is only playing them out "because that's just the way it is."

Historically, yes, it is true that for the most part, women have bared the least glamorous brunt of sexism. That's not to say men were never simultaneously effected or that the sexism had no historical excuses, but I don't think many of us are willing to outright claim that women's position was anywhere near as good or fair to their human nature as men's. As such, our history lessons often reflect this fact and women are often the main focus when examining and dissecting the phenomena known as "sexism." However, we do not consider sexism against women wrong because it was historical. This is basically a reverse appeal to tradition, "we've always done it this way, therefore it is good bad." The reason we consider sexism against women wrong is because women are human beings, human beings are naturally complex creatures with greatly varying strengths and weaknesses, and sexism is an attitude which ignores the nature of the human being by imposing artificial limitations and expectations onto them thereby stifling their autonomy, potential, and ultimately their pursuit of happiness and self-realization – not because something becomes fundamentally right or wrong depending on how long you've done it.

And men are human beings too. The history behind who has or has not suffered the most has no baring on the core nature of humanity and thus no baring on the core nature of the problem at hand. Even if women are the ones who have historically gotten the worst of it, it still doesn't change the fact that if you are acting in a way towards a man in such that you are ignoring his human complexities by imposing artificial limitations and expectations onto him thereby stifling his autonomy, potential, and ultimately his pursuit of happiness and self-realization, you are being a sexist, and therefore doing something wrong. The same goes for those who bring up the developing world or other instances of men having the upper hand, you are not considering why we consider it wrong, you are considering it wrong for the sake of it based on appeals to irrelevant factors (in this case, a reverse appeal to popularity, "but lots of people accept it this way, therefore it is good bad."). And if this is how you make moral judgments, tell me again why I should trust you with my future as a woman? You clearly don't have any foundational understanding of why my rights are worth anything – you're just a leaf blowing to the whims of others in some way or another. How are you any more enlightened or trustworthy a person than those who argued to keep women oppressed because have always done it that way or because it is so common?

Oh! But I can already hear the counterpoints: "Yes you're technically right about why sexism is wrong, but you see, it's still okay when we do it to men because ultimately the privilege in their favor outweighs anything we could ever impose on them. It is only when men and women truly become equal that men will able to be included in protection against sexism. Until then, women just need the extra leverage to get men's level!"

But I ask you to hold such nuggets and instead answer this: When? Who? How? Who the hell is going to get to be the one to take a tour through the world one day in the distant future with a fucking checklist of objective standards for whether or not women and men are equal? What sort of standards will they be using? How will they make it known to the world that men are now "in the all clear" and are suddenly deserving of the same careful consideration as women? Why should they be in charge of deciding such a thing?

It seems to be that people who argue that women "just need the extra advantage to combat the ingrained male privilege" have very poor long-term planning and imagination. They talk a big purple-prosey game about an egalitarian utopia where sexism is a thing of the past but fail to present any realistic methods for telling when such a society has finally come to pass nor what it would even look like. Are we really supposed to sit here and imagine that someone will one day stand before the UN or something and proclaim that it is now "safe" for the double standards of males and females to be lifted, or that society itself will just instinctively recognize this once women finally have their "full equality" and make it so, and see this as anything but a simplistic, deluded fantasy? Not only is this a flawed vision of The Mighty Fall of Sexism, but the logic upon which it is predicated is false. You are not helping to break down old traditions by practicing a reverse of the historical norm – you are creating new traditions.

The problem here is that these people are falsely equivocating human behavior to a kind of "tipping scale" whereby adding extra weight to one side, and only one side, we can eventually even things out and result in equality. People do not work like this. Sexism against men does not "subvert history" and thus even out the weight of the scales to make an equal world, it just creates a world where sexism against men is considered acceptable whereas sexism against women is not – because humanity is not a scale of abstract concepts to be averaged out, humans are creatures that learn right and wrong from watching others and seeing what they can and can't get away with. Our children's children are not going checking off an elaborate social calendar in their brains whereby they measure out centuries of outdated behavior with the levels of behavior today in order to stay on the line of this magical future where we finally get EQUALITY!!! and can "lift the safeguards" – all they'll be seeing is the women around them treating the men like shit and facing no consequence, even being rewarded for it, and this will become what they consider normal and expected. Sexism against women may decrease, but sexism against men will not decrease, their "privilege" will not "protect them" – history will only be reversed.

Probably the most dangerous aspect of this line of thinking is what it implicitly suggests about men and women themselves. This idea that women's sexism will never have the same effect or go as far as men's ever did, that no matter what is done to them, the men will always have an inherent advantage over the women in the game of social power. This is either one of the most misandrist or misogynistic things ever said, or both. Misandrist for the implication that men are by nature inclined to oppress, misogynist for the implication that women will by nature always be predisposed to subjugation. What else is so plainly stated when we claim that women need the extra leverage whereas men will always just be protected?

The fight for equality is not a tipping scale. We do not combat one form of sexism by giving the other a free pass and laying all the responsibility to behave oneself with one side, nor do we casually wait for one gender to have all their rights before we begin to think about the other. Equality is achieved when we fight for everyone's rights on all fronts at the same time. We must be mindful of the standards we set and always remember to keep asking ourselves, "What if it was me?" Because, once again, we are all humans, and if you can't feel empathy for one half of us, there is nothing in you to comfortably depend on when it comes to championing the other."

Original: http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=357514&start=7300

Last edited Jun 06, 2016 at 03:31AM EDT
Skeletor-sm

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