compassion 101

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2131215/Eddy-Brown-Birmingham-bard-thorn-Barcelona-side.html

football used to be really cool

You know, it would really be nice if men could be more openminded when taking part in conversations like this. Particularly Farren: I don't think you've really approached this with the intention of listening. You need to realize that your viewpoint is overwhelmingly common among men; you just don't appreciate the full scope of the subject by virtue of not having been on the receiving end of the oppression.

my family was poor when I was growing up, I was ostracized for being an intellectual and not knowing it, looked down for being young and automatically considered immature by my now much older peers. But yeah because I'm not black or female or gay I don't know what it feels like to be treated like shit? That argument is so profoundly ignorant and I cannot believe you two are sticking to it so adamantly.

I really think you don't understand. I know there is still racism. I am not denying that. I'm saying society no longer accepts racism in an oppressive form like it used to. So some of the anti-mysogonist, anti-race, anti-sexuality arguments you people use sometimes are outdated.

Modern white straight men cannot have informed opinions on gender, race, and sexuality. That is pretty much the angle I'm talking about. To say that you'd have to say black men don't know what it feels like for arab men to be oppressed. Or gay men don't know what its like for straight women to be oppressed. Or women don't know what its like for black men to be oppressed.
 
You via your very own method of thinking have formed opinions, you can't say your own opinions on the shit doesn't matter. There is a thing called empathy, it is real. One can be empathetic to a cause or kind of people even more so than their own people sometimes. That shit is possible. It does happen.
 
You are not empathetic if you do not express it. If you do not show that you think or feel a certain way by definition to others it is non-existant. You're saying shut your mouth and listen when enough isn't being said by alot of people being hurt. You're muddling white guilt with empathy.

 

So when a woman mentions she's hurt by use of the word "bitch", don't counter by saying "well, it's not used that often, and women themselves use it too, and it's been normalized through popular culture, and I don't mean anything misogynistic by using it", or anything like that. Say "let me try to understand where you're coming from so I can try to avoid hurting people."

I'm not defending anyones right to say bitch. I never was. Its a terrible word to use, people still do it though. I'm trying to say YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE WORLD AROUND YOU SO IF YOU CANT EDUCATE IGNORE!!?!? This is something people learn in gradeschool and its one of the most important lessons you could ever learn. Fuck I will admit I use the word bitch in an indirect manner sometimes without thinking. I'm not trying to dominate anything but when all that woman has to say is "its hurtful you don't understand" and not even contemplate or discuss anything else. Guess what???
 
Really you two are dissapointing the fuck out of me. It seems recently you've taken this route of anti-intellectualism and you fail to even aknowledge that there is an alternate way of thinking except your own narrow concept of feminism and race relations which is pretty shallow and anti-progressive. I specifically remember you two were not like that before.
 
 

You are asking too much of humanity

This, people are just as capable if not more so of terrible shit than good. Also people generally refuse to think on this level. You have to aknowledge and accept that. It is unfair and unreasonable but that is life and getting upset about words is just gonna make you feel like shit. I'm not saying don't care I'm saying don't get emotionally driven by it.
 
I see ALOT of that between dada and vellfare about this stuff, which is counter-productive.

When people are pissed, they are going TO TRY TO HURT the object of their perceived wrong, regardless of who else it hurts in the long run

no you're talking about neanderthals

brobot

this man is vomiting the future.

we will reach the new age by forceful expulsions of future technologies from selected bros stomach and guts

@ vell

The handle of rape cases is tied into law. Its handled by police officers, courtsystems, human resources. Alot of those institutions should be reformed not only because of womens rights but because of how they handle a whole slew of shit.

Yes women are guilty of perpetuating their own sexism. When a stripper gets a job as a stripper it is ultimately her choice. Yes the job is infact in existance because of the mysogony of men but it is her choice to choose to do that and it is her choice not to choose to speak out against it. Alot of actresses and pop stars do the same kind of shit. When Brittany Spears wears a thong and shakes her ass on tv or Jennifer Lopez doing the same thing or an actress starring as a morally declined prostitute that is that woman ultimately making that choice to perpetuate a perception of cultural mysogony.

It is ultimately up to women to make that choice. You can rule men out of that. Thats right. But for men showing their support and confirming that; said treatment of women is fucked up. To tell them they don't know because they haven't been oppressed the same as you is so ignorant I cannot even accurately articulate it.
 
If you know what its like to suffer you can understand suffering. If I don't know what its liked to get stabbed with a knife I don't know what its like to have an open bleeding gaping wound? That argument is a fallacy.
 
Goddamn dude. Go ask some normal working women how they deal with mysogony. If they hurt inside and it puts them into a constant despair or if they infact use it to strengthen themselves. Guess what they'll tell you.

Nah I'm saying its much harder to stop it if the ones being victimized are perpetuating it, that is unacceptable. Now you're just being a condescending dick again and I'm gonna stop this because its pointless.

e: there were like 7 posts while i was typing this so i might have missed something or repeated something w/e

my family was poor when I was growing up, I was ostracized for being an intellectual and not knowing it, looked down for being young and automatically considered immature by my now much older peers. But yeah because I'm not black or female or gay I don't know what it feels like to be treated like shit? That argument is so profoundly ignorant and I cannot believe you two are sticking to it so adamantly.

You don't get it.  It's not that you don't know what it's like to be treated badly.  You don't know what it's like to be treated badly in this way, and trying to compare your experiences of poor treatment with that of a woman or a black person or a gay person facing SYSTEMATIC (this is the key word here) oppression is comparing apples and oranges.

I really think you don't understand. I know there is still racism. I am not denying that. I'm saying society no longer accepts racism in an oppressive form like it used to. So some of the anti-mysogonist, anti-race, anti-sexuality arguments you people use sometimes are outdated.

I really don't know what to say except that this isn't the case.  Maybe it's not as obvious to you.  Subtle oppression is just as oppressive as shouting nigger at someone.  It's MORE oppressive because it flies under the radar.  Here's a simple example:  have you ever seen a little boy picking on or even hitting or what have you a little girl, and the parents tell the little girl "oh, that's just his way of telling you he likes you"?  That's total sexist bs.  You're reinforcing the idea in the girl's mind that it's okay for her to be treated badly by a guy if he likes her.  Almost NO ONE has a problem hearing this though.  We're so used to hearing that exact line that nobody questions it.  How about the fact that almost every time someone interacts with, say, the same little girl, one of the first things that comes out of their mouth is "oh, what a beautiful little girl you are!"  They're learning that the very first thing anyone notices about them is their appearance.  "Boys will be boys"?  How many times do you hear that?  Do you see any of these things being publicly unacceptable?

No, because this sort of misogyny is built deeply into our culture.  It doesn't matter if shouting slurs is unacceptable, this other stuff is and it's far more dangerous than something as blatant as a slur.  To try to act like we're beyond this stuff is insane.  I'd even argue that slurs aren't horribly looked down upon considering how normal it is to hear gay or fag used as an insult on a daily basis.  It's PRETTY acceptable!

Modern white straight men cannot have informed opinions on gender, race, and sexuality. That is pretty much the angle I'm talking about. To say that you'd have to say black men don't know what it feels like for arab men to be oppressed. Or gay men don't know what its like for straight women to be oppressed. Or women don't know what its like for black men to be oppressed.

Gay men DON'T know what it's like to be a straight woman.  There are a lot of misogynist gay men out there.  Quite a few of them fall into the trap of thinking that because they're also part of an oppressed group that they understand all the other oppressed groups too.  Women of color are frequently disregarded in white-dominated feminist groups.  It's BECAUSE people like you won't step aside and say "hey, I haven't lived through your experiences and I am admitting I don't understand them" that we have this problem.  THAT is what makes you an informed person.  You admit that you don't know what it's like, and you ask.  You let the person tell you their experiences and you don't try to inject your own into it.
 

You via your very own method of thinking have formed opinions, you can't say your own opinions on the shit doesn't matter. There is a thing called empathy, it is real. One can be empathetic to a cause or kind of people even more so than their own people sometimes. That shit is possible. It does happen.
 
You are not empathetic if you do not express it. If you do not show that you think or feel a certain way by definition to others it is non-existant. You're saying shut your mouth and listen when enough isn't being said by alot of people being hurt. You're muddling white guilt with empathy.

We're ASKING you to show empathy.  The problem is how you're doing it.  What you did was say "hey, the word 'bitch' hurts you?  It hurts me too!  I hate hearing it!"  The problem is, you're missing the difference in how it affects us.  You're trying to compare your experience to mine when mine is VITAL to the problem.  You want to show empathy?  Try understanding my feelings and my point of view WITHOUT trying to insert yours.  When a gay person tells you how a word like faggot affects them, don't tell them how it affects you (like EDC did, which again I have to emphasize that he knows better now).  Just listen to them.  Make it about THEIR feelings.  That's the problem, you're taking the oppressed group's issue and making it about yourself, how it affects you.  You're saying that a problem is only worth considering if it hurts you too.  Don't try to compare your experiences to a marginalized group, instead listen to their experiences.  Talk about what you can do to avoid this problem in the future (like agreeing to not use slurs and trying to educate others), but don't shift the focus away from the person you're attempting to empathize with.  This is absolutely key here.

 

I'm trying to say YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE WORLD AROUND YOU SO IF YOU CANT EDUCATE IGNORE!!?!? This is something people learn in gradeschool and its one of the most important lessons you could ever learn. Fuck I will admit I use the word bitch in an indirect manner sometimes without thinking. I'm not trying to dominate anything but when all that woman has to say is "its hurtful you don't understand" and not even contemplate or discuss anything else. Guess what???

THIS is where empathy comes in.  All a woman SHOULD have to say is "it's hurtful".  By the way, women do try to explain how it is hurtful.  They'll tell you it's dismissive or dehumanizing or something along those lines.  But that cannot be divorced from their experience, and you cannot possibly get the full picture without that experience.  Until you live your entire life being shoved into this idea of what a woman is supposed to be and trying to cope with that and fight against it, you cannot 100% understand what a word like bitch does to you emotionally.  You can however listen and taken women seriously when they tell you it's hurtful.  Sure, some people won't.  But you said you wanted to.  You said you wanted to listen and you wanted to empathize, so do it.  When you accidentally let the word slip, apologize.
 

Really you two are dissapointing the fuck out of me. It seems recently you've taken this route of anti-intellectualism and you fail to even aknowledge that there is an alternate way of thinking except your own narrow concept of feminism and race relations which is pretty shallow and anti-progressive. I specifically remember you two were not like that before.
 
This, people are just as capable if not more so of terrible shit than good. Also people generally refuse to think on this level. You have to aknowledge and accept that. It is unfair and unreasonable but that is life and getting upset about words is just gonna make you feel like shit. I'm not saying don't care I'm saying don't get emotionally driven by it.

I don't think peopel are more capable of bad than good.  I think the problem is that we've given the bad so few consequences.  Nothing happens to you if you call a woman a bitch.  Nobody yells at you for the most part.  In order to make people better, we have to let them know when they're doing bad.  We're not going to reach everybody but it's hard when people who say they're on board start trying to tear apart every little thing and get frustrated when they're forced to consider that other people's experiences are not their own.  I mean look at this, you literally are NOT trying to empathize despite saying you are.  You're still referring to it as "getting upset about words".  You honestly DO NOT UNDERSTAND.  I mean you're proving my point right now that unless you are the target of those words you cannot understand the ways in which they hurt.  You can understand THE FACT that they hurt but you cannot truly comprehend how because they don't hurt you.  I can't implant my emotional responses into you.  That's why you need to "shut up and listen" because you're trying to dictate how I should respond to things emotionally instead of giving a shit why I feel this way or HOW I feel.

Goddamn dude. Go ask some normal working women how they deal with mysogony. If they hurt inside and it puts them into a constant despair or if they infact use it to strengthen themselves. Guess what they'll tell you.

just shut the fuck up dude you honestly aren't attempting to empathize if you're pulling this bullshit.  this isn't worth arguing anymore you don't give a single shit what women feel.