Comment on What was the 'bear vs man' controversy?
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2 weeks agoWhile I think that’s a great way to view the question, and can definitely see the reasoning and sort of agree with it, there’s one test that can be made for some arguments to know whether they’re inherently prejudiced or not, that is the black switch. This works because our society has internalized racism, at least the talking of it, to a point where we can easily recognize racist statements, while the same is not true for sexist statements yet.
With that in mind how would it be if the question was “would you rather be in a forest with a bear or a black person?”. You immediately recognize the inherent racism there, and the person asking that question could very easily show statistics on the number of crimes committed per ethnicity to prove his point of why he would choose the bear, and even argue the same you did that a bear is predictable humans are not. Still you understand that the question is inherently racist.
This is not to say there’s no issues to be discussed here, or that women don’t suffer at the hands of monsters out there, and if you can’t understand why women would choose the bear you need to read more into what they go through… But still, regardless of all of that, the question is inherently sexist.
amino@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
you can’t be sexist against the people who invented sexism, that’s just silly
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Sure you can, it’s like saying you can’t be racist against white people, and having lived in a neighborhood that was 99% black I can assure you that’s a thing.
People need to decouple the ideas of discrimination and institutionalized discrimination. Discrimination can happen in any direction and it’s on an individual level, institutionalized discrimination can only happen from the people “in control” towards the rest, e.g. cis, hetero, white, males. Obviously institutionalized discrimination is way worse and should be fixed, however antagonizing people and claiming you can’t discriminate against them will lead them to close down into “well, if I can’t be discriminated against then neither can you”. It’s important to teach people that anyone can be discriminated, and to show how our society as a whole discriminates certain groups, this way the message becomes less of “you’re an asshole for being in the same category as people who are assholes, and there’s nothing I do to you that will make me an asshole” and more “it sucks when some people are assholes to you, imagine if the majority of people treated you like this”
amino@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
you’re silly because you’re getting offended by mean words. we have to worry whether we’ll make it home alive. idk, maybe unshove your own head out of your own ass?
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Maybe stop and listen to what I said, unless you have lived in very specific cities it’s almost assuredly I’ve had more risk to my life walking home in a week than you ever did in your entire life, having lived for a good chunk of my life in one of the most dangerous cities in the world.
I’ve lived in places where you can get shot because you turned the wrong corner, places where you need to talk to people with machine guns to let you pass. Maybe you should unshove your head out of your own ass and see that other people also have problems, and alienating them is not going to make any friends. Unlike you I recognize the struggle that minorities face, I’m not looking only at myself and forgetting others exist and trying to pretend they don’t suffer. If your first response when someone says “I suffer” is “your suffering doesn’t matter because I suffer more” the person will reply (or at least think) “if you don’t care about my suffering, then I don’t care about yours”, and that’s not constructive, everyone suffers and everyone deserves to be treated equally.
ArtificialHoldings@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Most men didn’t invent and don’t uphold sexism, and most men don’t benefit from the patriarchy. Some women still enforce sexism, and benefit from the patriarchy. This is the deeper understanding of feminism you need to seek out.