#empathy gap

[makiruz]

You can tell the empathy gap is real because you will see a video of a disabled kid and you think "oh wow, this disabled kid is suffering, these parents are awful" and then all the comments are like "this disabled kid is the devil, I am so sorry for their poor poor parents"

[itsmythang]

Hardly get the credit ..we hardly get to BENEFIT FROM IT!

You're a great ally!!!

When some people say they’re “tired of hearing about racism,” they’re usually expressing:

Discomfort with the topic

Feeling overwhelmed or defensive

Belief that the issue is exaggerated or already addressed

That’s different from “Black fatigue”, which refers to the lived, ongoing impact of racism, not frustration with discussing it

“Black fatigue” = experiencing the burden of racism

“Tired of hearing about racism” = reacting to the conversation about it.

Those are not equivalent, and mixing them can minimize real experiences. This is often the goal of people who use "Black fatigue" in response to a comment about racism.

“Some people express fatigue with conversations about racism, which isn’t the same as experiencing racism itself.”

[luffymonkey1227]

Four Years Later: Connor, Silence, and the Things Addiction Leaves Behind

Before You Read: A Necessary Disclaimer I need to say something before you continue. What you’re about to read is the heaviest thing I have ever shared publicly. Not just on this blog. On any blog. On any platform. This is not a dramatic exaggeration. It is a sincere warning. I have written about difficult topics before. I have written about personal growth, loneliness, identity,…

Four Years Later: Connor, Silence, and the Things Addiction Leaves Behind

[abearinthewoods]

Hi, I have in fact ended up on this page from velvetvexations reblogging you to mock you, so you've got that right lol

And scrolling through your blog for a while I agree with almost all you're saying, but I'm left with two questions I'm really curious about, and I hope you do take them in good faith

Why do you describe yourself as, as you said in that post, MRA? I kinda get both people being extremely wary of hearing that term *and* wanting to reclaim it, since yeah, "men's rights activist" shouldn't be an inherently bad thing to be, but it does associate you with a specific movement that was actually really shitty, and did way more to be sexist to women that to even address the actual issues men face - which you genuienly do! That's the reason it perplexes me. In my country there's a really cool charity that works for men's rights while making it known that it's working for equality and not what the MRA movement wants - and while a lot of people do hate them just because they don't care about men at all, like, I've seen their subreddit - it's an extremely toxic environment that very much supports the same structures that do oppress men.

And second question, what do you mean when you tag your posts with "anti feminism"? I haven't seen a post when you talk about it more, sorry if I've missed that, but it shows up in your tags a lot and I think may be the other reason people are fast to dismiss you. Because, yeah, the general feminist movement has a fuck ton of flaws, and a lot of it is way closer to radical feminism than the people involved would like to admit. The theory behind it, the central idea is about equality, and there are a lot of people who still do care about it though. I generally consider "the purpose of a system is what it does" a good rule, and I'm certainly not opposed to critiquing the current feminist movement, but calling it "anti feminism" specifically does sound more like opposing the core idea, and it is what usually people mean when saying they are anti feminism . It didn't seem, reading your posts that you're against actually treating women equally, so why do you choose to use a term that does imply that? It feels kinda hypocritical if you discard the whole movement/idea, but still align yourself with the MRA movement when it's even further from ideal

Again, I'm asking this out of genuine curiosity. Sorry if you've discussed it before, I didn't manage to find it, but I also haven't scrolled too terribly far.

I get why people dismiss you, but I don't think that's fair. I'd be really happy to see more of your point of few

Context: https://abearinthewoods.tumblr.com/post/768152067433021440/everytime-misandrist-assholes-like

This ask has three parts:

Why do I call myself an MRA given the connotations™?

Simple, the connotations were always bullshit. I have been posting on reddit about men's issues since obama's first term. (and arguing about it among school since the bush administration) People have always had an *idea* about what a mra is about before they ever meet one. Reactionary people (as in reacting negatively out of impulse to the basic concept of men's equality or caring about misandry) have an even stronger idea. It infects how they see the entire movement and how they interpret our words. They read this bias into everything we write, and it doesn't matter what we say or how we say it, its always some how coming from a place of misogyny.

We want to end the male only draft because it re-enforces harmful gender roles and male disposablity? Clearly its just an excuse to imagine women dying on the front line if we actually cared about men instead of using it as some excuse for hating women, we'd fight to end the draft altogether. We want to call out misandry among women? Clearly we are just neckbeard losers who can't get laid and are lashing out at women. Want to address male rape? No if we didn't hate women we would fight against rape culture and rape of women so that there would be time for men's victimization. We want to discuss our experiences being discriminated against? No, clearly we just want to drown out women's voices. Accused of claiming women oppress men, or of hating women. Interrogated with questions to prove we aren't trying to dismiss or take away from xyz "real" oppression.

Hey wait a moment, this is starting to sound like the transmasc oppression discourse. You can take any post of a trans man talking about why they use transmisandry and transandrophobia instead of what ever assholes on tumblr tell them to use and transplant that post on to my answer to the question of why I call myself an mra and not a feminist.

I'm not interested in preforming my gender advocacy under the banner of feminism, and I am not interested in giving way to people operating in (sometimes subconscious) bad faith misreading our posts to fit the ideals in their head by changing what words I use to advocate for myself or my gender to fit their biases. Its pointless because subconsciously what a lot of them object to is the advocacy in general. They are so clearly doing it to trans men now that anybody who has been paying attention on tumblr shouldn't be blind to what I'm talking about. Is it really that farfetched to some of that which was directed at trans men's advocacy was directed at cis men's advocacy?

The rest of it, the bad apples, i consider to be a counter part to something that exists in feminism. We have our terfs you have your terfs. We have our tradcons, you have your radfems. A lot of the most "known" MRAs are just the most viral who are only viral because they are controversial and get shared via ragebait. (To the point that even the less reactionary/hatefilled MRA influencers admit to dipping into ragebait just to compete. (i'm people)).

I think MRA in particular should be protected because I found it at 4th grade. it was the obvious set of words. This would be y2k bug panic year 2000 pre reddit, google, youtube, tate, peterson 4th grade me. Its a descriptor. it can not ever be allowed to be anything else. In the name of every boy who will naturally stumble upon it after facing sexism against themselves and waking up to the concept of sexism against men like I did.

Why do I tag posts anti-feminism given I seem to genuinely be for gender equality for both genders?

One reason I do it for is to normalize criticizing feminism. Its gotten way too easy to dismiss as originating from misogyny or bad faith something or another. That needs to change.

But on a bigger note, I do consider myself a kind of anti-feminist.

I think feminism has gotten too comfortable having a presumption of the moral high ground that it does not analyze its own biases about men.

A big example of what I mean is how feminism will all too often try to theory craft some gender stereotype and harmful trope filled reason for why men do xyz thing and what I need you understand is that from my position, this theorycrafting is itself an expression of bigotry. Manspreading being casted as a "patriarchal signal of domination over public spaces"? How the fuck is that not just 100% stereotype fueled bigotry? Men spread their legs in the train more than women because parents teach only girls to cross their legs (for mostly dress reasons). Not because we are operating out some malicious desire to dominate the world. Jesus fuck. It is anxiety inducing to know feminists are looking at your actions under this kind of light purely because of your gender.

There is also the issue with how feminism's way of looking at the sexism issue actually contributes to misandry. I'm referring to the obsession with privilege and "oppression" as class descriptors and how this is used to excuse "punching up" or denying men access to services they also need, its just women need a bit more. I consider this to be a core aspect to the overall ideological identity of feminism that opposing it is essentially opposing feminism as it currently exists.

The path forward is to remove the concept of oppression and privilege and patriarchy and all the petty dick measuring and bullshit excuses about "punching up" they entail from the conversation. I think this is required to move forward on gender equality. Anybody who has seen how the same fucking arguments mras were having 16 fucking years ago about the existence and validity of misandry as a concept and term, are playing out on the transmisandry tag can plainly see by now the oppression olympics have done more harm than good. Its time to stop.

Allowing this way of looking at gender issues to exist in the culture zeitgeist harms men. I read a post on here about a guy who got SA'ed in highschool because someone made his ride back home contingent on, well, things. He mentioned how he didn't have a cell phone to call his parents for a ride home but his younger sister did, specifically so something like that wouldn't happen to her. Because of this us vs them oppressed vs privileged bullshit he was not given a tool to prevent sexual assault his younger sister got.

Nope, no more. Whats good for the goose is good for the gander. I will except no less moving forward.

Aren't I a hypocrite for doing both at the same time given I'm trying reclaim the MRM from the connotations set by the worse while holding feminism to the worst?

Here's the difference. When I find out somebody calls themselves a feminist, I don't assume things about them, laugh at their face, make some flippant remark based on my ideals about feminism, or even make them prove what kind of WRA (Women's rights advocate/activist) they are. I watch, listen and let them demonstrate what that means to them.

Be mindful of the distinction between The movement(the waves, etc), the general concept(anti-sexism), the ideology(the theory and written work), and the people who are associated by means of either of the three (feminists).

And lets be real. Feminism sits in the culture limelight, the men's movement does not. Feminism has the sway within corporate culture and mainstream political ideals to actually harm men when its misandry is allowed go unchecked. Meanwhile the MRM is listed as a hate group by organizations that command respect purely because of the existence of the same types of bitter hate filled vocal minority. This listing subtly hinders any men's advocacy, because, as i've said, Men's rights Advocate/Activist, is a *descriptor*. Like Civil Rights Activists or Women's Rights Activists. When you tie that strong of a negative connotation to a descriptor people will have a hard time differentiating between what ADL and SPLC are talking about and men's advocacy (what the the descriptor points to) in general. This can not be allowed to remain the status quo. It has to be pushed back against.

If feminism as a whole starts getting listed as a hate group because of "the worst of the worst" members by orgs with a lot of respect around the world and this hinders feminism's ability to gain any traction or do any advocacy for women calling me out for hypocrisy would start to become a fair cop.

One final note, I'm not even defining feminism by the worst of the worst. That once piece of shit radfem with her male tears coffee mugs aren't the standard i'm judging feminism by. The countless men and women who took to twitter to defend her right to have said mug and mocked any man who objected to it, is. The feminist leaning major publications that were pushing articles defending it as punching up and mocking any man who dared to express his emotions about it as a fragile wittle wite male, are. They (sadly) define feminism more than intersectionists on tumblr do. (as does Jezebel mag bragging about their staffers domestically abusing men) Ps: saturnian-catboy, I hope this helps you view my prospective a bit better. I could write for ever on the topic of feminism. thats why i got this blog, so i'm sure there are points i'll punch my self for forgetting. thank you for the kind words about my blog. I appreciated them.

[princeescaluswords]

OUT OF THE BLUE

It's going on nine years later, and it is still one of the most egregiously batshit enraging takes from this fandom about Lies of Omission (5x09) that Scott McCall had absolutely no reason to make the mistake of believing that Stiles Stilinski had murdered Donovan Donati. That Scott, maliciously or whimsically or both, just decided to believe Theo, a person whom he 'barely knew,' over Stiles.

I mean, if by "no reason" they mean:

Scott watched Donovan threaten to murder the Sheriff right in front of Stiles.

Scott watched Stiles ambush a merged alpha with a baseball bat in order to protect his chance of saving his father.

Scott got tortured by Stiles because Stiles believed Scott let his father get hurt.

Scott had learned that Stiles had lied about Stiles's shoulder getting hurt.

Scott had learned that Stiles had concealed Donovan's death from him (and everyone else).

Which meant that Stiles actually had little to no faith in Scott, which had to be painful.

Scott flinched from Stiles approaching him with a wrench at the same place and the same conditions that a demon wearing Stiles's face had approach him before.

Scott was under a great deal of stress what with having asthma attacks while trying to defeat indestructible mad scientists.

Scott was under a great deal of stress with Hayden dying 100 yards behind him.

Stiles started out this conversation screaming at Scott that Stiles resented that Scott was perfect and that this was a burden and "some of us have to get their hands a little bloody sometimes!"

When Scott asks "So you had to kill him?," Stiles replied with "He was going to kill my dad. What was I supposed to do?"

Theo did have the wrench with which Stiles did indeed hit Donovan.

Theo had deceptively demonstrated his 'good intentions' by saving every member of the pack.

Yes, Scott was wrong to draw the conclusions he did, but the idea that he had no reason to suspect that Theo was telling the truth and wasn't nearly drowning under the pressure that everyone was placing him under, is bullshit.

What's more, he more than made up for being wrong. He literally begged Stiles to let him help save his dad. He let Stiles hit him. He stood there and claimed that he should have been the one forced to kill people.

But apparently, it's still the fashion to make sure we understand that the worst possible thing that happened in that episode was Scott believing that maybe, after seasons of suggesting that the pack kill their way out of their problems, Stiles actually put his money where his mouth was.

But hey, there's got to be a reason that everyone cries of Stiles and thinks Scott is the scum of the earth, that there is not the slightest bit of empathy for what Scott was going through.

BUT IT'S NOT RACISM.

[betterbemeta]

Everyone can connect in ways that transcend boundaries, can empathize or at least jointly participate more than they think.

There are people out there who do not share your fundamental baseline for 'reality.'

Aside from being dreadful to each other, these two facts also kind of create each other. Every time you ask yourself, 'how could other people think what is happening in the world is okay?' you need to understand that somebody who has a completely different idea of what the world is like, or should be like, is thinking the same thing about you.

I'm not saying that all of these perceptions are equal. A bisexual trans teen looking at political bills that remove their human rights, is not equivalent to an US-Evangelical preacher who thinks that same teen is violating the fabric of his reality. A poor person who is just trying to survive and reads about genocide on the other side of the world on their prepaid phone is not equivalent to a lobbyist who thinks of both the poor person and 'war' in abstracts.

But when we talk about 'reactionary politics', we're not just talking about reactionary response to political decisions, but also what is reactionary to 'the reality' the decisions create. A lot of thought pieces or commentary fall flat on this concept with terms like 'economic anxiety,' or summarizing mass reactionary movements with seemingly little cohesion as 'populism' without explaining anything at all. Gawking at seemingly silly conspiracy theories or culture-war items doesn't really do anything unless it illuminates what these represent for the participants 'sense of reality.'

In Abigail Thorn's video essay, A Man Plagiarised My Work: Women, Money, and the Nation, she goes to investigate conservative thought to understand reactionary rejection of feminism and what 'role' reactionary structures expect women to play for 'the nation.' She went to Roger Scruton, author of How to Be a Conservative, for her answers and part of those answers included a description of how conservative roles for women are the backbone of reality for that point of view. That if those roles (implicitly: 'to be providers of free labor') were to change, according to him the floor falls out from underneath all laws and any baseline confidence people have. To me, the excerpts sound like Scruton is terrified of being unplugged from The Matrix.

One of the quotes Abigail pulled even described how Scruton sees 'history' as somehow changeable:

(screenshot credit to Abigail Thorn's video)

What Scruton is talking about here is not actually that history can literally be altered, like we're Marty McFly. He's talking about the perception of reality. Which CAN VARY between people or change over time: including our ability to look back on the past and contextualize it. And Scruton absolutely DOES NOT WANT to enter a reality where the facts of the past are interpreted by brains different from his own, outnumbering his own.

Even if he believes the justification for his desired reality is fundamental, he doesn't believe that reality itself is fundamental. Reality can change and vary, and therefore people MUST be brought back into his own to maintain its stability. He believes those people can connect with him, MUST connect with him, empathise with him, accept his reality. Or else they will never comply with it.

It can be hard to swallow. But not only is someone else out there thinking the game of the world is checkers and that it's a violation of them that you're spending time with mancala... on some level they already accept that actually THEY COULD play mancala too, experience connection with you... and be 'a loser' compared to you, by 'your game', 'your rules.'

"This person doesn't live in the same reality, does not comprehend 'the' order of things," is a required component to "this person is just a little less human"; it's easy to dehumanize each other. And because of the above, it's easy to fear the violence of being dehumanized, if that reality isn't broad enough to support enough people. But even then, a society and reality built on tolerance will experience the paradox of tolerance. So at least one fear reactionaries have is realistic. If their reality doesn't become dominant, they'll experience some form and degree of violence. Probably not as much violence, if they are opposing those who believe in human rights, but they won't know that. They know themselves.

You must accept that:

Full human beings out there will not see things the way you do, may not have the same underlying assumptions you have, really and truly,

AND said thinking, "this person does not comprehend the minimum requirements for civilization," has been part of every oppression in history EVEN IF we reel every day from how public figures can demonize disenfranchised refugees, or how nations could tolerate genocide,

AND that because we have empathy for other full human beings we typically believe that others COULD be brought into our own realities,

AND the way that some people want to do that, and the reality they desire, will create horrific conditions for many people that aren't a matter of perception.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

The Disregard of Male Suffering: evidence from psychology research, therapy and training  — The Centre for Male Psychology

So that our knowledge and skills don’t shrivel and decay, psychotherapists like myself have to regularly take continuing education training

By: Amit Kumar

Published: Feb 17, 2025

So that our knowledge and skills don’t shrivel and decay, psychotherapists like myself have to regularly take continuing education training. I recently took a multi-day training on treating victims of a certain type of abusive relationship, also known as a pathological love relationship or narcissistic abuse. Quickly into the training, I learned that I wasn’t being instructed in how to identify and treat people in these relationships but how to identify and treat women in these relationships. 

A perfunctory disclaimer was given stating that the group’s research was on women as victims and men as the pathological partners but that the dynamic could be reversed as well. There was no curiosity about how often males are victims; the possibility that the male experience as victim could be different than the female experience; or whether a female pathological partner exhibits different behaviors than a male one.  

Although disappointing, this was not surprising. A recent review paper by researchers Maja Graso and Tania Reynolds titled A Feminine Advantage in the Domain of Harm: A Review and Path Forward shows that research consistently finds that compared to males, females evoke greater instincts of empathy, care, and protection. Moreover, it is easier for individuals to typecast females as victims and males as perpetrators. 

The researchers convincingly make their case citing numerous examples. Two studies find that people are more willing to sacrifice a man’s life than a woman’s in ethical dilemmas where they can end a life to save others. When viewing pictures of men and women in pain, greater concern is reported for women. In a study where individuals could gain financially from inflicting pain on others, they harmed male targets more whereas they chose to receive less money to shield women from pain. 

In scenarios of identical mistreatment from a same-gender friend, people felt less sympathy and were more dismissive to men compared to women. Study subjects were more willing to support a drug that provided overall benefits but had side effects for men versus one that had the same benefits and disproportionate side effects for women. 

In discussing research about hiring discrimination, Graso and Reynolds state that “[p]eople more strongly believe women’s under-representation in male-dominated fields (e.g., engineering) reflects societal discrimination and warrants social action compared with men’s under-representation in female-dominated fields (e.g., nursing).” Furthermore, people “overestimate the degree of hiring discrimination against women and underestimate the degree of discrimination against men.”

Graso and Reynolds also discuss sexual harassment, stating that “[e]xperiments reveal people perceive the same actions as more sexist, harassing, and insulting when they are committed by a man than a woman,” and that “people desire harsher punishments and are less willing to forgive a man (versus a woman) who makes a potentially inappropriate comment at the workplace.”  

In both mock juror experiments and in real life courtrooms, males receive harsher treatment even when accounting for the defendants’ criminal record and the nature of the crime (in case you didn’t think there were enough links in that sentence, here is another mock juror study, and three more real world analyses).

Of particular relevance to my training, Graso and Reynolds also note that “male victims of female-perpetrated intimate partner violence are met with ridicule, doubt and minimization, despite evidence suggesting women commit intimate partner violence at similar rates to men.” 

In my training, I was instructed that the perpetrator profile we were studying was that of individuals with narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders because they were the most dangerous. Research shows, however, that it is borderline and antisocial personality disorders that exhibit the most psychological and physical abuse in romantic relationships.

I suspect this discrepancy stems from the female favoring biases discussed in the Graso and Reynolds paper. Narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders are found more in males, who are more easily viewed as perpetrators, and borderline personality disorder is generally considered to occur more often in females, who are more easily viewed as victims. 

This blind spot may inadvertently disadvantage many women in pathological relationships as well because although borderline personality disorder is diagnosed more in females, studies show roughly equal prevalence in males and females. One more place where these biases may appear is that treatment protocols for borderline personality disorder are developed and researched using mostly female patients, and unsurprisingly typical treatments don’t work as well with males.  

I’ve noticed this female advantage in my clinical work, too, like in clinical exercises drawing on Solomon’s Paradox, which refers to the consistent and reliable finding that people reason better about others’ problems compared to their own. 

Solomon’s Paradox is why therapists often ask questions to force the client to view their situation from another perspective—questions like, “What would you say to a friend in the same situation?” “What would you say to yourself if you were your own coach or mentor?” Or controversial psychologist Jordan Peterson’s uncontroversial suggestion to “[t]reat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.” 

Using this principle, I ask my clients in pathological relationships to imagine what they would think of a loved one in a similar relationship. In the past, I would have them imagine someone of the same gender, assuming similarity of the hypothetical protagonist would be most effective, but it was never as powerful an exercise with men. After learning about these female-favoring biases, I began to ask male clients about their sisters instead of their brothers. Their responses transformed from helpful but tepid support offered to their brothers to righteous paternal love and anger, sometimes through tears, on behalf of their sisters. 

After these thought experiments, some male clients express the same bias plaguing their relationships: As men, they are supposed to persevere through the pain, confessing that they are not worth the same consideration as women, not deserving of the same love and respect as the other half of the species.

Today, these biases intersect with a myriad of struggles befalling contemporary men. Contrary to the zero-sum thinking that rampages through our gender discourse, we need each other—helping half of society invariably helps the other half. A protective impulse toward women may certainly be healthy, and most would give the caveat that it need not be patronizing to our sisters. Perhaps we should add that it should never sanction the neglect of our brothers.

[blackgirlliberated]

Black women deserve to be taken care of vs always being the caretakers.

Read that again.