this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
797 points (85.2% liked)
Memes
44124 readers
1727 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yes, I suppose if you ignore every single bit of the last few hundred years worth of context, it would be hard to understand why people might be ok with this, but not necessarily the reverse.
Fortunately that context is available to you, so what I have trouble understanding is why you're not accounting for that. Maybe you could elaborate, or perhaps do some perspective taking on why historically oppressed groups have certain sensitivities that privileged groups do not have. You might even come to realize that treating everyone exactly the same after not doing so for a very long time doesn't come across as terribly fair. Because, you know, it isn't.
You've conceded my point that it would be insensitive if we reversed the genders. So now the question is whether it is okay for us to show women doing something to men in cases where we are not comfortable with men doing that same action to women.
And here I'm going to respectfully disagree. I do not agree with your claim that being a part of a more historically oppressed group comes with a different set of standards for behavior. This is like saying its fine for obese people to make fun of skinny people--but not vice versa--because the obese people have more often been marginalized in society. We wouldn't accept that reasoning in the case of body type and we also shouldn't accept it in the case of gender.
Would you say the same if we were talking about religions or races instead of genders?
The implication is that, yes, the same parity of standards should hold across groups. I myself am both religious and a racial minority (in the US) and I would not do anything to a white atheist that I wouldn't want them to do to me.
Note that I'm not saying that everyone should behave the exact same no matter what their background. I'm saying that behavior that is judged to be good or bad for one group should also be judged the same way for another group. There are some philosophical reasons behind this claim (I'm essentially denying moral relativism) but I don't want to derail the conversation.
I think what you actually are aiming at is the question: Why is this meme upvoted? And why do you think the meme with reversed genders wouldn't be?
I bet you want to tell us.