Gender

[Paddy™]

Doesn't jive with the fact that women are more liable to sexual assault and violence from their partners.

But it's not even true that women are "more liable" to be on the receiving end of these kinds of assaults [click]. Again, that women's suffering is so prominently in the forefront of discussion about domestic violence shows us how much more seriously their suffering is considered. I don't begrudge them the consideration you understand, and I don't even particular care that men don't get the attention, it's the intellectual dishonesty, and the misuse of these data by feminists and other political ideologues, that irks me.

Are you serious? I'm not affected by either. :p

Hahaha fair enough. When I heard something similar, my reaction - despite knowing better - was to be repulsed by the idea of a man's death getting a special mention amongst the deaths of women, but I was fine with the first version. But seriously, if you heard the second version on the news, it wouldn't cause you to prick up your ears?

What you've said effectively highlights one of feminism's issues - how "valuing" women as much as children under a pretext of benevolence actually prevents them from being considered the equal of men. It's what's churned out to prevent women from taking on risky jobs that men are allowed to do. I, too, roll my eyes at the 'women and children' cliche in news reports about battles or massacres, because it implies that the death and maiming of men is normal and to be expected.

And this is the crux: this assumption is unhealthy and we will be better off valuing all lives equally. If we are to use history/'biology' as a precedent for rationalizing current things, we may as well say that xenophobia, classism and other prejudices have served our "species" well in the past and therefore shouldn't be questioned. I say nuts to that.

It's interesting that feminists consider the instinctive valuing of women to be patronising and to infantilise them, that it's something done by men, by choice. It confers a degree of intentionality, agency and conspiracy on an impulse which none of us is even consciously aware of until we've already experienced the flood of empathy and the desire to protect. I consider it to be something far less sinister than feminists do, and nowhere near as damaging. But I do agree with you 100% that it's no longer "needed". There are 7 billion of us now, I think we did too good a job XD

Expectations of gender are becoming less and less relevant/useful, and I'll be glad to see the back of them. Where feminism and its world view fits into that is another issue.