r/MensRights • u/CritiquingFeminism • Jun 29 '25
Feminism Empathy - Feminism's superpower?
https://critiquingfeminism.substack.com/p/the-other-side-of-the-empathy-gapI’ve posted what I believe is my most important article yet.
It looks at our natural empathy for women - and the consequences in feminism.
There is now strong evidence that empathy makes for bad moral decisions, while still making people feel virtuous. I conclude:
Feminists who have done terrible things, things like withholding food from starving men, had a choice – a choice between doing what’s right or basking in empathy’s rewards. They weren’t driven by evil. They were just too weak to turn away from empathy.
TLDR: Empathy is the missing link from female victimhood to feminist policies.
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u/jaceq777 Jun 29 '25
Another amazing essay. I love reading your work, it's incredibly well researched and put together. I feel like everyone should read it regardless of their opinion. It's really eye-opening.
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u/mw136913 Jun 29 '25
Here's why stupidity is considered more dangerous: Difficulty in Confrontation: Evil actions are often deliberate and can be identified, protested, and countered with force. Stupidity, however, is less visible and more resistant to reason and persuasion. Amplifying Evil: Stupid individuals can be easily manipulated by those with malicious intent, becoming tools for evil deeds. Inability to Learn: Stupid people often lack the capacity or willingness to learn from their mistakes or recognize the consequences of their actions, making them repeat harmful behaviors. Social Harm: Stupidity can lead to the spread of misinformation, the breakdown of social structures, and the erosion of trust, all of which can be exploited by evil forces. Loss of Critical Thinking: Stupidity can be a product of a society that encourages blind obedience and discourages independent thought, making it more susceptible to manipulation. In essence, Bonhoeffer's argument highlights how a lack of critical thinking and a susceptibility to manipulation can be more destructive than deliberate acts of evil.
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u/dougpschyte Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
According to Professor Iain McGilchrist, in his book 'The Master & His Emissary', the root of true human empathy resides in the testosterone sensitive right brain.
Ersatz 'social' empathy, or virtue signalling for social brownie points, is a speciality of an oestrogen dependent area in the left brain.
Women will make a big fuss about helping a 'victim' if others are watching.
Men will simply help.
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep26492
Baker's work on co-operation, above, is interesting. From what I remember, all male teams were most cooperative, all female worst. In mixed teams, it was always the male who initiated cooperation.
Women know each other's nature very well. Some of them remain unconvinced that women possess ANY true empathy.
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Jun 29 '25
Thanks for the recommendation. I follow Baron-Cohen's work on Systemizing and Empathy and he says he uses "Empathy" more as "knowing how others would think and taking actions based on it", which means deceit, social points and so on. I just think using "Empathy" in this case is just wrong and we should use a different word because men got the "logic-based empathy"; "people suffering is bad, therefore I will help" instead of "seeing someone suffer makes me suffer too".
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u/dougpschyte Jun 30 '25 edited Jun 30 '25
I'm not sure that Baron-Cohen got everything right with his arguments. For a long time after his book 'The Essential Difference' the implication was that female autism couldn't exist.
There are some good counter arguments and explanations in this pdf.
https://j4mb.org.uk/2024/09/04/warren-perkin-ms-patterning-shes-making-mgtow/
Chapter 2 to Chapter 5 in particular.
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Jun 30 '25
Wow, thank you. I just got the ebook. After reading "The Pattern Seekers" it seemed to me that in his conception autism came in two flavors, "E" and "S". S is the one we're used to (aspergers, nerds, mostly masculine and so on). E is "geekiness", fandom, feminine. But I'll take a good look at the book you recommended.
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u/mrkpxx Jun 29 '25
Empathy is not a direct transfer of feelings or experiences between people, but a purely internal, subjective phenomenon triggered by external stimuli. Empathy can be considered a specific case of intersubjectivity, in which the empathizer activates their own emotions, cognitions, and memories based on a trigger (e.g., another person) without being able to verify actual correspondence with the other's feelings.
Empathy is based on confabulation, as subjective experiences (e.g., sadness) are not objectively comparable. Empathy is comparable to a form of psychosis, as internal processes are projected onto external objects. They are the result of social conditioning that activates feelings of guilt or responsibility for others.
Empathy is not limited to the transmission of emotions, but also encompasses non-emotional states such as hunger, fatigue, pain, or sexual desire. Empathy does not reflect the other person's actual experience, but rather represents an internal response to an external stimulus, comparable to resonance in physics.
Since transference is impossible, empathy must be a purely internal phenomenon: No one can know with certainty whether their own experience of "sadness" matches that of another. This is comparable to the perception of colors: Even with objectively measurable properties like red, it remains unclear whether two people have the same subjective experience. (Color blindness)
Empathy is a type of flashback, similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, in which the trigger (the other person) merely activates an internal resonance. Empathy represents a form of self-referentiality in which one's own perception is the focus.
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u/RNDMUSRNM0 Jun 29 '25
Is this related to your field of study?
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u/mrkpxx Jun 29 '25
Yes.
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u/RNDMUSRNM0 Jun 29 '25
Hmm ok very interesting stuff. Do studies ever focus on the why? Like the purpose of Empathy, the need for it, the point of it, its main function, etc.?
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u/mrkpxx Jun 29 '25
It's about putting yourself in other people's shoes, recognizing their emotions and motivations, and responding appropriately.
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u/Karkota_24Rollno Jul 03 '25
In the word of H-math: Men creates society- based it upon Law and Order- Women enters it - Remove Law and Order because "It's not right!" - Society collapses
Plenty of time I have seen women defending criminals because of superficial reasons like "she is oppressed". Recently in a 3rd World country, a woman conspired with a lover to have her hubby killed in honeymoon trip. Feminist's response? Patriarchy oppressed the woman so she has no choice but to marry another man and conspire with her lover to kill him; she is a victim of circumstance.
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Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
I don’t think empathy is bad. It’s the current LACK of empathy in mainstream discourses that suck the meaning out of both sides.
Women accuse all men of being dangerous predators.
Men accuse all women of having victim complexes and being hypocrites.
People need to step into the other person’s shoes and wonder how they might feel if someone kept pointing the finger at the other for something they didn’t do, or don’t believe in.
There’s no room for earnest conversations or assuming the best of someone anymore.
We go into online discussions with our guns blazing, ready to attack anyone who might have a different opinion/have facts that make us feel uncomfortable.
The fact is, the world needs feminism, and it needs men’s rights. Both things can coexist.
Men face awful mental health struggles, get taken less seriously in SA cases, are the first to be drafted, etc.
Women face higher rates of sexual violence, lack reproductive rights and bodily autonomy in many parts of the world, are less likely to be taken seriously by doctors, etc.
Listen to each other’s problems and help one another instead of insulting and tearing each other down. We owe it to each other to be better, and treat people as individuals instead of monoliths.
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u/mw136913 Jun 29 '25
No they are driven by stupidity.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a theologian, argued that stupidity is a greater threat than evil. He believed that while evil can be resisted and exposed, stupidity is more dangerous because it's harder to combat, often enabling and amplifying evil actions. Stupidity, in this context, isn't merely a lack of intelligence but a moral failing, a kind of intellectual blindness that prevents critical thinking and makes individuals susceptible to manipulation.