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Notes -
What makes sexism more tolerable than racism?
So I was watching a video the other day about being a woman in NYC. And something this women said stuck out to me, and this something I notice In liberal/Progressive circles when it comes to Men specifically:
There is often deep talk in many feminist circles, and society, generally, about how scary it is to be a women, and how fearful women are of Men. Im not here to argue that this fear is unjustified - I understand it fully, but here is what I think is a bigger problem with this: It is, by definition, prejudice. Thats honestly not the problem I have with it, the problem is a perceived double standard between prejudices.
Im sure everyone here is aware of the not so secret that Men as a group commit more violent crime than women - Mass Shootings, Rape, ect. As a response people are more fearful and more cautious of men as a whole. And for the most part, it seems that we consider this prejudice justifiable. No one would really refer to this as "Sexism"
Yet, with race & religion (and fascinatingly enough, this young women herself, despite being very liberal, is prejudice against her own race) we would reject this very reasoning. For example, according to the Global Terrorism Index, at least 75% of global terrorism comes from Islamic Groups. Yet, if some one says that they fear Muslims, or don't think they should be able to migrate into the country, many of these liberal types would revere this as a form of "racism", after all, not all Muslims are terrorist. Same for Black Men, they have a disproportionate amount of criminality, yet if you said what this young lady said as police officer, and that you profile Black Men more often because they are more likely to do it, you'd be cooked alive.
The obvious intuitive response someone could give here is that, Men & Women are obviously different in a way that people of different races and religions are not (unless you are a race realist). We know biologically that males are more aggressive, so them engaging in more criminality and being the scarier sex overall should be no surprise, thus, this prejudice isn't wrong. But the issue here is that this is obviously not a very progressive explanation, as these progressives typically believe that differences between the sexes are due to the social construct of gender, and that society is largely responsible for this difference. But this merely mirrors the same beliefs about differences we see between races and religious groups, no? If all these differences were indeed, socially constructed, and a product of patriarchy - white supremacy, etc, Than why wouldnt it follow that this prejudice is wrong too? Is it not sexist to believe that someone is inherently more likely to kill and rape you due to a immutable and arbitrary characteristic, like gender, in the same way believing that black people are Muslims are more likely to kill and rape others because of their faith & skin color, and treat individuals within these groups accordingly based on that? Its not something inherent about men (or muslims, black people) that make them more likely to be violent, society is to blame!
So the question here is this: Why is prejudice based on sex tolerable, but prejudice based on race & religion, not?
I’d also add that much of what is considered to be racial prejudice is actually driven by sexism or sex-based angst and insecurity, and people generally would rather profess to be racists in private than to admit to any of this. It’s a common argument, and not just among SJWs, that white-on-black racism in the American South was mostly just a result of white men’s suspicion that many of their women are susceptible to getting seduced and boned by big black studs. To the extent that such fears really were there, I’m guessing they were overblown, because we know that white women are the social group least likely to engage in exogamy. I’ve also seen the claim that many white men felt conflicted about their attraction to young black women who, unlike white women, had an allure as sexually available and lascivious vixens. (Obesity was notably not much of an issue back then, I should add.)
There’s also the case of the widespread antipathy among black women, especially young single ones, towards white and Asian women that are so-called mudsharks or coal burners i.e. driven to mate with black men. The ‘yellow fever’ of many white men is also frowned upon by women in general, the same as how the willingness of Asian women to mate with white men is reviled among Asian men.
This doesn't actually require you to believe that white women would broadly be willing. (Though people also didn't like the willing ones).
The closest modern analogue is the fear of refugees in Europe, the claim is not actually that they're especially attractive to Western women but that they won't let that stop them.
"We need to violently check these people who're prone to rape" would probably be categorized as racism rather than sex-based insecurity by most. If anything, the claim is that the inferiority complex is on the other side.
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