PATREON EXCLUSIVE: Do women only empathize with male emotions they can personally relate to?

Tbh, I’m 90% on Matt’s side on this one. For me, my compassion is rooted in how I personally can correlate my base experience to the other person. I think that comes from a first principles type of thinking. That’s definitely something that grew on me as I aged though, I grew up with a diagnosed sociopathic/narcissistic brother that hated me since the day I alway born so I think that drew out over time my NEED to understand the people around me. I think it was a coping mechanism more than anything, but has been very beneficial in certain circumstances. Other than the fact that I grew up feeling the need to validate other peoples feeling rather than cultivating my own.

As I often do, I find myself agreeing with both Matt and Alex. I share Alex’s desire for a presumption of compassion both in myself and for others but Matt does present so very legitimate shortcomings in human psychology. It was really interesting when Matt raised the idea of ingroups and outgroups with respect to compassion. My intuition is that men extend compassion more broadly (though my intuition also is that men tend to have a lower intensity of compassion). Women, I suspect have a smaller ingroup and generally exclude men, particularly those without social connections to themselves within their ingroup. Additionally, there hasn’t been any movement for empathy towards men in the same way there has been for women and I don’t suspect there ever will be much of one. This, in combination with a natural flow of support (men > women > children) makes it less likely that women feel compassion for men and their struggles when it is hard for them relate and the men seem distant or invisible.

Thomas Owen

I'm with Alex on this one.

Perfectly put, thank you.

Right after watching this I asked artificial intelligence for the difference between empathy and compassion. Apparently compassion is empathy combined with the desire to help the person. According to that distinction I should have empathy for crying Hitler but not compassion. I think I see where both Matt and Alexander are coming from here. You can have some empathy based purely on the emotion by putting yourself in the shoes of someone feeling sad or happy etc. but a deeper empathy from real understanding.

Andy

TLDR: all you need if them to respect your experience and base respect your person. All the rest is just nonessentiall fluff. under standing. Empathy. Compassion. Relating. TLDR: What I needed from them was them to accept that I am feeling creature, and that I am feeling something at that moment, and that is real to me . Whether they understand it, or not. whether they feel instinctive, compassion or not. Where they are spiritually awaked to all beings suffering or not. Where they can relate to it personally or not. Where they empathise or not. what I need them to do is to dispassionately respect it. And if they have caused that situation to respect my directions to change it ——————————- I have thoughts and they are born out of highly personal circumstances. Leading into Corona, I basically hit absolute rock bottom like really really rock bottom And in that time, empathising with my situation was indeed of existential importance It was painful to no end to have people dismiss you’re suffering For whatever reason, it might be on the basis of them, not respecting or being empathetic or understanding your point of view I absolutely agree with Matt, that empathy or understanding, or any of the like for another person be that even in the in group let alone someone in the outgroup is a skill that people don’t necessarily have Be that for another gender, another race, another ethnicity, another nationality, whatever In this time, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I would want from the people And truth is, I didn’t need them to understand Heck, I didn’t even particularly need the empathy or compassion, because in many a moment, it seems like infantile condescension What I needed from them was them to accept that I am feeling creature, and that I am feeling something at that moment, and that is real to me . Whether they understand it, or not. whether they feel instinctive, compassion or not. Where they are spiritually awaked to all beings suffering or not. Where they can relate to it personally or not. Where they empathise or not. what I need them to do is to respect it. And if they have caused that situation to respect my directions to change it Its like stepping on someone’s foot and when the person says ouch, you keep ob stepping on their foot and say “that doesnt hurt. I don’t understand. So i wont move” even if its “ “wow this must hurt. I can empathise. My compassion go out to you. But im not moving “ On what needed is purely them to say “ i hear you that this hurts. You want me to stop it. I dont get it, but ok ill move” A neutral and apathetic respect would have been 1 million times more humane than all the empathy and condescension and attempt to (reminding me constantly of my situation, being difficult to understand, empathise and relate to, making me feel outside and alone) understand me A neutral. I believe that you are going through something and I am going to let you have your moment and your experience, without judging it either positively or negatively would have been for me personally amongst the best possible outcomes. And feeling neutral, and not judging is, perhaps one of the easiest things to learn Respect and disspassionate acceptance That if we could propagate that to all people (all beings, as this would apply to aliens or AI, or any being which works differently. To them and from them)(tooic=personship, the treatment of and rights afforded to all entities consider “persons”)and all situations would be so much more worth than the long, spiritual arduous journey of universal compassion After having been to the depths of hell and looking over the cliff into oblivion, I have in one way, or the other realise that whoever is feeling what they’re feeling it is valid to them Be that Hitler or my cousin . I do not have to understand it I do not even have to empathise with it. I do not have to feel compassion towards the person, but I do have to respect that they are a feeling creature and let them have their moment. And I feel I am able to do that with truly everybody Even if internally, I, for a moment, might have that in immediate motivation to judge it valid or not to understand or not. It is an easy task to say wait stop just let them have this moment let them have the emotion I’m not saying they should have the actions associated with those emotions action can be judged, but having the emotion not And I think someone having their own little personal cry is pretty harmless to the environment( nit entirely. But i digress) Dispassionate respect for the emotional experience 💪

Peter

I agree with both Alexander and Matt, but Alexander thinks the way I do about compassion. I think I know why women struggle to feel compassion for men. It's because for a long time men refuse to see women as human beings. Please hear me out, let me explain. This is only one example. Many years ago women who wanted to stop having babies, were told by doctors to have the surgery to tie her tubes. A real story I read is a woman was advised by a doctor to have major surgery instead of her husband having a procedure that would accomplish the same. I think the man should have the procedure to spare his wife major surgery. Yet, the doctor told the man this procedure would be uncomfortable to him. Perfect example of men only feeling compassion for other men. Women have years and years of resentment build up. Hopefully more women realize it's safe to love men again, most men. They are not the enemy and we have to let go of how women were once treated before us. I have never seen a man cry, but I have had two boyfriends struggle with depression. One of them slept around to forget his problems. The other just wanted to be mothered. I suggested therapy and self improvement, in the end I couldn't really help either one. It's a terrible feeling knowing I was born to nurture and I couldn't save either one of these men. One was a 22 year old fuck boy and the other I dated when he was 25. He stayed in my life for 15 years, until recently. Alexander is right, when someone is hurting you console them. Man or women you try to comfort them and ask questions later. I don't understand why women would find offense to Jordan Petterson crying. To quote Alexander Grace, those are low quality woman. A man that is vulnerable is so sexy, but it's so sad at the same time. We think men have to be strong 24/7, that's why women live longer than men. It's 2023 let's feel compassion for each other and stop thinking only about ourselves.