[RD] The Gender Empathy Gap

[civver_764]

We hear all the time about the gender wage gap, but what about the gender empathy gap?

Many of you might remember in 2014, when Nigerian terrorist organization Boko Haram kidnapped 200 Nigerian school girls. This sparked international outrage and calls for western intervention. There was a huge campaign that continues to this day.

This was obviously terrible, and the outrage was well warranted. Many cited this event as evidence that the world was just not a safe place for girls.

What most people don't know, is that earlier that year Boko Haram committed a similar gender based atrocity. The difference is that this time, it was targeted at boys. On Feb. 25, 2014 Boko Haram attacked a school, telling all of the girls to go home and massacring all of the boys. 58 were killed that day.

Yet take a look at this AP article covering the event:

Dozens killed in attack on Nigerian school

DAMATURU, Nigeria (AP) — Islamic militants set fire to a locked dormitory at a school in northern Nigeria, then shot and slit the throats of students who tried to escape through windows during a pre-dawn attack Tuesday. At least 58 students were killed, including many who were burned alive.

They "slaughtered them like sheep" with machetes, and gunned down those who ran away, said one teacher, Adamu Garba.

Soldiers guarding a checkpoint near the coed government school were mysteriously withdrawn hours before it was targeted by the militants, said the spokesman for the governor of northeastern Yobe state.

Female students were spared in the attack, said the spokesman, Abdullahi Bego, though girls and women have been abducted in the past by militants of the Boko Haram movement, whose name means "Western education is forbidden."

This time, the insurgents went to the female dormitories and told the young women to go home, get married and abandon the Western education they said is anathema to Islam, Bego said. All of the dead were teenage boys or young men.

The fact that they were male was barely even recognized. They were just gender-neutral "students". There was no international outcry or calls for intervention. No calls for "justice for boys". Most people probably didn't even hear about this.

So what gives? This was clearly a gender-based massacre, but no one really seemed to care. Why do we seem to care so much more when bad things happen to women and girls, than men and boys? And what can we do to close this gender empathy gap?

 

[JollyRoger]

Yeah, that article just says "militants" - it doesn't mention they were likely all male.

 

[Gori the Grey]

There's a little bit of apples and oranges. A kidnapping keeps a story in the news. Where are they? Are they still alive? Could they be rescued?

And the longer something stays in the news, the longer there is time for people to attach to it.

So I don't think it's just a gender difference.

 

[civver_764]

There's a little bit of apples and oranges. A kidnapping keeps a story in the news. Where are they? Are they still alive? Could they be rescued?

And the longer something stays in the news, the longer there is time for people to attach to it.

So I don't think it's just a gender difference.

All good points. Honest question though, how do you think this would have played out if they had instead massacred all the girls, and let the boys go home? And if it was all boys that were kidnapped, how do you think that would have played out?

 

[Gori the Grey]

My guess is that if they'd massacred girls, there would have been just a shade more outrage, but not terribly much more; it would have largely been sized up as another heinous deed of those brutal thugs over there.

If boys had been kidnapped, it would have drawn roughly the same level of media coverage, but there would have been no gendering of the event; there would just be interest in whether there was any prospect of rescuing those students that those beasts kidnapped.

 

[Synobun]

Boys are typically brainwashed into becoming child soldiers.

An atrocity, of course, but many if not most of them will one day vehemently support the regime that committed such a horrible crime against them. Liberating them is more difficult because they mingle with those who have "drank the koolaid" and the adults. A foreign or external liberator is rarely believed even when the children are isolated.

Girls being kidnapped receive more media attention because they become slaves. They aren't integrated into the machine committing the atrocities. They're sold and distributed or used as a bargaining chip in local conflicts.

Addressing the problem is easier when it comes to girls, as crass as it may sound. You don't need to worry about them killing you or mingling within enemy combatants.

This is obviously a watered down interpretation of the situation. I doubt you'll get a better answer in a condensed form.

 

[Narz]

I remember reading about a study with babies where when people were told the baby was female it would get more cuddling than if it was a boy (when evidently it would be expected to be 'tougher').

Anyway, life isn't fair and there's a lot of f-ed up expectations & demands of both genders. All said I'm glad I'm male but of course I don't know how'd I'd feel if I'd been a lady.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I hadn't heard about the boys' situation. Obviously that was terrible.

It's also now obvious that Boko Haram targeted students of both sexes, but not for the same reason. Boys are considered potential soldiers/resistance fighters, so it would appear that they were seen as a problem to be pre-emptively eliminated. Girls, on the other hand, are worth money as sex slaves, household "servants," "wives," and hostages.

 

[Commodore]

An atrocity, of course, but many if not most of them will one day vehemently support the regime that committed such a horrible crime against them. Liberating them is more difficult because they mingle with those who have "drank the koolaid" and the adults. A foreign or external liberator is rarely believed even when the children are isolated.

Girls being kidnapped receive more media attention because they become slaves. They aren't integrated into the machine committing the atrocities. They're sold and distributed or used as a bargaining chip in local conflicts.

I don't see a meaningful difference between these two situations though. Sure, the male forced to be a child soldier may eventually become brainwashed enough to truly support those who enslaved him, but a willing slave is still a slave. So specifically focusing on liberating the females because it is the easier path seems like a horrible way to approach the situation. Not to mention, that male child soldier you don't liberate because it's too difficult may grow up to be the next warlord who continues the cycle of exploitation and enslavement of both boys and girls.

 

[Agent327]

Basically, the two situations don't compare. And citing a single article doesn't make a case. It hardly warrants a RD threat on gender empathy or the lack thereof.

 

[Commodore]

Basically, the two situations don't compare. And citing a single article doesn't make a case. It hardly warrants a RD threat on gender empathy or the lack thereof.

I don't know, I think there is enough to get a discussion started. The last line if the OP certainly does ask a legitimate question. Why do we, as a society, seem to get more emotionally distressed when tragedies befall women than we do when they befall men?

 

[Synobun]

I don't see a meaningful difference between these two situations though. Sure, the male forced to be a child soldier may eventually become brainwashed enough to truly support those who enslaved him, but a willing slave is still a slave. So specifically focusing on liberating the females because it is the easier path seems like a horrible way to approach the situation. Not to mention, that male child soldier you don't liberate because it's too difficult may grow up to be the next warlord who continues the cycle of exploitation and enslavement of both boys and girls.

I'm not in disagreement with what you're saying as I do agree that the boy aspect being trickier doesn't mean it should be avoided.

There is, however, a difference because the foreign liberator is an unknown variable when compared to the local militant. In most instances, the local militant will be someone they know or someone a person close to them knows. A foreign liberator is not only a stranger but they also put what's familiar to the boy at risk. When frightened, we do stupid things. This is especially true for a child. A child soldier, even if they haven't been indoctrinated, will still likely fire on those who resist or a foreign liberator even if isolated from those that may exact punishment.

A child soldier is liberated when they believe they can realistically agree to walking away from the militia without consequence. That's tricky to accomplish, especially if you are trying to liberate them en masse. Who wants to be liberated? Who will shoot the liberator in the back? Who is going to shoot because they think they have to shoot in order to avoid what would happen to them if they didn't and the liberators are driven off or unsuccessful?

That's a lot less tricky when you're liberating a shipment of girls. They won't shoot you in the back. They're not being indoctrinated into the militia's mindset since many of them are sold to other regions or become the child-wives of local warlords and commanders. Their time frame for indoctrination is far lengthier than that of a boy's. A boy "conscripted" a month ago will shoot at you alongside a boy that's committed to the cause and alongside the commander that first took them. To the liberator they're faced with three armed men trying to kill them.

A girl kidnapped a month ago will go with you the second their captors are eliminated. They are not armed. They are not mingling within the militia (in the context that they're involved in an armed conflict). They are held as hostages, not combatants.

 

[Ryika]

The in-group bias of women is much stronger than it is in men, so girls are at a natural "advantage" there. It just makes sense for journalists to specifically put "girls" in the title when they're the victim, and omit the gender as much as they can when the victims are boys, and instead speak of "children".

I do however think the lack of outrage in this particular case is more an issue of what has become normal. The killing of children in far away places is not really something that is extremely shocking anymore as long as it happens in part of the world that we don't feel deeply connected to. It's a tragedy, but not something that sparks huge outrage these days. We accept it as the state of the world where certain groups will use any methods they can to instill fear in people. People being kidnapped falls outside of that narrative, so it's something that will always spark more attention.

 

[warpus]

Obviously women in distress will bring in more viewers than men in distress.

Why do you think white blonde girls going missing makes national news, and a black guy going missing doesn't even make local news?

 

[Agent327]

Stereotyping comes to mind.

 

[metatron]

I'm not in disagreement with what you're saying as I do agree that the boy aspect being trickier doesn't mean it should be avoided.

There is, however, a difference because the foreign liberator is an unknown variable when compared to the local militant. In most instances, the local militant will be someone they know or someone a person close to them knows. A foreign liberator is not only a stranger but they also put what's familiar to the boy at risk. When frightened, we do stupid things. This is especially true for a child. A child soldier, even if they haven't been indoctrinated, will still likely fire on those who resist or a foreign liberator even if isolated from those that may exact punishment.

A child soldier is liberated when they believe they can realistically agree to walking away from the militia without consequence. That's tricky to accomplish, especially if you are trying to liberate them en masse. Who wants to be liberated? Who will shoot the liberator in the back? Who is going to shoot because they think they have to shoot in order to avoid what would happen to them if they didn't and the liberators are driven off or unsuccessful?

That's a lot less tricky when you're liberating a shipment of girls. They won't shoot you in the back. They're not being indoctrinated into the militia's mindset since many of them are sold to other regions or become the child-wives of local warlords and commanders. Their time frame for indoctrination is far lengthier than that of a boy's. A boy "conscripted" a month ago will shoot at you alongside a boy that's committed to the cause and alongside the commander that first took them. To the liberator they're faced with three armed men trying to kill them.

A girl kidnapped a month ago will go with you the second their captors are eliminated. They are not armed. They are not mingling within the militia (in the context that they're involved in an armed conflict). They are held as hostages, not combatants.

[feministmode]
Omg, victim blaming!
Get the pitchforks!
[/feministmode]

 

[Bamspeedy]

Yes, there is an 'empathy gap', another consequence of patriarchy. That is not to say men have things 'harder'.
Did you hear much of Boko Haram's slaughter of over 2000 people on January 3, 2015? This included people of all ages and genders. People are more sensitive to victims who are younger and victims who are female because they are viewed as more vulnerable (and by 2015 people were desensitized by Boko Haram's previous slaughters).

Yes, total equality would also mean men and women should have equal chances of holding a door open/being held open for them, equal chance of being allowed onto an escape boat from a sinking ship first/released from a hostage situation first, etc.

While I agree that doing something negative to men is the wrong way to go about 'making things even' for gender equality, men still far more greatly benefit from the existing patriarchy, even if you can find a few circumstances and viewpoints where men are at a disadvantage. Gender empathy in news reports is pretty low on the priority list.

The girls who were kidnapped were done to serve men (the men who would then 'own' the girls as slaves).
The boys who were murdered were done to serve men's interests, however warped as it may be (to make a political statement, eliminate future threats, leave more women for the surviving men, or in wars past for the victorious men to claim).

 

[Ryika]

Is there anything that is _not_ a consequence of the damn patriarchy?

 

[metatron]

Is there anything that is _not_ a consequence of the damn patriarchy?

Of course not!
If women ever screw up apparently completely on their own it's internalised oppression.

Are you new to this?
Haven't you read the inside of the box?

 

[JollyRoger]

I admit that I have more empathy for the desires of a woman hitting on me in a bar than the desires of a man hitting on me in a bar. I will try to become as politically correct as some of the rest of you.