Comment by lazide
12 hours ago
No, rather both are on opposite sides of an equation, and being buried in competition from folks trying to solve their part of it in isolation.
Women == get too much attention, often of the wrong type. How to get the right kind of attention?
Men == not getting any attention, of any type. How to get some attention?
So women either get ‘the wrong kind’ of attention, but plenty of it - or somehow figure out the magic of getting the right kind of attention? Not easy.
And men work hard to get any attention, often overdoing it on the only way they can figure out - which usually has poor (but not zero!) results. Folks good at playing the game get excellent results, however.
Meanwhile, everyone is getting played by the folks in the middle.
Notably, there are plenty of women taking advantage of the attention they get on Tinder. They just have no problem solving for what it works for, which is getting laid with near zero effort.
The way this previously got figured out was a ‘managed market’ - arranged marriages. Religious/social rules, etc.
I think we might come from different cultural expectations?
In my book, it's reductive to sweep unsolicited sexual harassment under "attention", unwanted or otherwise.
It's not rocket science: everyone deserves to be treated in a way that makes them feel comfortable and safe.
Sexual harassment (having been a target of it), is pretty much the definition of ‘unwanted attention’. Targets typically just want to be left alone.
It’s also a crime in some places, not (!!!) in others, or called different things in other places depending on the details.
For example, is sending an unsolicited dick pic on a dating app sexual harassment? Is getting felt up at work, with the implication ‘or else’? Is being stalked by members of the opposite gender? Or having career advancements blocked by a lack of ‘playing the game’?
I can give you concrete examples from a number of cultures that each culture will write off as ‘he/she/they were asking for it’, or ‘she/they/he deserved it’, or ‘it’s just boys/girls being girls/boys.’.
I’ve seen it up close and personal, and have lived it.
The underlying ‘attention economy’ dynamic is still the same.
Edit: meant to add - plenty of 80/20 also applies here of course (though more extreme). Top 1-2% men (esp. from earning or traditional looks perspective) deal with the same issues that top 50%-80% of women deal with, bottom 20% of women (from traditional looks perspective) deal with issues that 80-90% of men deal with, etc.
Sure, there are misogynistic cultures out there, but that doesn't justify it from a categorical imperative perspective.
If it's okay, then it's okay for all sexes. And I'm hard-pressed to name a world culture that's equally accepting and promoting of men-sexually-harassing-women and women-sexually-harassing-men.
Can you?
It feels like you're trying to make this an argument about statistics, when it's an argument about ethics and morality.
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