Thread:User talk:WaitingforGodot/Making light of thingies.

RE: PZ Myers link that was dropped on Bob's talk page.

I didn't want to bring this up on that page, as it would be slightly beside the point. It's good stuff from PZ, balanced and sane as always (well, maybe not always) and it's Science. But the conclusion:

...I consider it a prime example of selfish privilege to invade discussions of female genital mutilation, which does cause serious sexual and medical problems, with demands that we pay more attention to the lesser concerns of males getting lightly scarred penises.

Okay, so I quote mined off the "in the context of the thread" bit, and perhaps the context of the thread really does justify this position... BUT, isn't this really what activists do all the damn time? Particularly feminists but many in general. Take rape. Isn't getting drunk and sleeping with a friend in a way that you regret and might not have wanted at the time but caved in because you didn't have the confidence to refuse a significantly lesser concern than knife-point gang rape? And indeed, the whole "elevatorgate" where Richard Dawkins brought up the plight of women in highly repressive cultures to highlight that Rebecca Watson elevator encounter was a significantly less concern. But an activist would go mental if we treated these incidents differently - indeed, Watson did and keeps banging on about "privilege" as a result (for that matter, what is this "privilege" they keep talking about? Everyone who ever disagrees with an activist has it, but what is it?). So why the double standard where some things are passed off as a significantly lesser concern while other things aren't?