General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I'm done, too. [View all]merrily
(45,251 posts)believe that whatever I had to endure does not compare with what people of color and members of the GLBT community have had to endure. But, that is not the point. I don't want to quibble about which suffering is greater or more pervasive. Point is, to one degree or another in the US, most members of those groups have had to endure things they never should have had to endure. And, if I think my issues at work were nothing at all compared with rape or having your unarmed teenaged son shot to death, they were still enough that I can relate on some level to being treated as less than simply because of what you were born.
However, if you have never been subjected to anything of the kind, I guess it may be hard to relate to. So in that case, I would put a thumb on the scale of what members of those groups are saying.
I don't spend a lot of time in single issue forums, including the women's forum. However, from what I have seen here and there, women often get mocked when they try to explain their issues. And alerts on posts about women's issues are treated differently from alerts on stereotyping and bigotry of other groups. I am neither defending those things or attacking them. There may be reasons to put women's issues in a different class, just as I put my own negative experiences in a different class. I am just stating my opinion about what I have observed.