[intended]

And right there is the classic holding pattern. 40 minutes into posting too, not bad.

The pattern is:

Apply standard of neutrality to poster, and find poster wanting - hence remain skeptical to keep an open mind.

"there could be a misunderstanding."

The promulgator and supporters are always people who are at best well meaning, but generally oblivious to privilege or its manifestations.

This will be pointed out, and the promulgator will point out how they have done X or are friends with Y in defence.

So first off - you aren't being targeted. The promulgator is acting rationally based on his experiences.

The best examples to counter this were an AMA from a guy who had a sex change operation. He then could clarify what Male privilege is, and how you would be completely oblivious to it until its gone.

It turns down as a woman a simple thing like walking down a road changes in a manner drastically different from what men are used to.

Similarly there was an AMA from a girl who used to look good, and then lost that advantage. All of a sudden she saw privileges she assumed were just normal things - disappear.

It turns out that men don't normally open doors for you, or are helpful.

Unfortunately when you react with outrage, most people have no idea what you are talking about and respond with:

"It unnecessarily adds doubt to the claims being made"

[shardling]

My personal theory on why this particular POV always attracts folk is as follows:

• We see a stranger (call them the victim) on the internet making strong, negative claims against a set of people who are also strangers.

• We often only have the victim's word to judge these claims by.

• Therefore, there will often be debate about these words (which we can talk about with certainty) instead of the claims made (which we only know about second-hand.)

Starting from this perspective seems to lead to really, really degenerate conversation. It tends to be worst when talking about rape or sexual harassment charges.

(There's sometimes an additional weird layer where commenters think the original victim shouldn't make claims they can't prove to third parties, regardless of the truth of those claims.)

[intended]

I see the same - its a terrible pattern and the only time it gets broken is on the extremely rare occasions when someone with experience AND ability to express the issue precisely shows up.

Other wise its always a death spiral at worst or a holding pattern on average.

I think yours is a larger general case - and I am trying to invoke perhaps a child case with the addition of privilege blindness.

What is tragic that this is a perfect example of good intentions that lead to terrible results.