I always took the phrase “She is someone’s [whatever]” not to suggest that the recipient isn’t thinking of them as a person, but that they are thinking of them as a stranger. As in, “How would you like it if you knew someone was treating your [person you care about] like that?”. It’s still a criticism for the recipient, but it doesn’t go as far to accuse them of dehumanizing anyone. Instead, it suggests you should treat them like you would someone you are close to and care about more deeply.
This IS the intended meaning of the phrase, some people just read too much into things…
I agree with the original statement and also the correction in ops picture. They both communicate true and valuable information.
It’s fair to read into like that when you usually only hear it used in reference to women. It may not be the intent, but it reframes them as something (daughter, mother, whatever) worthy of empathy rather than someone.
A lot of men see only the women in their family as human, other women are just potential mates. This is why some people try to humanise women victims by pressing the fact that they are someone’s daughter/sister/mother. Why don’t we see the same language used on victimised men?
Because society has told us that male victims are losers, and therefore disposable.
To be clear, I don’t agree with that sentiment, but it is extremely thoroughly taught to our children.
Why don’t we see the same language used on victimised men?
Are men victimized systemically and threatened physically to the same extent women are? Feminists speaking up for women’s issues doesn’t preclude men from speaking up for men’s issues, but lo and behold, men don’t have the same issues as a population that women do, and it’s not feminists’ job to speak up for them anyway.
Edit: I misunderstood, see reply.
It’s because if a man is victimised then we don’t need to convince other men that they’re a person and didn’t deserve something bad happening to them. I’m not advocating for feminists to speak about men’s issues (they already do though). I’m saying that women are more often dehumanised which is why some people think they need to specify that a victimised woman is someone’s daughter/sister/mother/etc. The person I’m replying to is rejecting the assumption that dehumanisation of women takes place.
I’m sorry, I took your ending question as a challenge towards the victimization of women, not as an attempt to get the other commenter to think about how men are treated differently.
My bad, I 100% agree with you.
No worries, it’s good to keep your guard up around some of the commenters here lol
I like to say “everyone’s had a childhood.” It might not have been a good childhood but no one just phases into existence as a full grown adult, not even the dumbass who cut you off and may as well have been born yesterday.
True. I need to work on not talking like that more.
A simple but important point.
The sign isn’t for us who knows women are people.
It’s for a percentage of people who don’t realize when they are vote Republican and their many anti-women policies – it affects their mothers, sisters, daughters, etc.
Funny how White Christian Nationalists so readily ignore things like Whatever you do for the least of us, you do for me [Jesus as in their god and ticket holder to the backstage party] and Whatever you do to the least of us to do to me.
Funny enough, in the OT there were also calls about uplifting the beggar, the widow, the migrant and the stranger, and an example was made of two cities specifically for not doing this when they were embarrassed with riches, specifically Sodom and Gomorrah.
Not that women don’t get short shrift in the bible, but the current crap about contraception and abortion are a stretch misreading of passages, and are drawn from the same resources that say don’t have kids, the apocalypse is neigh and it’s not nice to do that to people who won’t even get to grow up.
It’s especially perverse that they have decided the sin of sodom was homosexuality and used that as a wedge to exclude and dehumanize people, so that they can feel better about committing the ACTUAL sin of sodom that their own book clarifies is inhospitality to the outcasts and foreigners
Well, that and wanting to rape an angel to death.
What if shes hitler’s stan? Or trump’s supporter? Or voldemort’s death eater?
Then she’s still someone, just someone shitty.
More likely someone scared and misinformed and has a bit of the old attitude polarization (which comes when not schooled on critical thinking.) We naked apes are smarter than the average hominid but with uncommon exception, not that much smarter.
No, there are plenty of women who actively reinforce hierarchy over egalitarianism for the same reason men do. They want to feel special in comparison and in competition to other members of their perceived cohort. A woman might feel extra powerful from the idea she was disadvantaged and became an oppressor herself.
Or worse, she has the “temporarily embarrassed billionaire” or submissive perspective and reinforces the system at her own detriment because she doesn’t want to stick out and is angered by others sticking out as it would invalidate any progress she has made under the current regime.
That would make her an asshole, but leave her personhood intact.
Theoretical a person, though I feel like anyone who is a Nazi loses their humanity.
This is always going to be thorny because it depends what you mean by personhood or humanity, or whatever term is being discussed.
Some people view acknowledging that everyone possesses these innately and indelibly as akin to saying they’re an adequate or worthy person. Not unlike how some people get offended when you call really shitty art what it is - art (albeit shitty).
I’m not going to defend Nazis, but I fall in the indelible camp. To me it’s like acknowledging that someone can feel pain. It’s just a matter of reality.
Then damn her by her beliefs and actions
The more I learn about Bellatrix, the more I pity her. Voldy never even saw her as a person, I honestly think that he cared more about Harry than he did her.
To be fair I too, would give more thoughts for my would-be downfall-bearer which is also a part of my soul than a work mate
I fucking hate that song, but hey, if it makes just one shitsack pause and reconsider being a monster, just one time their two braincells rub together and fart out the thought “that’s someone’s daughter” to make them treat a woman like a person, fuck it, I’ll take it.
Nobody is determining value, it is an idiom used to help the recipient empathise
Ugh, is this another one of those language police bullshit gotchyas the left has come up with? I’m as left as it comes, but some of the shit on “our side” really is nutty.
If somone is talking about a woman, trying to convey they they are special and also mean something else to someone else, trying to get those who treat women poorly to sympathize, and get them to reflect on their beliefs, then that’s a good thing.
Not everything in life is a fucking gotchya game, next it’ll be did you call her “someone”?!!? What if she feels like more than one person you bigot!!!
Give it a rest with this bullshit, because it detracts from the real issues women are facing. And when the right sees shit like this it makes it easy to just tune out all the real issues we need to address.
It feels uncomfortable constantly hearing people justify your value based on your relation to men. I know it doesn’t specify men, but let’s be honest, that’s what everyone thinks of. If you have good intentions, that’s good, but that doesn’t stop the implication that women are only valuable as they relate to men. Intentions do not factor into someone’s frustration hearing it for the millionth damn time! Until that phrase gets reclaimed, it’s gonna have that patriarchal association to most people.
I’m as left as it comes
No you’re not
