What If This Was Your Daughter?
We like to think this question will inspire empathy…but all too often, it doesn’t
TW: misogyny, violence against women, rape
What if this was your daughter?
It’s a familiar outcry among feminists, a desperate attempt to stir a man’s empathy for women, particularly in a moment when he is demonstrating none. When, for example, he suggests that women who aren’t promiscuous won’t be affected by abortion bans. Or that it sounds reasonable to him that a man should be able to expect sex after buying a woman dinner. Or that it can’t be rape if she was wearing a push-up bra.
But what if it was your daughter? we ask. Surely, he wouldn’t support the denial of medial care for his own offspring as punishment for her alleged sluttiness. Surely, he wouldn’t argue that his daughter should get on her knees just because a man bought her a drink. Surely, he wouldn’t justify rape just because his daughter wore a push-up bra to the dance.
And sometimes, this actually works. Sometimes, a man with little to no empathy for women will magically develop some when he has a daughter. In fact, it is common enough that there’s a name for this: the daughter effect.
