Immortal said:
And it really isn't over-sensitive to feel worse for women and children. A crime committed to a woman or a child is worse than a crime committed to an adult man. Since women and children are comparitively defenseless, harming them implies much more malice on the part of the criminal. Although it's a bit traditional to think this way, since a man is more physically able to defend himself, it's not as cruel to harm/kill him. Your bomb example doesn't make sense either. I'm desensitized to nukes in general; even if we compare an explosion to the killing of a single man, the latter image is still worse. I forget who it was, but someone said something like the death of a man is a tragedy, the death of a million, a statistic. Explains this well. In any case, it's not particularly because people detest the image of a child being harmed, although they do dislike it more than that of an adult man being harmed. |
I disagree. You're only looking at the word "kill" in it's least harsh meanings. Killing isn't just about an accident or self defense, in which cases, you're right, rape is worse. Killing also includes murder, though. Why do you think "rape" is worse than "murder"? Murder is final. Murder is the worst thing one person can do to another. Rape is horrible, but people are able to recover from rape. If someone held you at gunpoint and made you choose whether to watch another person get raped or murdered you would choose rape because it's less harsh when you think about it rationally. So why do you take offense if someone uses the word "rape" to describe a video game owning, but "murder" or "slaughter" is ok?
And not all women or men are equal. An athletic 25 year old women is better able to defend herself than a 75 year old man. In that case would you feel worse about a violent crime happening to the women? I doubt it. We see any crime that happens to any woman more terrible than the same crime that happens to any man. Is the murder of a 25 year old father of 2 children less vile than the rape of a 50 year old woman with no children? I would argue that it is not when I factor logic into the equation, but for some reason we still put more weight on the word rape.
I don't have the answers myself. I just find it fascinating to look at the way we, as a society, place incorrect values on terminolgy or words by throwing logic out the window and replacing it with emotion.