autisticfandomthings:

princessshutup:

aryeastark: Emma Watson’s tweet about leaked pictures x it’s nice to see her speaking out about this but the empathy thing is gross and ableist. empathy =/= concern or a sense of morality. :/

The thing is, “empathy” can mean multiple things. People are rarely clear about which they are using, and this causes general confusion and a lot of harm to autistic people.

It can mean being able to work out what someone else is thinking (this is generally the meaning in scientific contexts, and is called cognitive empathy)(it also fails across basically any brain, cultural or other difference, people are shit at figuring out what neurodivergent people and foreign people are thinking)

It can mean feeling an emotion because someone around you does (this is called emotional contagion, or affective empathy)

^Those two are the two that some disabled people have difficulties with.





And it can also mean giving a fuck about other people’s feelings. When people use it colloquially, they usually use it as a synonym for sympathy. This is a valid use of the word, contextually correct, and it generally doesn’t mean the first two meanings at all.

Emotional contagion would actually be really odd (in the sense that Emma watson is clearly using here, i.e. consideration for other people’s feelings) in some situations, there’s a line between understanding that Jennifer Lawrence is probably feeling violated and humiliated, and actually feeling those things because she is. And that’s a different thing to caring that she feels those things.

TL:DR: The word empathy has many possible meanings, some of which would be ableist in this context, but the usage is pretty clear, and I don’t think its ableist.

Empathy can mean concern or a sense of morality.