Is Empathy Gendered and If So, Why? An Approach From Feminist Psychological Anthropology

Difference feminists have argued that women have special virtues. One such virtue would seem to be empathy, which has three main components: imaginative projection, awareness of the other’s emotions, and concern. Empathy is closely related to identification. Psychological research and the author’s own study of women’s and men’s talk about poverty and welfare use in the United States demonstrate women’s greater empathic concern. However, some cross-cultural research shows greater sex differences in empathy in the United States than elsewhere. This combination of findings (women tend to demonstrate greater empathic concern, but this typical difference varies cross-culturally) requires a complex biocultural explanation, drawing on cognitive, psychoanalytic, and feminist theories. Explanation, and not just description, is a prerequisite for change. [empathy, sex differences, difference feminism, poverty, welfare, U.S. culture] We are the most industrialized country in the world. We have the most money in the world. It’s a sin to have people across from the White House that are homeless, people that are dying because they didn’t have medical coverage. Stop building weapons so much—this might come back to haunt me some day [laughs] but I just don’t understand, I don’t understand why we can’t provide more for our people. The world has problems. There are all these things that should be fixed and I just don’t understand, the nation that we are that we can’t provide for our people. It just doesn’t make sense to me.