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I came across quite a tweet today. You can go ahead and give it a look. I found it quite thought provoking and interesting. Immediately, in classic internet fashion, people start to retweet their opinions on the matter and I don't think many comments were encouraging productive discourse (shocker). The issue in my eyes is that we a quick to take sides, quick to think I'm 100% right and quick to dismiss any other opinions that disagree in the slightest. But let me ask you this: Is being right so important? Or is it more important to know if you're right? I think the majority of us would say that it is more important to know that we're right, but what happens if there is no definitive right or wrong? In this case we can only get closer and closer to the truth but never the truth itself. The only way we get closer and closer to the truth is if we talk and discuss, but we're pretty bad at this nowadays.

In this example, the reason it sparked controversy is that its worded very dismissively and it essentially argues that male issues of body dysmorphia pale in comparison to the female issue of body dysmorphia, the intention here doesn't matter, I think that is how it reads to most people. Here the two sides are formed, one for "men have body issues too" and one for "body dysmorphia is a female issue". By talking about one side of the issue it seems like we are dismissing the other side of the issue. Why do we have to take sides, why can we not recognise that there is a third option recognising that BOTH these things are issues.

I think in this case the comment made comes from a misunderstanding. I being a male, will never know what it's like to be a female, I will never truly know what girls struggle with. Being a man, however, I can understand better the struggles of being a man. This applies vice versa, being a female, you will likely never truly know what it's like to be a male. So, saying this we can see that there is an information gap, a misunderstanding, men know the struggles of being a man better than women, and women know the struggles of being a women better than men. The problem arises when we try and make a comment about something we don't quite understand, I'm a strong believer that when we don't quite understand something we let the people with better understanding talk. If we let men talk about the struggles of body dysmorphia for men, and let women talk about the struggles of body dysmorphia of women.... we probably would still end up unhappy somehow. Another weird phenomenon we like to do is to compare our scars, to see who had it tougher. Do I have it harder or do you have it harder? Is your life more difficult or is my life more difficult? Ha my life is more difficult. I win. Why can we not acknowledge the fact that both sides share struggles, both sides have scars, both sides need attention. It's not a zero sum game, we don't need to be at odds with each other, we can all be on the same side — the side of general human flourishing.