Many US adults, roughly 73% according to Jeffery M. Jones of NewsGallup.com, like to believe they are able to understand most social topics such as sexism, racism, homophobia, and other prevalent issues in today's society. However, 73% of US adults would be wrong. It is nearly impossible for most people to understand most social issues, seeing as most people will never have to face most social issues. Not such that these sorts of issues only effect one type of person, but that to fully understand the complexity of an issue, one must have a lived experience of it. 

     According to Hal Shorey PH. D, in order to understand one another, each person involved must be able to reflectively function and exhibit empathetic attunement. Reflective functioning, in short, is the ability to both see someone else's situation and reflect on it in your own words. Empathetic attunement is similar but includes a person's ability to experience the same emotions that the other person felt or are feeling. Though it is true that these practices can work well when dealing with individual issues, social issues are too grand to apply these same practices. It is impossible to feel empathetic toward a group of people that have experienced social injustice without ever having experienced it yourself. Others who have experienced similar injustices may be able to look back on their own feelings and apply it to the matter at hand, but no one outside of the group being served discrimination will understand what it is like to face that specific kind of oppression. A man will never understand what a woman faces daily, a white person will never understand what a person of color faces daily, and an able-bodied person will never understand what a disabled person faces daily. Though the people in the former can grasp basic concepts, such as the bad things that may happen, putting themselves into another person's shoes, or even being close to an individual of the latter, they will never have the experience needed to be able to fully empathies with the experiences that someone who faces social injustice have to face. 

     What sparked this topic was a discussion that my partner and I had on the new Super Girl movie. The movie received mixed reviews. A fact was raised that many people who believe that the movie was bad because of poor writing. This felt wrong to me seeing as the themes were portrayed so beautifully through touching scenes and the needle-drop song choice (will be discussed later) that it brought many viewers to tears. After some research and reflection, I came to the conclusion that many of the people who believed that the movie was written poorly were male, while the majority of the people who enjoyed the movie were female. The answer to why this became clear to me almost immediately. The movie was not made for the male audience. The most prevalent theme within the movie is the reality of harsh emotional trauma. Now, on the surface this is a theme that could apply to all types of people across the board, however, looking deeper it shows why the movie received harsh critique from the male audience. Simply because Supergirl is a woman sets this movie away from the male gaze because the path that Supergirl chose to heal her emotional trauma is unique to the female experience. Being young herself and having to grow up all too fast, she made the choice to heal by protecting young girls. The need to ensure other young women get to experience their youth the best they can is a sensitive topic that strays outside the typical for an action movie, a largely male dominated genre.  It became even more clear that this was the reason for the movies "poor writing" when I learned that a largely critique part of the movie was the movies needle-drop; a real-life song that is played at the climax of a movie. The needle-drop for the Supergirl movie was a cover of "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World performed by Kely Greye. The original song is an anthem about self-acceptance, resilience, and the struggle that adolescents face while growing up. By having a woman cover the song, it turns from an anthem to yourself to an anthem from older women to younger women. An uplifting song that encourages young women to be confident and fight until the very end. In the end, this message hit the hearts of women watching the Supergirl movie. Women who understood the exact feeling being portrayed and who have lived through it. Women who feel the need to protect younger women, who heal from their own trauma by helping others. This is a feeling that most men could never understand, simply because men would never have the same lived experiences as women. 

     Never being able to fully understand the feelings of a group of people is not inherently a bad thing. Everyone on Earth has something that they can never understand, and that is okay. This only becomes an issue when we are unable to recognize that we cannot understand. By believing we are able to understand everything, harmful issues such as stereotypes occur. These can affect the individual, but by now I hope that to be common knowledge. It is when people cannot fathom that they are the cause of the stereotypes that the issue never gets resolved. It is like a group of white men attempting to write a black female character with no help from any black women and believing that they did an amazing job while having created a shallow husk of a black female character. 

     Understanding that you can never understand is crucial to the development of society. By doing this, the proper ways to fix social issues will be put to front by the people who have firsthand experience on the issues rather than the people who only believe that they understand. Real diverse community filled with people who have unique experiences will be created naturally due to the demined for people who understand different perspectives increasing. Therefore, in the future, if you feel the need to give your own insight on a situation, ask yourself if you really understand what you believe you understand. If you realize that it may not be your place to share your insight, leave it to the group at hand.  

"I know I know nothing"

-Plato, The Apology of Socrates