Okay, so let’s talk about this neuroscientist named Tania Singer.
She really knows her stuff when it comes to empathy, compassion, and how our brains handle social stuff.
She discovered that women categorize people into pretty much three categories: baby, protector, and enemy.
Singer has also spent a considerable amount of time examining how we react when someone else is in pain. Think about it. We have this built-in, almost automatic response.
o a woman, a baby represents pure innocence. A baby cannot be malicious. A baby cannot intend harm. It is helpless by definition, which means it triggers an instinct to nurture, defend, and protect. When something goes wrong, blame does not attach to the baby because the baby does not know better. That assumption is baked in.
Then there is the protector.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELThe protector is not just a person. It is a category. A man who loves his family fits there. A police officer fits there. Anyone perceived as standing between her and danger fits there. A protector can mess up. He can forget to take out the trash. He can break something valuable by accident. She might get angry, but the anger stops short of reclassification. The protector does not become the enemy, because his role has already been defined as safe.
Notice how this works. If the protector knocks over her favorite vase, it is an accident. If a baby does the same thing, it is not even a mistake. In both cases, intent is assumed to be absent. That matters more than the outcome.
Now compare that to the enemy.
An enemy is someone perceived as capable of harm. Physical harm. Emotional harm. Financial harm. Any form of threat qualifies. An enemy does not get the benefit of reinterpretation. An enemy is avoided, monitored, or delegated to the protector to handle. There is no presumption of innocence here, because the category itself assumes danger.
Once you understand these categories, a lot of modern behavior suddenly makes sense.
As a woman moves into adulthood, the definition of a “baby” expands. It no longer refers only to an infant. It comes to include anyone perceived as innocent and exposed to harm. A 22-year-old woman being stalked fits that category. A high school boy being bullied fits it too. Vulnerability, not age, becomes the deciding factor. Anyone who is suffering and unable to protect themselves is treated the same way.
Singer has spent a lot of time studying how people react when they see someone else in pain. And once you notice it, it is obvious. There is a built-in response. Almost automatic. The body reacts before the mind does, especially when the person suffering appears helpless, like a baby or a vulnerable animal.
That reaction is empathy, and it hits fast and hard. But Singer is careful to draw a line between empathy and compassion. Empathy means you actually feel the other person’s pain as if it were your own. Over time, that takes a toll. Left unchecked, it drains people and can lead straight to emotional burnout.
Compassion is different. It’s more about warm concern and actually wanting to step in and help without getting overwhelmed yourself.
Singer’s work shows that compassion is not just an emotion. It is something the brain can be trained to do. And when that training happens, the response changes. Instead of being trapped in empathetic distress, where you feel overwhelmed and useless, the brain shifts toward prosocial motivation.
In other words, you stop freezing and start acting.
That shift creates the urge to protect and help. Her research shows that compassion training alters brain activity in measurable, positive ways. Distress gets redirected into action. Support replaces paralysis.
You see the same pattern in research on parental and partner protection. When someone you love is threatened, specific areas of the brain activate. Those signals do not produce panic. They produce resolve.
Singer’s findings connect directly to that neural wiring. The same systems that trigger protective instincts are the ones compassion training strengthens. It is the biological foundation of stepping up and defending others.
Now, the “enemy” part.
This is where it gets interesting. Singer has done brain imaging studies, using fMRI, that show how fast our minds categorize people.
She quickly put them into an in-group, like friends we trust, or an out-group, like potential foes or enemies. And once that happens, empathy changes big time.
We feel way less empathy for someone we see as an outsider or an enemy. Sometimes we even get a twisted sense of pleasure from their bad luck. That’s schadenfreude. Her research backs that up clearly.
A couple of her key studies really drive this home.
Back in 2004, Singer and her team made an important discovery. When someone a woman loves is hurt, the same areas of the brain associated with physical pain light up. The brain reacts as if the injury happened to us. That response is strong and immediate.
But something interesting happens when the person in pain is viewed as an outsider. That neural response drops off sharply. It does not disappear entirely in women, but it weakens. The sense of shared pain fades when the emotional bond is gone.
When men were studied under the same conditions, the pattern shifted. For a loved one, the empathy centers in the male brain activated in much the same way they did in women. But when the person suffering was perceived as a bad actor or an outsider, empathy did not simply decline. It was replaced.
Instead, the regions of the brain associated with judgment and justice surged. Rather than feeling compassion, the male brain moved toward evaluation. Not sympathy, but consequence. Not shared pain, but a sense that what is happening may be deserved.
That distinction matters more than people realize.
Then there’s the massive ReSource Project she led. It’s this big long-term study on how mental training, like meditation, can boost both empathy and compassion over time.
So yeah, while nobody in her papers slaps the exact label “baby, protector, enemy” on it, Tania Singer’s work nails the neural mechanisms behind how we categorize people, feel for them, or step up to protect them depending on whether we see them as close to us, vulnerable, or a threat.
It’s all about those friend-foe-vulnerable lines our brains draw so quickly. Pretty fascinating when you think about how it plays out in real life every day.
THE LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE WOMAN
With all of that in mind, look at how this framework plays out among woke progressive women when you apply Singer’s research.
Why is it overwhelmingly liberal progressive women who show up in the streets to physically obstruct federal ICE agents, even when those agents are enforcing the law against violent criminal illegal aliens? Singer’s work offers a clue. In this worldview, illegal aliens are mentally placed into the baby category. They are seen as vulnerable, powerless, and trapped inside a system portrayed as harsh and unforgiving.
From there, the roles lock into place. Progressive women cast themselves as the protector. That makes it their moral duty to shield the baby from the perceived threat. In this case, the threat becomes federal ICE agents, who are no longer viewed as law enforcement doing a necessary job, but as an enemy inflicting harm.
Singer’s categorization model actually explains this behavior quite well. The framework works when it is applied correctly. It makes sense within close relationships. It functions when innocence and vulnerability are real.
The problem begins when the categories are misapplied. Violent criminal illegal aliens are assigned the baby label, while law enforcement tasked with keeping communities safe is pushed into the enemy category. Once that inversion happens, judgment shuts down and instinct takes over.
At that point, compassion stops being a virtue and becomes a liability.
So, how did this happen to liberal progressive women?
One logical reason could be that they focus heavily on power dynamics and systemic injustice. In their framework, they often see marginalized groups as inherently vulnerable because of larger social structures. So, when they view certain groups, even those who’ve committed crimes, through that lens, they may default to seeing them as the “baby,” the oppressed party. In that model, authority figures, like law enforcement, can be perceived as “the enemy,” not because of the individual actions of officers, but because of the system they represent. In short, the categories get flipped when the lens is systemic oppression rather than individual actions.
#neuroscience #wokepolitics #lawandorder
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