In an ideal world, this would be a reasonable comment. In the real world, with the history of male oppression of women that comes with it, there is an asymmetry that means these things are not equivalent.
Shouldn’t we be trying to move our “real world” in the direction of an “ideal world”?
I sometimes get the impression that contemporary sex/race-oppression consciousness is analogous to the Jewish Yom Kippur ritual as Eliezer described it, in which the point is confessing sins, not trying to avoid them and keeping track of how well one has done. Just as it would be a violation for a participant in the ceremony to say e.g. “Actually, I’m happy to report that I didn’t steal anything this year, so I’m going to leave that part out, thank you”, so too is it something of a faux pas for a member of contemporary Western polite society to fail to treat the historical oppression of women and minorities as if it were a currently potent social force in his/her own culture.
Eliezer, although you and Robin agree on the general principle, Robin has signed up with Alcor, while you have signed up with CI. (Despite the fact that you say you could afford Alcor also.) How much of a disagreement is this, and what does it reflect?
More generally, how should one rationally approach this decision?