Relative Privation

I often encounter an argument which goes like this:

Friend: "Men need to be held accountable for sexual misconduct."
Me: "Don't women also need to be held accountable for sexual misconduct?"
Friend: "Men sexually abusing women happens far more than women sexually abusing men, therefore women abusing men is a non issue."

It is true that there are more cases of men abusing women than women abusing men, but women do abuse men sometimes, and women on men abuse is not not wrong just because it is rare compared to men on women abuse. The fallacy of relative privation seems to focus on relative goodness or badness, but does relative rareness count as the same kind of fallacy?

The real answer is anyone guilty of sexual misconduct needs to be held accountable, but you already know that :) Yes, this would be an example of relative privation. There is a difference between a non-issue and less pressing issue. Of course, you can be accused of "whataboutery." Not a fallacy, but a diversion tactic. To avoid this, simply make one small change to your response:

Friend: "Men need to be held accountable for sexual misconduct."
Me: "Yes, they certainly do. However, don't women also need to be held accountable for sexual misconduct?"

@Bo Bennett, PhD: Isn't "whataboutery" apart of the relative privation fallacy? I know other sites also include "A is bad but B is worse, therefore A should be ignored," as apart of the relative privation fallacy (such as RationalWiki).

So for example, when people say "What about black on black crime?" to members of BLM, is that not an example of the relative privation fallacy?

@Jake Heffner: Simply asking "what about..." not necessarily fallacious nor whataboutery; it needs context. If the person is asking the question to try to make a scenario appear better or worse by comparing it to the best or worst case scenario, then it is fallacious. If they are asking to avoid the issue, they could be a accused of whataboutery.

@Bo Bennett, PhD: Thanks for the response! So in my example, downplaying police brutality as unimportant by presenting black on black crime as a more pressing issue would be the relative privation fallacy? And if so, what is the difference between that and "whataboutery"?

@Jake Heffner: Yes, downplaying would be relative privation. "whataboutery" is just a recent buzzword that seems to be attached to any time someone asks "what about...," which is problematic. To me, it seems like a legitimate gripe when someone uses "what about..." as a diversion from a legitimate argument or point being made.

@Bo Bennett, PhD:

When do you find that someone actually says "What about..." and the paralell being drawn is not a red herring; serving primarily (only) to distract from or derail the focus on the claim in question? - Or blatant tu quoque; the "whatabout" being pointed to say "Hey! You're not addressing - other claim x - this discredits your claim"?

Legitimate / sincere segues to other focuses of conversation revolve around accepting or resolving or concluding the first point and then plainly positing; "In addition" - "Furthermore" etc.

Per OP; while there is certainly a prevalence to people downplaying the suffering tied to sexual assault on males - I don't think that is the same thing as in response to "Don't women also...." -- "Yes they do, but we are not talking about that; we are talking about the angle that is significantly more ubiquitous to our society - and the unprompted derail in the context of this conversation is both unhelpful and fallacious." - The assertion that SA on males is a non-issue (because of the prevalence of the opposite) is fallacious - but so is deferring the claim about accountability in Men assaulters to focus instead on accountability in Women assaulters (when that claim has not been accepted or resolved) <- if the entire EXCHANGE is not resolved then you are derailing if you're not directly tying in SA on males to make a broader claim.

"whataboutism" is also not a recent term (30-50 years old at least) and is in the vast majority contexts attached directly to a variety of fallacy. I'd posit that it consistently implies fallacy because we know that fallacies are inherently defined by a failure to acknowledge or address the relevant premises.

Unless you're in a barbershop or a comedy show where you and peers are literally just listing off various critcisms and so you lead with a "...and what about.." chances are your "what about" is leading directly into a fallacious argument.

@Jeremy Gilmore:

Interestingly, "whataboutism" took off in popular culture only in about 2017 despite its being around for a long time (check out Google trends).

The whole fallaciousness of "whataboutery" is really context dependent. Only with complete examples can we parse it enough to see if deception or lack of reason is involved.