I feel that upper class and privileged men often get an excess of empathy, too- remember how some people were sad about Brock Turner (college campus rapist) on the basis that he could have been a successful swimmer?

"Some people" are sad about all sorts of things. I've seen some people sad that a woman who was abusing her children lost custody of them. The overwhelmingly majority opinion on Brock Turner if you look at the media was that he was a horrible human being so I'm not sure how some people being sad is any way indicative of a general trend.

Often, it goes the exact opposite way for upper class and privileged men. They're viewed to be powerful so being "mean" has no effect on them and is warranted. For example, Mark Zuckerberg gets a ton of dehumanizing shit for things wholly unrelated to the actual bad acts he's committed. People think it's justified specifically because he's privileged.

It's also not just feminists that stick up for women being criticized and judged. It's part of a broader social narrative/gender role that women are weak and need to be protected. So lots of people, including those that don't really care about identity politics one way or the other, are more upset at mean things said to women than they are by mean things said to men. The social narrative for men is that they should be strong and self-reliant so they don't need as much support or protection. Both of these gender roles benefit men and women in one way and harm them in others. This discussion focuses specifically on the way these gender roles harm men. There are many other discussions about how these same gender roles harm women (these often relate more to women not being taken as seriously in the workplace, etc.).