Comment on 2hot2handle
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 21 hours agoThe term “mansplaining” is not just about a man being pedantic. It is a man being pedantic or overexplaining to a woman either about something she is likely more knowledgeable on than he is or about something that is such common knowledge it should be assumed that she knows these facts as well as he does. It is a demonstration of misogyny through the assumption that you, a man, knows better than her, a woman, despite all liklihood to the contrary and yet you condescend to her anyway. It’s the arrogance and gender bias that is the problem, not the pedantry itself.
The thing I don’t like about the mansplaining accusation is it makes lots of men out to be sexist/misogynistic when they are really just pedantic twits that very well could have commented the same stupid thing to a man. But because it was to a woman someone has to accuse them of being sexist too.
Don’t get me wrong there are a lot of sexist assholes, but just assuming it to be the case off a single comment irks me.
they are really just pedantic twits that very well could have commented the same stupid thing to a man.
Yes, but men experience this at a slightly lower rate.
So if an astronaut man were to get, say, 10 of these comments, while an astronaut woman gets 15 of these comments, it’s fair to infer that about 5 out of the 15 comments wouldn’t have been made to a man. Problem is that you can’t exactly tell which 5 they are. But you know it’s happening.
Of course, if the ratio is actually closer to 50 versus 10 comments like this, then you’ve got a pretty good sense that 80% of the pedantic overexplainers-to-an-expert are doing it because the original poster is a woman.
And one thing you find for these types of examples with a woman who has clear, unmistakable, objective indicators of expertise (literal astronaut) in the topic at hand is that the ratio is much higher for women than men, in a way that might not have been obvious for lesser credentials (like a high school science teacher). But yet, it still happens.
It’s a name for a phenomenon that has existed for a long time. It’s a concise way to describe that phenomenon, and I still think it’s a good word to have in the vocabulary.
Yeah I do no think mansplaining is not a thing that happens, it absolutely is and is incredibly annoying and insulting.
I just don’t like how people assume someone is misogynistic and mansplaining because of a single comment on the internet and get all accusatory.
It is more of a thing that you need to witness a person doing multiple times to women in order to definitely make an opinion of that person.
If it were a YouTuber that constantly does it in multiple videos then ya fair, throw that in the comments all you want.
In this case though it’s jumping the gun a little bit.
pssssh, sounds like typical Womanplaining….
that’s where a woman complains too much….
you see, in a typical post by a Man, they will get on average 15 complaints by women, but in a post by a woman, only five complaints by women… now you can’t tell which posts are Womanplaining and which ones are genuine complaints, but i think inventing new terms with “woman” and “man” attached to the front are the perfect way to achieve harmony between the sexes and don’t just reinforce sexism.
/s
all satire.
but, “mansplain” is hate speech and it needs to stop.
sexist condescending speech of men towards women is hateful and needs to stop as well….
inventing new slurs is counterproductive.
but, “mansplain” is hate speech
lmao
I think the problem a lot of people here are having is that they’re assuming the accusation is active sexism. Like it’s a cognitive decision to go “phht, what would she know, she’s a woman”.
I suspect the vast majority of mansplaning scenarios are subconscious. They probably don’t even know that’s what they’re doing abs would never see themselves as being sexist. I think that’s because everyone sees the word “sexist” and associates it with clichéd extreme sexism, like cat calling, not wanting a Female pilot, ignoring their ideas in meetings etc.
The thing about subtle unconscious bias is that you’re almost never aware you’re doing it, but it still has similar effects on the affected group.
The healthy thing to do is to listen to the person it’s affecting, analyse the scenario, and reflect on if it’s something that you, or people you know, might have been doing without realising.
Counterpoint - explaining things the other party knows is how you get on the same page.
I don’t give a shit about your degree or your gender, it tells me nothing about where you’re at. Most people are fucking idiots who have no idea how anything works, and that includes doctors and probably astronauts
And I say this as someone constantly underestimated. Yeah, it’s annoying to hear things you already know at a basic level. I ask people if they know about things and take them at their word
But this is just normal communication. I don’t know what you know, you don’t know what I know. I probably understand how your mind and body work better than you do, because most people don’t know how their mind and body work beyond a 4th grade level
Explaining things the other person knows is undesirable. It’s also how most people reach the starting line for a dialogue
(New person here)
The big issue is that we don’t see men being pedantic towards other men at nearly the same rate. Absolutely it happens, but there is definitely a problem with men not respecting women specifically.
Part of it, I think, comes from social conditioning and it’s more of a reaction than anything on purpose when it comes to a large subset of the people doing it. Even still, it’s important to gender it at least sometimes to highlight why we might be doing it and to give us the correct thing to reflect on. I’ve done it before where I could say it to a man but I realized that I what I was saying or doing was fueled, at least in part, by some internalized misogyny. Knowing that has helped me get to it before I do something stupid.
Okay, but do you not realize how big a problem being discharitable to others is?
The fucking fabric of society is falling apart. I’m sorry women get underestimated, like I do. It’s very annoying, believe me, I deal with it constantly
But you suck it up, listen, and make them feel foolish with your response.
The alternative is a further breakdown of communication. You can’t be primed to see others as bad actors, it’s so incredibly damaging
No one is the villain in their own story. No one knows how smart they are, only if others are higher or lower.
Listening to people tell you things you already know is inevitable. It’s social hygiene. It sucks, but it’s the social contract
Men are the most pedantic assholes to other men.
Treating women like they are soft little creatures is insanely sexist. Treat them as equals and they will treat you the same. I don’t understand why it’s so hard for other men to understand this.
I think you’re missing the point. It’s not that men need to treat women “equally”, it’s that the reason mansplaining happens is different to the reason that generic pedantry happens. They can happen at the same time, but the general idea is that mansplaining is pedantry with a boost of sexism, intentional or otherwise, not simply being pedantic to a woman. The difference is subtle, and luckily the solution of just not not being an ass to people solves both issues quite well but it’s still good to try identify how much of one or the other is present when you slip up so you can address the correct problem.
Put it another way, you also shouldn’t be treating an old person like a baby when helping them with their phone, or a child like they’re stupid and couldn’t possibly know things a grown-up doesn’t. All of these are genderless examples of how disrespect can come from several angles at once and there is also the gendered scenario we call “mansplaining”.
Sure, but being an arrogant prick that thinks they’re smarter than anyone else, regardless of gender, is already a thing that should be derided. Having only a single instance of this behavior being aimed at a woman as an example of his arrogance may mistakenly lead one to attribute that to misogyny instead of a general prickishness behavior, sure. But that’s a perfectly understandable assumption to make in that situation and the mistake of calling them the wrong kind of asshole, i feel, is less of a concern than him, indeed, being an asshole.
So you prefer defaming people just in case? I’m sorry but that’s dumb.
At this point most people explaining things to others, assuming they’re not knowledgeable, can be called racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic…
You can do that without calling someone sexist.
Sometimes people are being sexist. Mansplaining is a real thing that happens. You may not see the need for the word because you personally don’t need it, but maybe you can understand that there a lot of people who do need it?
Sure. But it gives the appearance if sexism. Who gives a fuck if he is being an asshole if you mislabeled the kind of asshole he is.
everyone knows that.
you just explained very common knowledge to people that certainly know it.
the problem is the terminology…
men and women condescendingly explain shit to people all the time. If you attach the word “man” to it then you’re being sexist.
when a man is condescending to a woman because she’s a woman, then that man is being sexist.
if you assume every time a man is being condescending to a woman they’re being sexist, then you’re sexist.
every time ANYONE makes a factual claim on the internet and it gets enough traction, someone will chime in and condescendingly explain why they’re wrong. gender is not the only factor.
….
it’s certainly terrible how men are sexist and condescending towards women so often… making a new sexist term doesn’t help that problem.
also, i’m not assuming your gender and you don’t know mine, i am merely disagreeing with you.
that’s mensplaining /s
That’s a great way to put it.
Electricd@lemmybefree.net 1 hour ago
And what’s the evidence that this happened here? You just assumed he was sexist.
Electricd@lemmybefree.net 1 hour ago
Funnily enough, assuming men are likely to be sexist is sexist