Yeah, it is. The act of mansplaining isn’t gender specific. It is about trying to raise someone’s status above someone else by nitpicking.
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ronigami@lemmy.world 1 day ago
People say the same thing to other men. Is it mansplaining then too?
cmhe@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
ronigami@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
The fact that the boiling is not spontaneous is not obvious especially on account of how it’s not true. So that definition is going to need some tweaking. And anyway I think it’s much more likely that the person just didn’t notice they were replying to an astronaut than that they thought they could elevate their status. They were trying to share their (incorrect) knowledge.
cmhe@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
I guess the question is who they were even talking to. Where they talking to the astronaut, or anyone reading their message. That would make a difference.
If I say: “When the sun rises…” and someone comes along to enlighten me about astronomy and how the sun doesn’t rise, that would be mansplaining and not correcting. If they talk to someone else because my words inspirerd them to think about this, then it wouldn’t.
Electricd@lemmybefree.net 15 hours ago
The very definition says the opposite. But even if it was the case, it should NOT be used like this becaue it is specifically targeting men, which would be sexist. Being the very thing it meant to destroy.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah, Men do it to each other all the time too. Though the sociological context makes it much less difficult to manage, as there isn’t the cultural tendency to dismiss other men when they imply they have an understanding of a field that is perceived as typically male-exclusive (hard sciences, mechanics, etc.). It’s a term to describe a complicated and fairly important topic that has unfortunately become a buzzword for people to reject because it’s been characterized as criticism based on a fundamental aspect of a group (being male) and not as it’s intended, as a comment on a specific person’s behavior.
ronigami@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It also has an anti-intellectual aspect to it. People like to explain things, that’s sort of the whole idea behind science, is to be able to do that. Sometimes people try to explain things and they’re wrong. And that’s okay, it’s part of the process of science. Further, the notes of patronization are subjective and not everyone would agree they’re present here.
So to automatically label things like this as “mansplaining” makes a few unfair assumptions.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 1 day ago
And there’s the issue with it being treated as a criticism of an entire group, and not as a comment on a single person’s behavior. There are obviously exceptions and any interaction between humans is going to be uniquely contextual. But presenting it as anti-intellectual, or some kind of attack on the ability for an enthusiastic person to explain something they are passionate about, fundamentally mischaracterizes the concept.
To explain something needlessly, pedantically or condescendingly and to someone (usually female) that is already versed or even an authority on the topic are the traits of ‘mansplaining’. What is happening in the OP, where someone is condescendingly and needlessly correcting a woman (who can be assumed to be aware of 3rd-grade level science like phase transitions) on her use of a term (that was already a correct explanation) is the issue that makes it mansplaining.
You can be enthusiastic about a topic and share that knowledge all you want, nobody is saying “no don’t explain things to girls”. They’re saying “don’t be rude to other people while explaining things”.
(This always comes up in this discussion: being autistic is not an excuse for being rude. It’s an explanation for non-typical behavior, and does merit and nearly always garner forgiveness for infractions of social norms, but you can still be a rude jerk even if you are autistic. You can also be a great person if you are autistic. Autistic people are, fundamentally, people. People are a diverse group.)
squaresinger@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
My biggest pet peeve with terms like “mansplaining” is that it does contain a real issue with some actual definition, but then it uses such a blunt and crude word that’s just plain besides the point of what it actually means.
If this was a term against women, feminists would be up in arms because the stupid terminology almost guarantees that it will be understood and used wrong.
Because fundamentally, the word itself is man+explaining, and it’s used just like that: Whenever a man explains something a woman doesn’t want to hear, it’s mansplaining. No matter who is the expert in the field.
In a prior job I was head of software development. I built the team, I built all the software, I worked on all the hardware we sold.
We hired a new marketing person. She had no prior experience, it was her first job in the field after returning from a long maternity break and before that she worked in an unrelated field. She put stuff into marketing material that was plain wrong. She listed features that we not only didn’t have, but that didn’t actually apply to the whole product category. When I pointed that out, she tried to shut it down with “Don’t mansplain”.
The concept behind “mansplaining” is real and it is a problem in some circumstances. But the term is toxic and needs to go.
(Similar story with the term “toxic masculinity”, which is often understood as “all masculinity is toxic”, not as “machismo”. This one really annoys me, since we already had a really good term, “machismo”.)
ronigami@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
It wasn’t rude at all, it was one of the most neutral ways of “correcting” someone (in quotes because yes the correction was wrong) but it was basically “I think it’s actually X” which is about as non-aggressive as it can get.
The issue I take with it is not at all about group dynamics. Even if it’s one guy saying this to another, if someone is going to call that “mansplaining” I have an issue with it because it’s just explaining. Incorrectly, and maybe very slightly patronizingly (but only because the person being spoken to is a scientist and not because of the way it’s said), but still at its core simply explaining something they think is true. That is the core of scientific discourse and I don’t care what the genders are, giving it a stupid name and using that as an insult is antithetical to the open and curious exchange of information.