So proud!
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I don't really see people use the term mansplain to mean anything other than men being condescending. While I do see it used "incorrectly" sometimes, I have no reason to believe the person using it doesn't believe the man is being rude/condescending. Just because I personally believe something isn't condescending doesn't mean the person doesn't view it like that (and whether the person is actually being condescending is a totally different topic). I see people call people assholes when they're not being assholes. I see people call people jerks when they're not being jerks. It's not really a new thing.
In short, I don't believe anyone is using the term differently, it could be that you don't think the man doing the explaining is being condescending but they do, or it could be that the term really is used differently and I just haven't personally seen it (always a possibility).
Since the gendered nature of the term has been brought up, your comment makes me think of the word "bitch" compared to asshole or jerk. All three terms get used entirely subjectively, but I think most reasonable people agree that "bitch" is at least a bit more crass and tasteless due to its more gendered nature. I know we'll never get rid of ugly words when using words to hurt and offend, but I think it does show that it matters if a term is gendered. So maybe when people are offended by a term being gendered, we should listen no matter their gender. And I think people who like using those terms, especially when told they're hurtful, should have a long think about what feelings they get from using them.
It just made me think so I wanted to write that out.
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Neurodivergents be like:
"Wait people don't want to know this? That's absurd. So anyway, what I was saying was..."How many "Men" are just ND?
wrote last edited by [email protected]That's always been my issue with this whole mansplaining shit. Like yeah, it is a real thing that exists, but it very quickly just morphed into "a man (whom I didn't want to talk to me) told me something" most of the time.
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Thank you! That’s exactly what I wanted to hear!
So, what's the latest topic you want to info-dump about? I'm curious and invite an info-dump.
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Neurodivergents be like:
"Wait people don't want to know this? That's absurd. So anyway, what I was saying was..."How many "Men" are just ND?
How many “Men” are just ND?
None. Men are cool to hate, get with the program.
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I hate how the term "mansplaining" has mutated from "When a man condescendingly explains a subject to a woman who is an expert in that subject, because he assumes being a woman makes her ignorant", which is certainly a valid thing to be upset about, into "Whenever a man explains anything to any woman" , which is sexist and divisive.
The term is still pretty sexist as originally used though. It inherently implies that it's a characteristic masculine behavior. If you disagree, allow me to demonstrate:
I just came up with this term, "womancomplaining", it's when a woman exaggerates a minor inconvenience into a targeted victimization.
How does that term make you feel? Does it seem to imply that I'm talking about a specific, isolated behavior? Or does it seem more like I'm implying this is a characteristic feminine behavior? Would it feel less sexist if I insisted I wasn't talking about all women, but if you take offense then maybe you feel defensive about being a womancomplainer? What if I told you to calm down, because if you aren't guilty of it then I'm not talking about you?
It still seems pretty sexist, doesn't it.
Misogynists and misandrists are both awful. It's kinda funny cuz they're essentially the same type of person but on opposite sides
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Tbh, that's the main reason I stopped talking about things that matter to me with women unless they are asking me for it and keep asking during the conversation.
If I infodump on a guy, that guy thinks it's because I'm maybe overly excited about my thing.
If I infodump exactly the same way on a woman, it's because I'm mansplaining.
The only way I know around that is to not infodump on women. I pretty much trained myself to become an introvert around women.
Yup, i do the same, avoids bullshit.
I kinda overdo it though. Woman's about to cross a road with her headphones on, running the pedestrian red light with intense traffic, not bothering to look either way? I'm not gonna mansplain, that's offensive, she knows what she's doing.
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That often doesn't really work though.
Take for example the classic tech support situation.
- Person with problem: "The remote connection to the device doesn't work!"
- Tech support: "Are you sure the device is turned on?"
- Person with problem (getting angry): "Of course it's on. Do you think I'm stupid?"
- Tech support: "Is it the device I see on the background of the video call?"
- Person with problem: "Yes"
- Tech support: "The lights are not on. Please double check if it's turned on."
- Person with problem: "Oh, I forgot to plug it in."
A soft check would have lead the tech support to accept that the device is on, instead of digging further, and it would have lead to potentially hours of wasted time.
The same thing often happens in such situations. The person infodumping does so to clear up potential underlying misunderstandings that a soft check cannot catch. That's not evil or mean or condescending. It's done with the clear understanding that the person you are talking to likely knows 95% of the things you are saying, but that the remaining 5% might be an issue and a soft-check fails every single time for that kind of issue.
But it's also a reverse issue. Many women reflexively assume that any time someone infodumps that person is only doing that to them, because they are women and because that man thinks that women are dumb. Even if that man does the same with other men.
The amount of times i had to explain to phone company customers that their phone line malfunction, which they were reporting from said phone line, was monetary in nature...
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Hahaha, my wife puts up with that same shit. I'm building drones on Veroboard. She'll ask how the electric octopus is coming along and then instant glazed eyes when I tell her how I accidentally let the smoke out of a TL072 but at least I used sockets for all my ICs. She did buy me a JP-8000 a couple of years ago though. She's a good one.
I love to hear people nerd out on their passions. Personally I view it like a gift.
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Actually, no. I love explaining things, it's part of my personality. But soo many women told me that I should stop mansplaining, that nowadays I just don't talk to women anymore because of the fear that they see me as a mansplainer. My girlfriend has to live with that, but otherwise, I hate talking to women because of the stupid mansplaining thing. It's sexist as fuck and I hate the term.
So there are woman irl that really stop a dude talking with the id he is msng
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As a man with adhd, I do this all the time to men and to women, and I've been accused of mansplaining. I'm working on it, but I promise it has nothing to do with sexism. I just think everybody needs to know all the details so rhey can reach the same conclusions as me.
And for what it's worth, I really appreciate when someone does the same for me on a topic I don't know about. But I understand how frustrating it is when someone does it on a subject I do know about, so I always try to gauge knowledge before info dumping. What catches me off guard is when someone isn't interested in learning. They don't know everything, and they are just OK with walking through life, knowing they don't know something.
Point is, I really do appreciate the grace presented in the post. I don't mind if you're being condescending if you forgive me for oversharing.
This isn't a you problem. You haven't been mansplaining. This is gender war shenanigans and people being sexist towards men in the name of feminism. Gender in western society is honestly cooked at this point.
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It would be cool if we could keep sexism off lemmy. This isn't reddit.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Agreed. Gender in many societies has gotten too cooked at this point. IDK how this gender war shenanigans is ever going to end.
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The real question isn't what it means, but whether or not it's being overused. Even if the person using it knows its meaning and intends to use it that way, I think it's still reasonable to ask if it's being overused. Because we're really asking if the existence and support for the term is creating a social environment where its use does more harm than good. If it's mostly drawing attention to bad behavior so we can correct it, then it's doing good. But if it's causing people to see malice where there isn't any or being used itself as a weapon, then we can say it's being overused. I can't answer that question, but it does seem worth thinking about.
I made it clear from the start that I'm only responding to the "people use it differently" thing, not whether people should use the term at all. Because it's a different discussion. I'm not condemning nor justifying the usage of the word. I'm only arguing that when people use it they are using it with the same definition the other user laid out.
I'm not saying it's unreasonable to ask if it's overused, I'm saying that "I disagree that people use that term in the way you say" shouldn't be met with "people shouldn't use the term" because I've said multiple times I'm not saying anything about whether it's an acceptable term or not.
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Lol you have no idea what I focus on. You're just reaching for a personal attack. Also it's weird that you specify "white" men when I purposefully have not, because as far as I can tell there's no racial component to the word "mansplaining". Are you assuming that I'm white for some reason? I'm not sure if I'm white or not - kinda depends on who you ask.
Bigoted thinking is bigoted thinking, and I call it out when I see it. It's fundamentally flawed. It's bad science and bad statistics and leads to incorrect conclusions. It's the same kind of thinking that eventually leads to bigger things. You cannot in good faith argue for fairness while allowing unfairness based on some arbitrary scale. You seem awfully comfortable turning a blind eye to prejudice when it doesn't impact you.
You're engaging in stereotypes, and stereotypes are harmful. Even positive ones, like the idea that Asians are good at math or women are nurturing.
The inequality people have suffered from bigotry throughout human history is horrible, but that does not justify bigotry against people who resemble old bigots.
You can say "minority teased", but the modern word is "micro aggression".
It's pretty damning that most of the arguments you're using here to justify the word are the same ones racist use to justify using the 'N' word, or any other bugot uses to justify their bigoted language.
So what do you focus on then?
I mean, in addition to microaggressions against the least impact among us.
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My brother in law is a guy who knows pretty much everything about everything. Pretty much any interesting topic you bring up, he'll have a deeper, more interesting conversation ready about that topic. This might sound annoying, but he's got a way of making it seem like you're discussing something you both already understand. Like, he isn't explaining things unless you ask, he'll say things like, "I'm sure you've already seen/heard of this", "Maybe you were the one who told me this, but...", (even when I'm pretty sure he knows I wasn't) etc. By giving you the credit for the information, it removes the feeling of him trying to be superior or condescending.
This might still be mansplaining, I don't know. I'm a man, so maybe I have more of an ignorance for being mansplained to since I don't have to constantly put up with it, but this feels a lot more like a man explaining rather than mansplaining -
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I catch myself doing this all the damn time, and that's precisely what it is for me.
I suspect that's what it is for many of us. Most of us don't intend condescension, but I expect that doesn't make it any better
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I mean they aren't wrong, she's patronizing them with condescension they can't perceive because of their clear deficits.
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So what do you focus on then?
I mean, in addition to microaggressions against the least impact among us.
I focus on bigoted thinking.
Who are you to judge which groups are the most or least impacted by anything?
If someone supports trans rights but hates black people I'll call them a bigot. If you support women's rights but hate men I'll call you a bigot. This isn't a quantitative evaluation. Bigotry is bigotry. It costs you nothing to stop using sexist language, whether that's sexist against women or men.
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So I’ve noticed this post isn’t going over very well. I’d like to add a female perspective.
“Mansplain” isn’t meant to say you info dump or over explain a thing. It means that you assume you know more simply based on sex. It’s a type of misogyny that’s more typically overt in boomer culture, but it’s got a following in the whole Tate movement. I have rarely noticed it outside of that generation in the wild.
Now…Guys do infodump, which leads to this confusion, because a lot of people dislike that behavior too. Statistically women do speak less in mixed groups. Put it all together and it’s easy for people to over generalize a very specific behavior. It does happen, but compared to previous generations it’s not as common. It definitely occurs to women who work in non-traditional fields and take on non-traditional roles and I suspect that the same is true for men.
It means that you assume you know more simply based on sex.
Isn't that misandry to assume the man is a sexist because he's shitty at explaining things or communicating generally you know like a stereotypical man. We can't be both incredibly myopic and excessively insightful of nuance.
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Okay but what if I’m excited to talk about dinosaurs? Is it mansplaining because I didn’t know the lady im talking to is a paleontologist ?
And people wonder why many men are afraid to talk to women.
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It means that you assume you know more simply based on sex.
Isn't that misandry to assume the man is a sexist because he's shitty at explaining things or communicating generally you know like a stereotypical man. We can't be both incredibly myopic and excessively insightful of nuance.
Let me be more clear:
An operational definition of “mansplaining”: If a man assumes he knows more about than a woman explicitly because he is a man and she is a woman. He explains to her x,y,z from this perspective.
Example: A man always talks over female peers, and explains answers during open ended discussions, because he believes he is better and more rational at open-ended discussions than his female counterparts regardless of any evidence of this, or even in spite of it.
Non-Example: A man informs a woman or others about a topic he is more interested or informed in, at a (possibly annoying) length.
It isn’t misandry to call out this bad behavior. Yes it cuts both ways, but we are talking about this term specifically.
