So proud!
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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 Iāve noticed this post isnāt going over very well. Iād like to add a female perspective.
āMansplainā isnāt meant to say you info dump or over explain a thing. It means that you assume you know more simply based on sex. Itās a type of misogyny thatās more typically overt in boomer culture, but itās got a following in the whole Tate movement. I have rarely noticed it outside of that generation in the wild.
Nowā¦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 itās easy for people to over generalize a very specific behavior. It does happen, but compared to previous generations itās 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 Iām excited to talk about dinosaurs? Is it mansplaining because I didnāt 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 āmansplainingā: 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 isnāt misandry to call out this bad behavior. Yes it cuts both ways, but we are talking about this term specifically.
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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
For me, I convert that feeling into XKCD's lucky ten-thousand wherever practical. It transforms the situation from a 'me vs you' conversation to an US vs crazy reality.
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Okay but what if Iām excited to talk about dinosaurs? Is it mansplaining because I didnāt know the lady im talking to is a paleontologist ?
And people wonder why many men are afraid to talk to women.
There's a difference between being excited to share something and explaining basic concepts. If you excitedly talk to a paleontologist about dinosaurs, they will most likely excitedly talk back.
"Mansplaining" is specifically when you are trying to tell someone else about their area of expertise and insisting you know better than them. For example, if you told a paleontology how to look after fossils.
A lot of it, like most human interactions, is about how you approach it and your tone of voice. I don't know what your level of social skills are, but if you're excited to talk about something then most people who are in that field of study would be excited to listen and talk back. Just be ready to learn and accept the possibility that they may know more than you
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For me, I convert that feeling into XKCD's lucky ten-thousand wherever practical. It transforms the situation from a 'me vs you' conversation to an US vs crazy reality.
Could probably also maybe slightly disarm it with "did you [want to] know about (x)"
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Let me be more clear:
An operational definition of āmansplainingā: 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 isnāt misandry to call out this bad behavior. Yes it cuts both ways, but we are talking about this term specifically.
That explanation requires prior knowledge or post hoc knowledge otherwise you're simply saying it's based on sex or race.
How is this substantially different then screeching "dei" at every minority that mildly inconveniences you?
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So when someone says "hey did you know 50% of the crime is committed by 13% of the population"... Sounds like they are describing a common experience. So by that logic does that mean it's not racist to say black people are criminals? If a black person got offended by that would you tell them "we don't need to get #notallblackpeople" about this.
For large swaths of western history Jewish people had a disproportionate control of banks and the money supply. Does this mean that the conspiracy theories about Jewish cabals controlling the world aren't anti-Semitic?
How common does an experience have to be by your logic in order to suddenly make generalization and prejudice acceptable? If one trans person gets caught sexually assaulting a woman in a public restroom does that mean JK Rowling was suddenly right all along?
And you clearly did not understand what I wrote. I came up with the closest examples I could think of and then explained how they were not applicable to the situation.
It seems like you really just want to be able to have a little bit of bigotry, a little bit of hatred. As a treat.
Alright well the key difference is that males are not a historically disadvantaged class and that makes a big difference.
Do you rail against "Karen" as an insult? What about philistine, Luddite, or barbarian? Do you fight this hard against "eat the rich" or ACAB?
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That explanation requires prior knowledge or post hoc knowledge otherwise you're simply saying it's based on sex or race.
How is this substantially different then screeching "dei" at every minority that mildly inconveniences you?
I just gave you a behavioral definition with examples and non-examples. Iām sorry, I donāt know how else to simplify it. I can only assume youāre willfully not understanding. Have a good day.
