Kensey: So this is the problem I have with some modern Internet feminists (a subset of third-wave feminists), and to an extent with a portion of the entire social-justice movement as it's existed for the last decade or so:

There has developed a kind of insularity -- a clique that has a certain set of terms they insist be used, with meanings they insist be defined exactly as they wish. For made-up terms, this is not so bad -- nobody knows what "cisgendered" or "kyriarchy" mean the first time they see them; you have to look them up and then you find out. They were invented by specific people who gave them specific meaning. But there are some terms that get sticky, like "privilege". I know what they mean by it, and I'm on board with the concept that they mean -- but the word "privilege" itself had a pre-existing meaning of "something granted by the will of another party".

Us white guys have certain advantages in society, whether we or anybody else particularly wants it that way. But the insistence of the most vocal segment of the social-justice crowd on using the term "privilege" to describe that phenomenon inevitably derails the conversation when some white guy (focusing on the mechanism implied by the word, rather than the result) reacts to it by saying "Nobody ever gave me anything just because I was white/male!"

So, take the made-up terms and the terms appropriated from their common meaning to a specific meaning they don't quite fit into, add in the insistence on using those appropriated terms in exactly the approved way and no other, some outright othering language like using "ally" to describe others riding the social-justice train in this way (if you're not an ally, what are you?), and the tendency to describe any questioning of the accepted doctrine and terminology as "derailing", and what you get feels very Newspeak. And the part that really creeps me out is, nobody is imposing this on them -- it is entirely self-imposed and rigidly enforced by the group. Di ...

Umm, you can pretty much dismiss people who say gurl or womyn.

telaran: PZ Myers is involved with Atheism Plus?

That's all I need to hear about it. He's a complete joke.

Five or so years ago I used to read his blog, and he had an interesting, informed take on atheism with some science and feminism discussion as well. Now... well, he's not quite L Ron Hubbard, but there's a real "if someone disagrees with me, they need to me silenced!" attitude. He spends a lot of his time railing against his fellow atheists for not being the right kind of atheist, or not being atheist enough.

I guess I'm fortunate that I'm pretty much getting through life without having to come into contact with any rad feminists or any of their secret code bullshiat. Single, make good money, bang plenty of chicks, and don't really care if some of them are stupid. Life's pretty good. Not sure if that is mansplaining or not and really can't give a fark.

More SJW's inventing words to make sure they can be as accepting and understanding as possible to solve crisis that never really existed while the rest of the world moves on with their lives.

Gunther: He spends a lot of his time railing against his fellow atheists for not being the right kind of atheist, or not being atheist enough.

Exactly. Some of what he has written has been insightful, but he's vindictive and childish when he doesn't get his way or someone disagrees with him. He's not the kind of person who should be fronting anything If Atheism Plus is as ZipSplat described it, it just stinks of his brand of divisiveness and is exactly the kind of thing I can imagine him doing.

There is a small part of me that wonders whether the Jezebel type of women understand that the Taliban is what a "Patricarchy" looks like.

"You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means".

FishyFred:
Well-meaning people hoped that the problem would go away once the community reached a critical mass of equal representation, but once we got close and women like Rebecca Watson and Jen McCreight started bringing up women's issues -- everyone's issues, really, but clearly issues that hurt women more directly than they hurt men -- they were subjected to the most vile, ridiculous attacks by people who should know better.

I dunno, the few times I've seen any issues due to my limited experience in that particular fandom, the issues only blow up because said bloggers write about, "Look at these typical youtube commenters" or "look at these assholes being assholes" or "look at these socially inept weirdos who inevitably appear at these sorts of events despite everyone's best efforts" and then present them as representative of all men everywhere simply because they share a similar gonad configuration. And every single time, they start mansplaining how it's my responsibility to correct their behavior and if I don't, then I'm just as bad.

I'm sorry, but up yours, lady. I don't know these guys, I don't associate with these guys, and I sure as HELL am not condoning their behavior just because I, too, have a penis. They act like freaks at me, too.

doloresonthedottedline: I always thought of nice guys as the brooding types who go around wailing "BUT IM SO NICE WHY DON'T GIRLS LIKE ME" while thinking that relationships are like customer rewards programs--after a certain amount of niceness, they can cash it in for sex and/or a relationship.

I always thought of those guys as just being a-holes.


doloresonthedottedline: Or the types who only ever befriend girls who are clearly not interested but think if they're just good enough they'll earn the girl's affection, and then post on their LiveJournals about how all women are biatches when the girl dates some "jerk."

I can see how this might happen with a guy who genuinely is nice, but meek and/or shy. Since they refrain from putting themselves out there far enough to be rejected in some final way, and since guys very often simply cannot tell when a girl is "clearly not interested", they do the only thing they know how to do: try to get someone to like them by being kind, respectful, accommodating, and generally inoffensive. On the face of it it doesn't really seem like that unreasonable a thing to do, to get someone to like you by being a nice person, but they don't understand that by itself it doesn't make them interesting. And guys who do this certainly don't always end up getting mad and posting on LiveJournal. When they do, though, I imagine it is just a manifestation of their frustration at being unable to appeal to women, not dissimilar to the countless times I've heard women complain about all men being jerks.

zzrhardy: There is a small part of me that wonders whether the Jezebel type of women understand that the Taliban is what a "Patricarchy" looks like.

"You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means".

You've fallen victim to the fallacy of the excluded middle -- in this case the concept that anything that is not the worst possible patriarchy imaginable (the Taliban or similar societies) is not patriarchy at all. There are degrees of patriarchy just as there are of any other political or social -archy.

The developed world generally is a damn sight better to live in as a woman than Taliban-controlled areas, but if you think women have total equality in say, the US, you're not looking around much.

zzrhardy: There is a small part of me that wonders whether the Jezebel type of women understand that the Taliban is what a "Patricarchy" looks like.

"You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means".

Wouldn't a "Patrickarchy" be a society ruled by the likes of Captain Picard, Bobby Ewing, and David Puddy?

Gawdzila: doloresonthedottedline: I always thought of nice guys as the brooding types who go around wailing "BUT IM SO NICE WHY DON'T GIRLS LIKE ME" while thinking that relationships are like customer rewards programs--after a certain amount of niceness, they can cash it in for sex and/or a relationship.

I always thought of those guys as just being a-holes.


doloresonthedottedline: Or the types who only ever befriend girls who are clearly not interested but think if they're just good enough they'll earn the girl's affection, and then post on their LiveJournals about how all women are biatches when the girl dates some "jerk."

I can see how this might happen with a guy who genuinely is nice, but meek and/or shy. Since they refrain from putting themselves out there far enough to be rejected in some final way, and since guys very often simply cannot tell when a girl is "clearly not interested", they do the only thing they know how to do: try to get someone to like them by being kind, respectful, accommodating, and generally inoffensive. On the face of it it doesn't really seem like that unreasonable a thing to do, to get someone to like you by being a nice person, but they don't understand that by itself it doesn't make them interesting. And guys who do this certainly don't always end up getting mad and posting on LiveJournal. When they do, though, I imagine it is just a manifestation of their frustration at being unable to appeal to women, not dissimilar to the countless times I've heard women complain about all men being jerks.

Asshole is accurate too, but they always insist that they're nice guys, hence the term. Wish I had an example handy--I know this guy who tried to explain to me how he worships women and how they're goddesses, but every girl he tries to date is awful and his luck is just so terrible, because he's so nice! The conversation had some real gems, genuinely oblivious that he was a total douchebag with ridiculous expectations.

And, I was talking specifically (in the second example) about the guys who do that and then rage at the women. Women who think investing time as a friend is an excellent way to change a guy's mind, who then blame the guy for not changing, are equally absurd and worthy of ridicule. Being meek and oblivious isn't bad, but deciding to gain some nerve just long enough to blame other people for your failures is.

MeanJean: I prefer the general term downsplaining, as it can be applied to multiple cases.

Not to splainsplain, but I think you mean "condescension".

Kensey: You've fallen victim to the fallacy of the excluded middle

0/10 for trying to railroad someone into a "fallacy."

In order to be an excluded middle fallacy, he or she would have had to identify both sides of an either/or proposition and imply that something can only be one or the other, which he or she didn't expressly do. He or she could simply understand patriarchy to mean something different than you do, among many other things.

Nope. They had to gender the term. Because that is the correct way to go about doing this. No woman ever condescends to anyone under any circumstances. This is a gendered, male phenomina. Thus the gendered term.

/sarcasm

Really thoughy, can't we just talk about treating peopl like they are actual people? Not archetypes in which an action can be extrapolated to all members of class y or x. This is really starting to bother me. Why is it hard to act as though a peron is a person, not a contruct of social stigmas....

/came to this thread way too late
//wanted to say it anyway
///Slashy trifecta in play

If men actually followed any of this lesbian fem-speak, we'd be friend-zoned in a microsecond.

telaran: Kensey: You've fallen victim to the fallacy of the excluded middle

0/10 for trying to railroad someone into a "fallacy."

In order to be an excluded middle fallacy, he or she would have had to identify both sides of an either/or proposition and imply that something can only be one or the other, which he or she didn't expressly do. He or she could simply understand patriarchy to mean something different than you do, among many other things.

The simple fact that there can BE (or at least that there ARE) different meanings is the exact reason why the vast majority of Americans don't give a single thought through their day about social justice. Even the discussion of patriarchy has become some sort of privileged position.

Lemme mansplain this for you guys. It's super easy.

You listen to the woman first, let her ramble on about whatever. THEN you prove her wrong, point by point in exacting detail. Make sure you cite your references, 'cause you obviously know more about the subject than her, so you should have those memorized by author and title, if not by date. In the extremely hypothetical situation where she's right, you STFU. Fortunately, as we all know, that's never going to happen.

Then, having proven your superior knowledge and innate quality as a breeder, go home and cry into a bottle since you're alone. Again.

doloresonthedottedline: Being meek and oblivious isn't bad, but deciding to gain some nerve just long enough to blame other people for your failures is.

I dunno if I'd call ranting on LiveJournal "nerve", lol. It's just about the least confrontational method of venting that I can think of.
I agree it's stupid, I'm just saying that I can understand the frustration. In actuality they're probably equally upset with themselves on the inside, but no one wants to blame themselves. It's more pitiable than anything else, honestly.

FishyFred: RoyBatty: There is plenty of femsplaining, basically it's called tumblr, and Jezebel, and xx factor, and free thought blogs, and pretty much any place that wants to police speech, and demand recognition of the oppression of women without actually discussing alternative points of view.

I can kind of understand why someone might come to this conclusion if they started with a prejudice against feminists already. But it's just wrong. They're not refusing to entertain alternative points of view. THEY HAVE ALREADY DISCUSSED ALTERNATIVE POINTS OF VIEW. That's what this whole mansplaining thing is about. If you treat them like idiots who don't fully understand issues, you might not be an irredeemable misogynist, but you are starting from a point of "I know more than these people."

And on a lot of the subjects they talk about, you usually don't know shiat.

You need to read this, basically one feminist explains the power and abuse and bogus and sexist assumptions behind the word.

XOJane: Why you'll never hear me use the term mansplain - by Lesley

Women date assholes because feminism has taken away gender roles and only hypermasculinity can trigger their submission love hormones. It really is that simple. It is amazing to me how feminists twist things to make women not how they are. We give these idiots POWER and it WILL come back to haunt all men and women.

Women date assholes because feminism has taken away gender roles and only hypermasculinity can trigger their -->submissive

Something a bit less light-hearted than my other post, nobody addressed this, as I read up the thread. As Schyzer, scum though he may be, noted in TFA, "mansplaining" is something men do to other men.

If men do NOT do it to women (treat a woman in the conversational sphere as they would another man), are they being sexist?

starsrift: If men do NOT do it to women (treat a woman in the conversational sphere as they would another man), are they being sexist?

They're sexist whether they do or don't thanks to the unfortunate tendency for people to think that the only important part of a statement is what a listener perceives. If a man does it to a woman, he's insulting her knowledge and ability because she's a woman, and therefore, he's sexist. If he doesn't do it to women, then he's treating her differently than he does other men, which means he doesn't respect her or regard her as highly because she's a woman, and therefore, he's sexist.

It just depends on who you're talking to.

FishyFred: They're not refusing to entertain alternative points of view. THEY HAVE ALREADY DISCUSSED ALTERNATIVE POINTS OF VIEW.

So their assumption is that they've already accounted for everything that might possibly be relevant, and therefore they are justified in discounting any dissenting opinion? Even from the men whose thoughts and motivations they claim to know better than the men themselves? I feel like that's at least as arrogant as simply thinking that they might not have taken every other possible point of view into account.

Kensey: You've fallen victim to the fallacy of the excluded middle --

The middle is true equality.

Patriarchy ---------- equality ----------- Matriarchy

Feminism doesn't aim for "I am a women, I can do anything", it aims for "I am a women I should be able to do everything You figure where that sits on the spectrum.

Gawdzila: FishyFred: They're not refusing to entertain alternative points of view. THEY HAVE ALREADY DISCUSSED ALTERNATIVE POINTS OF VIEW.

So their assumption is that they've already accounted for everything that might possibly be relevant, and therefore they are justified in discounting any dissenting opinion? Even from the men whose thoughts and motivations they claim to know better than the men themselves? I feel like that's at least as arrogant as simply thinking that they might not have taken every other possible point of view into account.

It is theoretically possible that there are men out there with a bit of wisdom that would radically change feminists forever. But I believe the point FishyFred was trying to make is that after having approximately one billion conversations with men claiming to have a bit of wisdom that will radically change feminists forever, and finding that they nearly all say the exact same shiat that is absolutely not as advertised, people start to draw a line.

It's a matter of time management and sanity, really.

Gawdzila: So their assumption is that they've already accounted for everything that might possibly be relevant, and therefore they are justified in discounting any dissenting opinion? Even from the men whose thoughts and motivations they claim to know better than the men themselves?

Not to mention that it's an odd claim to be making, since he's talking about some Women's Studies classes at a university. You'd think that, being classes, people in them wouldn't already have discussed all the alternative points of view. And, given that Women's Studies is a relatively new soft science (or, in some cases, a humanities subject), and even the old soft sciences with long standing publication don't make claims like that, the oddness is reinforced.

doloresonthedottedline: It's a matter of time management and sanity, really.

Fair enough.

doloresonthedottedline: It's a matter of time management and sanity, really.

And, of course, there's that. Regardless of what one thinks of the classes, they're there to teach the material in them, not entertain the guy who keeps derailing the course of the lectures.

zzrhardy: Feminism doesn't aim for "I am a women, I can do anything", it aims for "I am a women I should be able to do everything You figure where that sits on the spectrum.

And Islam is a allegedly a "religion of peace", and yet here we are.

What is it called when you are talking to a woman and she is making incorrect statements and when you mention the obvious errors she has made she tries to get you to shut up by saying the way you are talking to her is `mansplaining` and refuses to carry on a conversation she knows will lead to her having to admit she does not actually know what she is talking about?

femdodging?

telaran: doloresonthedottedline: It's a matter of time management and sanity, really.

And, of course, there's that. Regardless of what one thinks of the classes, they're there to teach the material in them, not entertain the guy who keeps derailing the course of the lectures.

If a Professor shuts down a student with a term like "mansplaining" instead of asking the student to hold his questions for now and see the professor after class, then the professor, IMNSHO, is a terrible teacher and I would think has made the classroom "a hostile environment."

Pretty much the same thing if the professor allows other students to get away with that activity.

Long before feminism came along, professors had to deal with students that were either derailing or just taking too much time -- they haven't had to abuse their students until now.

The article is not about this taking place in a classroom, it's about it taking place elsewhere in culture, and my experience there is that it's not used by experts that are worried about time management, but it's used by people that have made some claim and then wish to preclude debate on that claim.

P
Q
P implies Q deus ex feminista

Quinsisdos: If you really want to see social justice idiocy, Tumblr has it in spades



Ah, too bad this one wasn't the first in this thread.

Now I remember why I'm a misogynist.

Quinsisdos: If you really want to see social justice idiocy, Tumblr has it in spades

Also linked from that tumblr, and goes along with why the term mansplaining is so pernicious:

 
Link

Quinsisdos: If you really want to see social justice idiocy, Tumblr has it in spades

Thank you, I do like that tumblr.

Here is another one. This is why "intersectionality" and "kyriarchy" were invented by feminists, precisely so they could play Oppression Olympics and answer the question of how feminists are still the most oppressed people on the planet thanks to men.

 Link

quickdraw: doglover: Patronizing. The term is patronizing.

1. It's easier to say.
2. It's a real thing.

Its not the same. "Patronizing" has other connotations that make it sound more positive. I patronize the grocery store on a regular basis and they like it.

Patronizing has other denotations. As does nearly every other word in the English language. Life would be pretty rough if you had no ability to recognize the correct denotation of words given their context.

I thought mansplaining was giving her the back of your hand?

If I may be serious for a moment, men and women shouldn't talk to each other. In fact, neither should talk at all, that would solve every problem of wo/man-kind. Also, gender doesn't make you patronizing, being human does. Talk to some dolphins, it will make you less of an a**hole.

Mugato
Is there a trendy term that means "stupid biatch making up words for their deeply insightful blog"?

How about "Jeze-belching"?

Can a woman be patronising or is she matronising?

I honestly would like to know.

FTA: For men like this student, "mansplaining" has become the new sexual harassment allegation - an unfair charge that no man can disprove, defined by shifting and opaque rules.

FTA: As Solnit put it in a follow-up piece last month, mansplaining is the "intersection between overconfidence and cluelessness where some portion of (the male) gender gets stuck."

Well gee, if it didn't read quite so much as a sweeping generalization about men based purely on their gender, I imagine it would feel like a completely reasonable concept... that and I could better appreciate the value of a good portmanteau.

FTA: Their misunderstanding of what sexual harassment entails led some to fear that even their most well-intentioned gestures or remarks would be misconstrued as harassment.

Or it could be because it fairly often does get misconstrued, maybe? Mistakes happen you know, particularly with fairly new concepts that are being defined and redefined constantly. It's okay to admit this.

FTA: Mansplaining is about a very specific instance of "privilege and ignorance... when a dude tells you, a woman, how to do something you already know how to do, or how you are wrong about something you are actually right about, or miscellaneous and inaccurate 'facts' about something you know a hell of a lot more about than he does."

This sounds a lot like 'arrogance' and 'appeal to authority to me'- neither of which are new concepts, and are far easier to understand when you don't try to redefine them under some vague (yet strangely trendy buzzword) that will invariably get defined however people using it want to define it. This would include (yes) unqualified accusations that are, by the vagaries of their nature, inarguable.

Civil debate is rarely helped by moving goalposts. This whole 'mansplaining' thing seems like one excellent way to do that- intentionally or otherwise- by obscuring possibly valid observations about the nature of the debate behind some gender-biased Newspeak that's only guaranteed to shift the focus of debate further away from the civil and into ad hominem.

i.e.: "You're ignoring the points I'm making because you're a man," rather than "you're refusing to see that I have a point because of a false belief in your inherent superiority."

So, good job... I guess?

FTA:In nearly 20 years of teaching gender studies courses,

What I wouldn't give for this to be bro-splain and ho-splain...

RoyBatty: FishyFred: RoyBatty: There is plenty of femsplaining, basically it's called tumblr, and Jezebel, and xx factor, and free thought blogs, and pretty much any place that wants to police speech, and demand recognition of the oppression of women without actually discussing alternative points of view.

I can kind of understand why someone might come to this conclusion if they started with a prejudice against feminists already. But it's just wrong. They're not refusing to entertain alternative points of view. THEY HAVE ALREADY DISCUSSED ALTERNATIVE POINTS OF VIEW. That's what this whole mansplaining thing is about. If you treat them like idiots who don't fully understand issues, you might not be an irredeemable misogynist, but you are starting from a point of "I know more than these people."

And on a lot of the subjects they talk about, you usually don't know shiat.

You need to read this, basically one feminist explains the power and abuse and bogus and sexist assumptions behind the word.

XOJane: Why you'll never hear me use the term mansplain - by Lesley

I wasn't defending the term, but you and ZipSplat seem to be dismissing the idea that men often talk above their heads on shiat they know nothing about and that they do this because the others involved are women. And you're wrong. It happens all the time.

squidgod2000: What I wouldn't give for this to be bro-splain and ho-splain...

rat_creature: mesmer242: Oh man, I totally know some elderly people who do this, but it's less about gender and more about them being old and be terrified that if they don't pass down the crucial information on how to best shop for a used car that the knowledge will be erased from the earth when they die. I'd like a clever word for that phenomenon, but sadly, it's just not as hip as mansplaining is.

Senexplaining?

That sounds... dirty.

WordyGrrl:
It is the duty of somebody who's endured the consequences of a bad decision to warn others. For example, ask some "old people" who have made the mistake of not only sticking it in crazy, but marrying it afterwards. The Fark Ex-Husbands Brigade has some interesting stories on that.

No, no, this is like trivial "wisdom", sort of akin to the onion on the belt, but overly detailed instructions on stuff like how to use a central vacuum system or bargain shop for cuts of meat or make punch. There's nothing wrong the topics, other than the fact that most of them would take five minutes to google, but mostly the elderly person is giving a long soliloquy in a voice that makes you feel like an eight year old. It's best to just nod and smile, and chalk it up to one of those things you'll end up missing about them after they die.

doloresonthedottedline:
Cloudsplaining.

Yup, that's exactly it!