What are your views of “mansplaining” a thing or not?

[49erJoe]

The term “mansplaining” is evil, demonic, feministic and comes from envy. Evil word.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

I believe that the ratio of racists and sexists to just plain jerks has definitely changed over the last 50 years.

Fifty years ago, people were taught to be polite as a baseline. If a white man was pointedly and deliberately impolite, and you were a woman or black, it was most likely that person was sexist or racist.

Today, people are taught not to be racist or sexist as the baseline, but being abrasive is actually lauded as "keeing it real." If a white man is pointedly and deliberately impolite today, I'm inclined to think it's more likely he's just a jerk. I don't believe Millennials are actually just as or even more racist and sexist than Boomers.

I run into a white Boomers down here in Texas who are very polite to me, will even call me "sir," but I suspect are still racist.

But Millennials are more likely to be just plain jerks...for sure.

You might be on to something here. People are definitely ruder than they used to be. Customer service is seen as an inconvenience.

 

[comana]

The term “mansplaining” is evil, demonic, feministic and comes from envy. Evil word.

How so when it describes a specific, condescending style of explanation, often unsolicited and unhelpful.

 

[Ana the Ist]

My view is “mansplaining” isn’t a thing as it’s from a misandrist mindset. Do you hear any man say to stop “womansplaining”? Nope because it’s not a thing except to show you don’t value the opposite sex explaining their different views on average it’s used only when a woman disagrees with a man’s opinion.

What are your thoughts?

My thoughts are that mansplaining is one of those words to end debate/discussion. If a man is offering his opinion or explanation of something that differs from a woman's....he is accused of mansplaining in attempt to silence him.

That's really it....cowardice. People to cowardly to contend with different viewpoints, particularly from men, and creating a negative connotation to the act of a man offering his opinion.

We also recently were blessed with whitesplaining to silence white people....which should be such an offensive notion that it was immediately scorned and rejected by any polite or educated society....but wasn't. Could you imagine if we used the term blacksplaining to silence black people? Or femsplaining to silence women?

I would imagine such terms would immediately result in being labeled a bigot and a narrow minded cowardly one at that....

For whatever reason though....whitesplaining and mansplaining haven't seen the same result. It is difficult to not draw some rather basic conclusions from that.

 

[Ana the Ist]

How so when it describes a specific, condescending style of explanation, often unsolicited and unhelpful.

Let's imagine that is indeed what the term "mansplaining" refers to...

Why not simply say, "You're being condescending and unhelpful"?

Why attach it to men as if no women are condescending or unhelpful?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Nothing particularly modern about cultural appropriation or white privilege in America.

I forget how old the concept of cultural appropriation is....

But the "invisible knapsack" thesis that Peggy Macintosh wrote back in 1989 is essentially the modern basis of the word...unless you inrend to include the explicitly Marxist concept of "white skin privilege." That's not exactly old. It's a rather garbage essay of personal thoughts and anecdotes leading to some wildly racist conclusions. Regardless, probably the biggest part of privilege theory....which although it has some explanatory value, it's not a lot. People almost always use it incorrectly by applying it to individuals specifically instead of groups generally in the abstract.

Cultural appropriation is a bit more nebulous....and that's saying something. I still don't understand if it's entirely based upon wealth creation or merely if it's a broad spectrum attempt to control behavior. What I am certain of is that it ruined Halloween, my favorite holiday.

It's only been recently, apparently, that you've heard of them.

How long ago did you hear about white privilege?

I have a special place in my heart for the concept of white privilege. A poster on here years ago spent a thread and many pages trying to explain it but never quite managed to pin down the correlation of the assumptions and the conclusions. When they finally got exasperated at trying to explain it to me....they told me a phrase that actually explained it better than the band-aid examples we had gone in circles about.

They said "Look, you don't need to understand it....you should just acknowledge its true."

The conceptual equivalent of "God works in mysterious ways, you just need to have faith in his plan." I knew then that no coherent or logical explanation was forthcoming....this was a dogmatic belief in some larger faith based worldview. I caught it early....I suppose that I have some teacher to thank for imparting some critical thinking skills to me.

 

[Ana the Ist]

White privilege has existed in concept since the 1700s, when Britain began using it in reference to the Irish.

Never heard that before.

It's the concept put into American law by the Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857):

No offense, but there’s no reference to white privilege there. It's certainly racist...and it's certainly representative of the time...but not a part of the law anymore unless I'm mistaken, it was overturned like Roe v Wade.

W.E.B. DuBois coined the specific term of "white privilege" for this idea in his writings in the 1930s as Jim Crow was reaching its peak. The basic concept is that in any matter of question between a white man and a black man, the white man will be presumed correct.

Any idea which writing? Again, I never heard this.

​

 

[IceJad]

There is conceptually no such thing as mansplaining. It is vague in its very nature. There is no boundary to the word. Anything opined can be considered mansplaining so long as the male gender is the one doing it.

Take for example when a man said to a women "to get better results just twist the norb further" it can be categorized as mansplaining, as compared to the same thing said by a woman to another woman. All it takes is the perception that it's a man's view on the subject to be sufficient indictment. The misandrist pretext will always be present for people scribing to such mentality.

To me mansplaining is not a concept but rather a state of mind. A rotten state of mind.

 

[Ana the Ist]

No, they really aren’t. The words might be new-ish, but the concept has been around since people have and have been called various things. And their meanings have been inflexible.

Wow. Not a singe fact there.

The only time I’ve seen people claim they have broadened their meanings is when the definitions overlap a little too close to their beliefs or behaviors, then instead of self-examining to see if they’re the problem, they simply say the definition has expanded because of reactionaries and liberals.

We've literally watched definitions get added to the dictionary.

Though I’ll point out racisms meaning was never as watered down and simple as “judging based on race.”

That's still it's meaning...always has been...even when you use the concept.

If you were to walk into a room....or down the street...and you saw the words "all *insert race here* are lazy *insert racial slur here*" written on a wall or side of a building you would not be wondering if that was a racist statement or not because you didn't know who wrote it and what the power dynamics were between the people being racially denigrated and the people doing the racial denigrating.

You would simply recognize it as a racist statement....and that's because despite whatever you may claim, you 100% go off the same definition as everyone else. Prejudice...negative or positive....of race.

 

[Ana the Ist]

And, as you and I know, white privilege as an action and benefit existed long before there was a word for it.

Nonsense.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Like my wife constantly telling me how to drive and where to park.

I've been driving for over 50 years. I know how to find a parking place. I had a talk with her about that, but she made it clear she intends to continue telling me where to park.

That's pretty funny.

My wife has some OCD like quirk where she never grabs the first item in a row or stack at a grocery store....always the second. In her mind, horrible trauma has been inflicted upon the first item and it will be inferior. She has done it so often....I now do it myself.

 

[Ana the Ist]

If all that has to go on to get someone to understand something, it's going to start sounding patronizing regardless of genders.

If I have to continue to explain a process several times in several ways to someone who has more credentials than I have in that process...sorry, but there's going to be some noticeable frustration seeping in for both of us. That has nothing to do with gender.

Pasting a label on something based on the feelings of the moment rather than an actual definition of the thing is a deflection activity.

"I don't like this situation, so I'm going to say you're mansplaining. Or being passive-aggressive. Or micro-aggressive. Or narcissistic. Or mysogynistic. Or whatever. People are just pasting labels to assuage their own bad feelings.

Passive aggressive is a real thing though....

The only time I would consider mansplaining a real thing is when a man explains something to a woman because he has incorrectly assumed she doesn't understand it....because she's a woman. That's just not how it gets used though....99% of the time.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

Wow. Not a singe fact there.




We've literally watched definitions get added to the dictionary.





That's still it's meaning...always has been...even when you use the concept.

If you were to walk into a room....or down the street...and you saw the words "all *insert race here* are lazy *insert racial slur here*" written on a wall or side of a building you would not be wondering if that was a racist statement or not because you didn't know who wrote it and what the power dynamics were between the people being racially denigrated and the people doing the racial denigrating.

You would simply recognize it as a racist statement....and that's because despite whatever you may claim, you 100% go off the same definition as everyone else. Prejudice...negative or positive....of race.

Huh?

 

[Tropical Wilds]

Nonsense.

Are we on thread 3 or 4 where you reply to posts I made months ago because you want to be intentionally provocative?

As I said in the previous threads, you can keep barking up my tree, but I’m not interested.

 

[RDKirk]

Passive aggressive is a real thing though....

The only time I would consider mansplaining a real thing is when a man explains something to a woman because he has incorrectly assumed she doesn't understand it....because she's a woman. That's just not how it gets used though....99% of the time.

They're all real things. They're just not as common as people want to pretend they are, and they're largely innocuous when they do occur.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Huh?

What part are you struggling with?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Are we on thread 3 or 4 where you reply to posts I made months ago because you want to be intentionally provocative?

Have we spoken before?

 

[Ana the Ist]

They're all real things. They're just not as common as people want to pretend they are, and they're largely innocuous when they do occur.

Well...they're all real concepts.

I suppose that we can assume at least some men, while trying to be helpful, regrettably assume that the woman they are helping is incapable or less capable.

That's not unique to men though. Women are just as capable of doing this.