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Yeah, Men do it to each other all the time too. The sociological context when that happens makes it much less difficult to manage though, 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 meme for people to rail against because it's been characterized as a criticism of an entire group (men) and not as it's intended (as a comment on a specific person's behavior).
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.
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 to behavioral norms, and as a result any interaction between humans is going to be uniquely contextual. But presenting the concept as a whole as anti-intellectual (or as is commonly done, as some kind of attack on the ability for an enthusiastic person to explain something they are passionate about) fundamentally mischaracterizes the concept. It is not an automatic label that is applied, it's a description of a common and very complex negative behavior.
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 given she is qualified to be an astronaut) 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" (or whatever, I don't think that's what you're claiming to be clear it's just an example). They're saying "don't be rude to other people while explaining things, and this was a rude way to do that".
Pet peeve
(This always comes up when discussing this topic: 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, kind and understanding person if you are autistic. Autistic people are, fundamentally, people. People are a diverse group not defined by a singular aspect of their personality.)Edit: Clarity
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".)
I agree - the term has reached a point where at this point it's become little more than an alt-right dogwhistle. The phenomenon is real, and really extremely common, and a new term should absolutely be introduced so that discussion of the concept isn't derailed by people constantly going "ugh it's such an oppressive thing". I doubt that new term would avoid the same thing happening, the alt-right does love to destroy the language of their enemies, but hey that brief time where it's useful would be convenient as hell.
Side note:
(I wouldn't normally point this out, but it's beside the point. That you're making a (literal, not dismissing you) semantic argument and the first sentence has a semantic error was too amusing not to point out.)You are right that any term can be destroyed by the alt-right, that's totally true (I mean they got the term "walkable city" to mean something like "apocalyptic ghetto" in their sphere), but I think that "mansplaining" (and to a slightly lesser degree "toxic masculinity") were already dead on arrival.
Mansplaining is such a bad term, that it already doesn't work without the alt-right touching it.
At least in German speaking counties (can't speak for the rest of the world), feminism is known for being really particular with words used for/against women, because they know that words shape understanding. For the last 20 or so years we have had (and still have) a quite heated discussion about gender-correct language¹. But instead of applying the same scrutiny to terms used for men, these terms are just adopted without question.
I just want the same scrutiny to be applied for all terms. "Hysteria" is rightfully a word that dropped out of use, and so should "mansplaining" be.
Why not just use a gender-neutral word like "overexplaining" or just describe what's the problem instead of using a fighting term that only causes pushback instead of actually helping people understand problematic behaviour?
¹ German is a gendered language, meaning almost every term has distinct male and female versions, and gender-correct language means that you use constructs that mention both genders. The reasoning is that using the generic masculinum (aka, use the male version if you don't care about the gender) leads to people not considering women, so e.g. when you hear "Arzt" ( (male) doctor) it makes women working in that job invisible and shapes who wants to become a doctor. Similar with female-first terms like "Schwester" (which means "nurse" or "sister").
Because it's not a gender-neutral problem. In a non-gendered language, an explicitly gendered term is generally used for strong emphasis. I'm sorry, I just don't know why insights about semantics in a gendered language are relevant in a discussion of a non-gendered language. It's not that it's not interesting, it is, I just don't know how to address it within this context. (Does german have the word "mansplaining" too? Or like, a term to describe a similar concept? Maybe we can 'borrow' that one off you guys too, compound words are so dang handy sometimes...)
Yes, German does have the term "mainsplaining" too.
The issue here that "mansplaining" tries to tackle is "person with little knowledge thinks that everyone else (or specifically a person with a lot of knowledge) is stupid and thus has to explain stuff they already know".
And while in many male-dominated fields that is a mostly-but-not-exclusively male problem, just go to any parenting-related thing as a man. Then you'll have tons of women "mansplaining" very simple parenting concepts to you.
As the father of two young children, I have been "mansplained" by women about everything from how to change diapers to how to talk to children. Quite often by women who are about the age of my grandmother, but who think they still know everything about raising children.
I try to give my wife the chance for a child-free night out 1-3 days a week. Been doing that for years now. And yet, every single time my wife does something with her mother and I have the kids, my mother-in-law asks me if I can really handle that and gives me "helpful tips" about what I can do with my own children.
And do you know how often random women butt in when I disinfect my immunocompromised child's hands in public places? "Desinfection hurts the immune system". Yeah, sure. Dying from an infection does so as well. (The kid has cystic fibrosis.)
Women "mansplain" just as much, just about other topics.
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.
You seem to have a preconceived idea of what 'mansplaining' is and, in an effort to examine that, could you tell me why you think the term has achieved such widespread cultural use?
Why widespread? Well because it’s “punching up” and catchy and plays in to the traditional feminist narrative that women are oppressed in $WESTERN_COUNTRY particular in science even though women regularly outperform their male counterparts in terms of college grading and admissions. You’re basically asking why feminism is popular.
Wouldn’t it be natural that having existed as an idea for over 10 years I would have a preconceived notion of it?
I was defending you then but I can’t anymore. No, it’s not because feminism boosts it, it’s because extreme feminists (the real feminazis) and misandrists love to abuse this word
Feminism is good, but generalizing men or accusing of sexism without evidence is dumb sexism
Just like accusing of racism without evidence. It’s defamation
It’s extremely unclear what you’re trying to say. When were you defending me?
Is extreme feminism not considered feminism in your mind?
Just by upvoting, I meant
No. Feminism is wanting to reach equality and stop discrimination between sex/genders, which I’m all for. Extreme feminism is wanting women superiority, or attacking men to improve women's situation
OK, I’m just going to throw it out there that most people consider extreme feminists to be feminists.
Violent and strict feminists are probably feminist if they seek equality. I don't think it's a good position to be in, but that's it
There is a popular trend of "all men", or "the world would be better without men", this is not feminism, and that's the definition of "extreme feminism" for me. Misandry is extreme feminism. These people can go fuck themselves. They're enemies of feminism.
Hating others is easy. There's a lot of xenophoby, homophoby, transphoby, sexism. We don't need more hate from the marginalized people themselves.
I hope what you're saying is not true. I've seen things that make me think it could be, but I still hope must people aren't morons.
To say those people aren’t feminists is a way to avoid accepting that feminists can believe those terrible things. Yes, it’s destructive and yes it discredits the rest of the movement. Feminists rarely if ever disown them.
Aaaaaand... there it is. Careful, your incel is showing.
Are all your comments that low-effort?
Just when dealing with incels
And in your book incels can have sex, right, we can skip all the mental institution worthy nonsense
That's not even a coherent sentence.
I guess your mind lacks the ability to imagine implied punctuation:
And in your book, incels can have sex — right. We can skip all the mental-institution-worthy nonsense, then.
It's adorable that you think punctuation was the problem with that sentence.
Well, it’s a perfectly well-formed sentence.
I'm circumspectly asking what you believe are the driving forces behind feminism's popularity, absolutely. To carry your allusion, the first step in understanding any software is to check it's dependencies; as natural languages are just really messy formal languages, and by the transitive property of "I just made this up but it sounds good", it holds that the first step to understanding someone's statements is to examine the fundamental concepts they used to construct that statement.
To that end then, lets look at you holding some contempt for the idea of "punching up". I doubt you intended that to be the takeaway, but it's presented as the justification for an idea you have expressed strong disagreement to. If you held it was totally valid, there wouldn't be much a conflict. So: why is it wrong to do in this case?
Why is it wrong to punch up? Because there being “up” requires an ordering of humans, so speaking in feminism terms that would be reinforcing the patriarchy, in regular terms people aren’t above or below each other, they’re all people. Punching up is still punching, is destructive and not constructive. Destruction isn’t becoming of anyone.
To draw a specific example, the fact Taylor Swift is a billionaire doesn’t mean it’s okay to treat her like a piece of shit and insult her to her face, make up mean names for her, etc.
Okay! So to my eye, a lack of social hierarchy seems like a pretty ideal view of the world. How do you reconcile that outlook with the existence of things like governments or a legal system? Those would be what I consider an ordering of humans, and in that light it sounds like you're saying "punching back" (as it were) against those social structures would be reinforcing those same (potentially oppressive) structures (an example possibly being 'the patriarchy') - have I got that right?
It’s tempting to see authority as an ordering of humans, but it isn’t. Anthony Fauci is not more of a human than you are. And it’s not okay to punch Anthony Fauci for the same reason it’s not okay to punch you. But we still need authorities and so it can’t be the case that every person in the country is the authority on diseases.
No, punching back is not the problem. The problem is the idea that there exists something called “punching up” that is more excusable generally than “punching down.” THAT idea reinforces social hierarchy and oppressive structures. Particularly if you believe that “punching up” will always be punching up, invariant of what happens in the world, because that asserts that the hierarchy is fixed which even further reinforces it.
So if I understand you correctly, your position is that there are two distinct facets to 'arranging' society
Order (that one person is inherently above or below another, a concept I agree is wrong) and Authority (that being the broad agreement to respect one person's limited and highly contextual "superiority" within a specific area of knowledge).
Extrapolating an example to ensure I understand: this would mean that the legal system is granted the authority to enforce those rules society has agreed on, onto those people we've agreed are subject to it's authority (which is a good way to think about it). And things like conflicting authorities can be handled in the same conceptual 'framework', like how people that respect Anthony Fauci exist at the same time as people who think Anthony Fauci is trying to inject us with ground up infants. Or how there are both authorities that respect LGBTQ+ people's right to exist, and those that want us all rounded up and gassed.
But where I'm stumbling is that you're considering "punching up" or "punching down" as something that can only be done against the Order of society (thus trying to elevate or denegrate someone as inherently above or below another person) and not something that is done against the Authorities in a society. And I can't figure out why that would be the case.
To my eye this fairly explicitly reads as you saying that when (ex:) LGBTQ+ people attempt to "punch up" against the authority figures who want them all gassed, that action is inherently implying that they are attempting to establish themselves as inherently superior to that other person in the Order of all humanity. And I do not think that's what you're trying to say here, since it seems to be completely at odds with every comment you've made on this site in the last two months (and full disclosure I did just go and read all of them)
Is that misrepresenting your position?
(edit: I just wanna throw out that I'm not the one downvoting you)
Yes, likening one person saying to another that they are mansplaining, to defending oneself from literal death by chemical weapon, is misrepresenting my argument. If you are being threatened with death, defending yourself is not punching up or punching down, it’s not even a voluntary action at all, it’s just human instinct and you can’t even call that a choice.
Also, are you trying to paint a random commenter on the Internet who probably didn’t even fully read the post they’re replying to, as an “authority?”
(re edit: thanks, I appreciate that)
I didn't liken the two though, because that's not the representation of your perspective I was interested in. I'm curious in the meta-analytical nature of why you hold this position - as an example, where is the line drawn between "being threatened with death" and "punching up". I assume we agree on the idea that objecting to calls to gas all the queers isn't problematic - but is calling someone a bigot for expressing the (deeply homophobic) view that femboys are constantly horny "punching up"? Or, if not there, calling out the 'did you just assume my gender' joke?
I'm really very curious where you draw the line. We sincerely appear to agree on damn near every issue except the one of feminism. Why is that? Where do our opinions diverge? Do we disagree on other things that, given our respective positions on so many other topics, one could be forgiven for assuming we'd share?
Aside
(Yes, I am claiming that the internet dipshit is an authority. I don't consider them one, I think they're a dipshit - but my opinion isn't the only opinion that exists, and the undeniable existence of the anti-vax movement has clearly elevated those self-same uninformed internet commenters to positions of trust and authority in society. They even put one in charge of HHS, god help us all.)Second, and pretty unrelated, I think feminism is a dishonest platform and has far exceeded its mandate. Women are oppressed in the Middle East. To say they’re oppressed here currently, relative to males, is somewhere between dishonest and delusional.
First wave feminism had a very strong reason to exist. Second wave as well. But intersectionality is a complete mess that only creates problems instead of solving them, and ideas like antiracism are positively counterproductive
Anyway, feminism doesn’t have a monopoly on egalitarianism. You can be pro-equality without being feminist, despite what feminism would say.
And gays are literally crucified in the middle east, and yet the fight to be allowed to change one tiny letter on your driver's license is important. Why does the first one negate the second one?
Sorry, that was snarky. But seriously, where are you getting this? No not in a dismissive way, I think there's commentary to be found here - but I'm incredibly curious what actual interaction with the subject you've had. The opinons you're presenting here are almost identical to the fundamentally misinformed ones presented by commentators like ThunderF00T, Sargon of Akkad, Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan and Charlie Kirk (I can find examples of all of them repeating this stuff...) and I'm pretty sure you're smarter than this. I don't see that you've been confronted about these ideas in the last two months on lemmy (and that's clearly all I can draw on), but have you ever confronted these ideas?
You've presented an idea of the world that's quite optimistic, except on this one point that you hold an inherently contradictory position on. You're reacting with habitual hostility, not reasoned consideration. Please, please, think about this. Have you ever actually gone and listened to, say, any video essays from feminist figures? Have you ever engaged with feminism at all outside of internet commenting? Or are you being told that this is what feminism is.
Feminism is necessary. It's not delusional, it's not dishonest, and women's and men's rights are being eroded every day in the western wold because of the current far-right administrations. When does it start being acceptable for women to fight back again, when every victory the second-wave feminists won have been reverted (instead of just half of them)? No, really, that's a good question. When do women get to have their grievances heard?
(And... what? What's wrong with intersectionality? It's literally just the study of biases in culture, it's a core branch of sociology, and the first tenet of anti-racism is education about the historical realities of racism. There's nothing more to it than that.)
Well, I’m on my phone so apologies if my replies are shorter generally. I will attempt to answer some of these. Yes, I have engaged in a ton of discussion with hardcore feminists. I have listened to podcasts by them including Stuff Mom Never Told You and unfortunately read Brotopia. This is not my first rodeo. And you don’t need to listen to Tate or Kirk any of those extremely distasteful people to know that feminism claims to speak for men’s interests while completely ignoring them. Feminism 100% claims to be acting in the interest of both men and women, and at least for men, it completely falls short of that. You will try to correct me. That is the problem.
Any ideology that posits “ is necessary” is self-serving and borderline cult. The ideas of the ideology are what matter, and the ideology itself is just a name. If the ideas were any good, you should just as easily be able to create a new ideology from those ideas with a different name and have it be just as valid.
Which is really funny because masculism and feminism both claim to be about equality. But only feminism is the one that is right, apparently.
A good chunk of the population has been listening to feminism for… decades. What do you mean, when will the grievances be heard? We’ve heard them. Women are oppressed, the second sex. Abortion is a right. Equal access to healthcare. 84 cents to a dollar. Alimony. Some of these are addressable, some of them have been addressed, and some of them are not addressable. It’s complicated.
Perhaps I should be asking you when will men’s grievances be heard?
I'm sure I'll get into the rest in a moment, but for the sake of filling time while I'm cooking dinner: to your mind, what are men's grievances?
edit: And for a bonus, since you've already rejected that the core idea of feminism is "egalitarianism", what is the core idea?
Sure thing. Thanks for asking. Well, I would say main ones are:
I never said the core idea of feminism isn’t egalitarianism. Just that you can be egalitarian without being a feminist, since feminism involves so many other ideas. They don’t all spring from “equality” and equality itself has many different conceptualizations. Feminism’s conceptualization of how to achieve equality is essentially limited to, “women should be given more supports” which is not a good way of thinking about it any more than an elevator’s best way of operating is “just move the person higher and higher.”
Okay I generally hate point by point responses so I'm sorry in advance, and I've tried to format this in way that will make it less bad to read. Also this is very american-centric, though the trends to tend to carry over across western cultures because of that convenient hegemony:
Family Court
I'm sorry, this one is a common piece of misinformation. While on the surface the statistics are clear that yes men are seldom (~10% of cases) awarded full custody, 90%+ of child custody agreements (formal or informal - it's actually quite uncommon for a formal custody agreement to exist) are decided completely independently of the courts, and those agreements are what this statistic is based off of. Men nearly always give up custody (and yes doubtlessly the impact of the perception of court bias doubtlessly plays into this, but not enough to shift the balance this severely). The reason this is misrepresented is that THERE IS NO REPORTING on child custody decisions from the courts - it's straight up illegal to release that information in the US and is similarly restricted in pretty much every western country - and anyone who claims that these statistics are from court decisions are either wrong or lying to you. There is almost no data on this, and the oft-cited PEW study (which was taken down) that these numbers crome from is extremely explicit about the source of the data.Male Disposability
Yeah, this one sucks (and has sucked for all of human civilization). However, not only have feminist groups in the US been suing for decades to allow women inclusion into selective service, they are also the ones trying to get women allowed into combat roles because they legally cannot be put into them. So, feminists are also aware and also would like this fixed, and have been fighting hard to get it changed. It's awful, but it really should be equal-opportunity awful.Death Rate
The male death rate by accident is extremely complicated, but broad strokes is down to both a culture of heavy drinking (which is vastly improving in Gen Z/Alpha!) and that men do nearly all manual labor (the most dangerous category of jobs). There is a push for more women to be included in manual labor jobs, but it isn't overly vehement - both biological differences make this a difficult argument, and manual labor sucks. Why would anyone want to do that if they don't have to (this excludes skilled trades, which are HEAVILY biased against women and do not require pure muscle density - I can elaborate on how vital female welders are, if you would like, but for the sake of brevity I will delete that three paragraph rant).Title IX
Okay this one pisses me off: This is absolutely not how title nine works, and I say that as a university professor who has to do a yearly training on Title IX, who's been subject to Title IX hearings for sexual misconduct (both dropped, suits were not brought by the victims but a male student "on their behalf" and without informing them so that was fun, they both found out and immediately protested on my behalf so fuck yea...) and has sat on the panel for Title IX misconduct cases (though in the past twenty years at my uni, there has never been a Title IX hearing for sexual misconduct brought against a male student. It's almost impossible to get it to happen). This just isn't at all accurate, and I do not know where you got this information from because it is just wrong. Also, Title IX investigations are subject at very least toreasonable doubt(notpreponderance of evidence, because it is a civil issue not criminal). Title IX explicitly proscribes hearings and the conduct of those hearings is subject to legal oversight and public review as well, so... yeah, go find me some examples of this having happened please.Rape
yeah, our laws about rape are terrible. Hell, there are a number of states that still differentiate between marital and non-marital rape, and explicitly state that it's only male-on-female (edit: marital) assault that qualifies. Here is an amazing article on how fucked up rape laws, and cultural attitudes surrounding rape, are and what feminists are doing to change the laws for both gendersFemale Rapists
No argument, this one is terrible. Women also want this fixed, see above for how fucked up our rape laws are (and then just start drinking because it's not getting better any time soon, thanks alt-right).Male Acceptance Rates
Again a real fucker of a pet peeve: Men are being accepted less on the whole because we are getting fewer male applicants. There are doubtlessly cultural baises behind this, but it's not the unis choosing more women over men - we're choosing the same number from our applicants, but there are just not as many men as there were previously (also, application rates for women have also decreased, though markedly less. Application volumes are down across the whole of the educational system!)Demonization of Fathers
This one, man, yeah this one is a real fucker. I won't expound too much, but the cultural shift towards the fear of pedophilia and kidnapping is a fascinating subject to get into (while you drink. Or smoke. Or do whatever escapist activity gets you through the day because oof).Male Loneliness Epidemic
Man, yeah, I don't know about this one. The death of 3rd spaces has been horrible for society, and covid just exacerbated that. It's just hard to make new friends anymore, boy do I know that pain. Just sucks. I'm lumping the x400% suicide rate from above in here, like, there's just too much here to really be encapsulated in a lemmy post. It just sucks. It's why mental healthcare is so critical to... well, establish in the first place. Start drinking again, though, 'cuz that's never going to happen...I'm... look, I'm really trying so hard not to just go "no you're wrong" in this whole conversation, and except for a couple points above (which are, sadly, just wrong) I've been pretty good about refraining... but this is just wrong? I'm truly curious where you got this from, especially since you say you've both read Brotopia and SMNTY and that's completely antithetical to the core message of both. No seriously, who's saying this? You see it presented in rage bait subreddits like r/TumblrInAction or r/TheRedPill, but I genuinely doubt you browse those cesspits so... I'm just not sure where you're getting this. This has never been the messaging of feminism. Please, why do you think this is what's happening?
(edit: skipped over the egalitarian thing whoops - I was attempting to paraphrase, not quote directly. Though you're right, I read some nuance into your response about that which was probably excessive on my part)
Saying someone is mansplaining is a normative statement. You’re stating a moral position by using the word. One aspect of that moral position is the use of this obnoxious spelling, “splaining,” which is clearly meant to denigrate the desire to explain things. This is anti-intellectual, yet it’s couched in the oh-so-innocent veneer of being pro-feminism.
To contrast, calling someone a bigot is stating a moral position, but the only moral position it states is that bigotry is bad, which isn’t anti-intellectual.
I'm sorry, it's gotten late here, is your basis for claiming it as an anti-intellectual term really just that the word is a malformed portmanteau?
There are several parts of the word’s meaning, some of them optional:
But the only real requirement is #1. Despite what anyone says, even if the thing is not explained dismissively and is explained well to someone who doesn’t know about it, you could still call it mansplaining because it’s punching up. Which again only serves to say that attempting to explain is the shameful part.