Maybe this will get through. It’s quite nice.
He Tells Her
He tells her that the Earth is flat,
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well,
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.
The planet goes on being round.
– Wendy Cope
Wait… rhyming poets can be taken seriously?
There goes the last of my excuses.
At least it wasn’t a limerick. Although I’ve found a few of those by Cope, too.
Limericks don’t count. They are like breathing; even done well…
Quoth Cuttlefish: “Limericks don’t count,
Not even a tiny amount.”
He says they’re like breathing
My temper is seething
I say his position’s unsoundt.
Cuttlefish:
I prefer mine medium…
I hadn’t ever heard of Wendy Cope until a few years ago, when she was the leading contender to become the next Poet Laureate of the UK. Not only did she refuse, she quite vigorously called for the post to be abolished. As I recall, it had to do with writers accepting favors from government being forever after stifled from pointing out government flaws.
That is an interesting form she used for this one. Anyone know what it is called?
Gregory in Seattle
I bet Cuttlefish knows.
Something else of hers:
Bloody Men
Bloody men are like bloody buses
You wait for about a year
And as soon as one approaches your stop
Two or three others appear.
You look at them flashing their indicators,
Offering you a ride.
You’re trying to read the destinations,
You haven’t much time to decide.
If you make a mistake, there is no turning back.
Jump off, and you’ll stand there and gaze
While the cars and the taxis and lorries go by
And the minutes, the hours, the days.
@ 3 Cuttlefish
But what about the Clerihew?
Art is like food, you don’t have to like every dish. But I don’t understand why you would look down upon certain forms of it, just because it isn’t your thing doesn’t mean it is any less an art, that people enjoy.
A poet from a place not frequented
said “A new kind of verse I’ve invented!
Five lines has my song
two short and three long,
let us hope I will never repent it.”
One of my favourite poets, Ms Cope… turns a mean haiku as well…
A perfect white wine
is sweet, sharp and cold as this:
birdsong in winter.
And Ms. Cope does a spot-on parody of The Waste Land in five limericks (no, seriously):
I
In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyantes distress me,
Commuters depress me–
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.
II
She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions–
Bad as Albert and Lil–what a pair!
III
The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep–
A typist is laid,
A record is played–
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.
IV
A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business–the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he’d met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.
V
No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you’ll make sense of the notes.
Eppur Si Muove
I adore Wendy Cope, great to see her getting some love! My favourite of hers:
I think I am in love with A.E. Housman,
Which puts me in a worse-than-usual-fix.
No woman ever stood a chance with Housman,
And he’s been dead since 1936.
@15:
Love it. Never saw it before. Thanks for sharing.
Delicious. I’ve just posted ‘He Tells Her’ to a list plagued by a misogynistic, mansplaining self proclaimed lawyer and monk of a Xtian order of some sort. (I think he said Lutheran, but imagine he’s an embarrassment to whichever he identifies as. A Texan, which I add only to hint at some of language.
He won’t get it, but surely it will bring comfort to others.
You folks are my favorite morning read……
I’m assuming that PZ doesn’t endorse the views of the particular radical feminist tweeter he’s linked to here?
Based on her previous anti-trans tweeting, quoting that poem strikes me as a subtweet aimed at the transwomen activists she disagrees with, especially as she’s previously compared trans-activist views with flat Earth theory.
If nothing else, a lot of the comments on her timeline, such as her rejection of the label “cis”, or her view that the word woman denotes female reproductive biology, are highly controversial in social justice circles. While I’m sure she’d put herself in the place of the woman being told that the Earth is flat, in reality the debate on those issues isn’t so clear cut.
This is why I find it so hilarious when people laugh at “not all men” while simultaenously saying “not all feminists are like that” or “they aren’t true feminists”.
Sparkles:
That’s some rather spectacular missing the point.
I believe it is you missing the point. But… not all posters? lol.
davekendall:
He’s not endorsing her views. He posted a poem of hers that basically explains what mansplaining is. Should her poem be dismissed because she has odious views? Do those views invalidate the point of her poem?
It’s an amazing double standard.
By linking her blog, he is endorsing it. He could have just copied the poem. But… he didn’t. You’re so quick to dismiss anyone who “mansplains”, but someone who is a trans-exclusive radical feminist gets a pass. Feminism being discriminatory is OK, but anyone who supposedly “mansplains” (aka a terrible portmanteau used out of emotion instead of logic and intelligence) is a pariah.
You can replace “he” with “blacks” in the poem and you end up with the same message. If you really think that is farfetched, you’re a fucking moron.
sparkles:
You clearly didn’t click the link. Allow me: https://twitter.com/Jsoosty1/status/483740042238902273
That’s not to Wendy Cope’s blog. Nor is it her Twitter account either. There is no endorsement.
You don’t seem to understand what mansplaining is (despite the poem), otherwise you’d understand that replacing “he” with “blacks” would not result in the same message.
Here:
Sparkles, you are one sad, pathetic liar….
Although I’m a fan of this blog in general, I rather disliked this post for several reasons. Even though art is always a matter of personal taste and we must reject any notion of “good” or “bad” art, I want register my opinion that this poem is banal and mediocre. On a more objective matter, I was bothered by the title of this blog post and source post on Twitter using the term “mansplaining”, because both uses appear to be non-satirical. As I understand it, “mansplaining” is an offensive and sexist term which I’ve seen used as a get-out-of-jail-free card by people who prefer not to engage in debates. The gender roles in the poem appear arbitrary, referring to a common discursive situation in which both men and women are equally likely to be on either side of a disagreement. I don’t want to impute any sexism to the poem itself, because it may innocently reflect a specific scenario in the author’s mind, not a general portrait of gender relations. It’s the presentation of the poem by the Tweeter and perhaps by the blogger here as an example of mansplaining that I find offensive, because that makes a general claim about gender relations. Curiously, the behavior depicted in the poem doesn’t even match the normal meaning of “mansplaining”. Whether or not the term is acceptable, which I can imagine people debating, I believe the normal meaning refers to persistent, hyper-rational, pedagogic discourse, not the phenomenon of overconfidence or stubbornness depicted in the poem.
Otis Idli:
I don’t think you understand it well. I linked to a definition upthread. The word accurately describes phenomena that women experience frequently. Many men (and some women too), dismiss this, which I find odd, since this shit happens quite a lot.
Gender roles on the are arbitrary-period. There’s no reason to have gender roles and society would be better off without them.
Yes, it does match the meaning. Here’s that definition I spoke of earlier:
The poem depicts a man condescendingly explaining things to a woman that directly contradict fact that she knows to be true. He refuses to accept what she says, continually asserting his words as truth and her words as false. He’s mansplaining to her. I think you’re assuming more familiarity with the term and how it’s used than you’ve any right to.
[I’m replying to Tony! The Queer Shoop in comment #27 here, perhaps without using the available comment formatting options.] I read your link, thanks. You’re defining “mansplaining” as overconfidence and condescension, whereas I have a different impression of the term based on my observation of its usage. I suspect there is inconsistency in its usage and perception, so I don’t expect to resolve this point here.
Setting aside the question of whether or not the poem depicts mansplaining, on the question of whether the term is sexist, you’re saying that some or another rude/bad behavior happens often, and I can’t dispute that, but I’m skeptical of your implicit association between this behavior and gender. To defend the term, you need to claim that there’s an extremely strong generalization that men are more overconfident and condescending than women. Probably most of us would agree that this behavior is more common among men than women, but that’s no different than saying certain types of crime are more common among one race/psuedo-race than another. Weak generalizations like that are the essence of sexism and racism. In the absence of compelling evidence for such strong generalizations, which neither you nor your link provides, I believe “mansplaining” is a sexist term.
Also, in my personal experience, I’ve observed the term used as a relative of lazy ad hom argumentation.
Example please. Linking to a comment thread or blog post where you observed this shouldn’t be hard.
*Shouldn’t be hard, unless this is just waffle. It reads awfully like waffle.
Otis Ildii @28:
Is your understanding of the term consistent with how women experience it? In other words, when women say that a man has mansplained to them, do you understand what they mean? Or are you forming an opinion on the term without regard for what you’ve been told?
Set it aside? The crux of my point is that you do not understand the term. It’s an example of mansplaining. That you don’t understand it, is part of the problem. I even explained *why* it’s an example @27:
The above matches the definition of mansplaining not only from Wikipedia, but from how the term is used by women. That you deny this means that for whatever reason you do not accept the definition. You don’t get to redefine the term though.
All of this:
convinces me you don’t understand the word. You dismiss it without any apparent attempt to understand it. Have you researched it? Have you tried to find examples of mansplaining? Have you discussed the subject with women?
Maybe some further examples of mansplaining would help. Try this: http://mansplained.tumblr.com/
There are plenty of examples of mansplaining at the link, but here are a few:
These examples are of men talking down to women, treating them as if they [the women] don’t know enough about the subject at hand. In actuality, they do, and they know more about it than the men do, but the guys refuse to accept or acknowledge that. Yes, it’s condescending, but its more arrogant than overconfident.
Another thing to keep in mind is men are socialized to treat women as inferior, delicate, weak, and emotional, while they [men] are superior, durable, logical, and stronger. This translates to the intellectual arena as well, hence why men often speak down to women as if they’re more of an authority on a subject than they [the women] are (you know, bc women have pink fluffy ladybrains that mean they can’t understand this sophistimacated stuff and they need a man to explain it to them). Mansplaining doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It’s part of a wider socio-cultural problem of sexism and misogyny.
Here, more or less is the origin of the term:
@Tony! The Queer Shoop
I stated clearly that we have different views on the meaning of this term, which is hardly surprising for a newly coined term with a vague and contentious meaning. I “set aside” that topic because I addressed two different topics. One is the meaning of the word, and the other is the sexism of the word “mansplain” under the definition you cite. You’ve essentially ignored that second topic. If you want to refute the sexism of “mansplain”, you have to show that women don’t routinely engage in the same undesirable discursive behaviors you cite. Giving examples of men being jerks doesn’t suffice to address this point. You’ll also note that men who fit the pattern of socially dysfunctional discursive behavior you cite display the same behavior towards both men and women, suggesting that it’s due to individual personalities/habits, not gender socialization of inter-gender interaction.
By the way, I have personal experience of being accused of “mansplaining” (on the internet) even though I have been resolutely non-sexist and non-misogynistic for my entire life. And I read some entries on the tumblr blog you cite, but they show a highly inconsistent semantics for “mansplain”, not a unitary phenomenon. They show behaviors commonly exhibited by men towards both women and other men and commonly exhibited by both women and men. Ironically, your behavior towards me in this thread is similar to some of those examples. You lecture me on a topic I’m already versed in and you hound me with your feverishly held views defending a highly debatable term/concept, while I’m simply expressing skepticism.
Sorry, you have to provide evidence that women talk down to men, tell them how they should feel about something that doesn’t concern them, and to ignore everything a man says. You made the claim, you provide the evidence.
Dang, borked the second blockquote in #33. The separation is at the lack of separation of sentences.
Otis Idli
Well, then.
I’m sure there’s a cookie around here somewhere.
Bless your heart.
I don’t have the spoons right now to deal with Otis Idii. I’ll just state for the record that xe does *not* understand what mansplaining is, as demonstrated by hir inability to understand how the various examples I’ve given *are* examples of mansplaining.
@Tony: I read several pages of that tumblr with great open-minded interest and dismay at humanity, but there’s nothing cohesive about them to justify a concept like “mansplain”. They are just miscellaneous examples of social blunders and sexism committed by men. I’m not denying the possibility that men and women have different patterns of social pathology–obvious all humans exhibit social pathology regardless of gender and gender differences are tangible realities–but your examples and argumentation completely fail as a defense of “mansplain” as either a coherent concept or an ethically justifiable concept.
Otiss Idli, let’s start with a basic question.
Do you agree that women are, on average, discriminated against and have less privilege than men in society?
@Esteleth: Yes, I agree strongly. The gender imbalance is still severe in all current societies that I’m aware of, certainly in all the industrialized societies.
OK good. I’m glad you can concede that (we routinely get guys who argue strenuously the opposite point).
Now, do you agree that “a man tells a woman things as if she’s an idiot, ignoring that she might actually be knowledgable” is not exactly the same phenomenon as “a woman tells a man things as if he’s an idiot, ignoring that he might actually be knowledgable,” what with the fact that – as you acknowledge – there is a noted gender imbalance in how men and women are treated?
Otis Idli @38:
It was a term with which I was unfamiliar before I started hanging out in these parts. I have, many times, seen it in action. A woman who is a survivor of horrific abuse being told, by a man, not to talk about it because it might upset her. When a man (me) pointed out that he was also a survivor, the asswipe in question did not tell him to be quiet because he might upset himself. Women being told, by men, that the concept of Schroedinger’s Rapist is unfair because not all men rape. Women being told to ‘take precautions’. Women being told that there is no sexism in the fill-in-the-blank industry because they are not good at that kind of work, or that there are plenty of women you just never hear about them, or some other trumped up bullshit.
I have seen it in operation in meat space. A man ordering for his wife/girlfriend after telling the wait staff, “I’ll order for both of us otherwise we’ll be here for hours.” Overhearing a conversation in which a woman states that she is in pain and her partner says that it’s nothing, women are always imagining pain. In meetings, women who are talked over, women who’s ideas are ignored until a man comes up with the same idea and is praised, women who are told that they need to let the experts figure this problem out.
In college, watching one of my professors, a specialist in English history, explain to a woman adjunct professor that her understanding of early Greek history is flawed, and using a book to show that she was wrong. She wrote that book. (no I do not remember her name — this was last century)
The examples go on and on and on and on.
It is sexism. It is misogyny. Mansplaing is a subset of those. It is a manifestation of the patriarchy. It is real. It happens all the time.
@Ogvorbis: Sure, various sorts of sexism against women are common problems we can all observe, and many forms of sexism are paradigmatically committed by men against women, but the examples you give don’t delineate any subset of those behaviors, specifically a kind of discursive/sociolinguistic behavior, that we could identify as a paradigmatically man-against-woman behavior. My point remains that the behaviors imputed to “mansplain” in any meaningful definition of the word are commonly women-against-women, women-against-man and man-against-man. It is worth considering the possibility that some behaviors associated with “mansplain” are strongly associated with men–stuff like hyperrationality, intellectual aggression, “reason over emotion”, etc–and that thesis has been put forth by many respectable scholars for decades, but there is no “against women” aspect to that; it’s equally man-against-man.
Ogvorbis:
You also didn’t get the if treatment.
Otis Idli:
You’ve hit absurdity in your insistence. No, it isn’t equally man-against-man. In the homosocial sphere, you will certainly find men arguing certain points; however, a man considers other men worth listening to on issues. When it comes to mainsplaining, this isn’t the case, and while it can sometimes be found where a man is mainsplaining to another man, it’s overwhelmingly directed towards women.
Women aren’t considered to be worth listening to, this is a long term pillar of societal misogyny. Mansplaining puts words into a woman’s mouth, overriding her at every point, because ladybrains.
Otis mansplaining about mansplaining:
We will defer to your expertise on the matter of banality and mediocrity.
Offensive and sexist term, huh? MRA much? Let me guess, you think affirmative action is racism too? Because you are just that kind of charming fella.
My jaw drops at the prospect that you seemingly cannot fathom how those two sets might interact or overlap.
Again, on the subject of overconfidence and condescension, we will again need to defer to your obvious expertise.
Of course you are. I’m sure you would Be Skeptical of the sky being blue if the observation was made by someone afflicted with the dire taint that is Feminism *shudder and recoil*
Oh my god. That is not the point and you are fucking obtuse. The point isn’t that man are more overconfident and condescending, the point is that they have more power than women and mansplaining is the method that they put women in their place. Through unwarranted confidence and condescension. It is not about the abundance of those traits, it is about how they are used.
Crocodile fucking tears.
See above.
By fucking god, it is bullshit all the way down with you.
So basically you are admitting that you have an axe to grind. Thanks. We probably could have guessed.
Oh my word! Inconsistent semantics! Stop everything! Stop fucking everything! Call the internet police! Some serious business is afoot!
Unwarranted self-importance and condescension again, with an added dash of faux victimization.
Do you have any self awareness at all? Just curious.
*facepalm*
Speaking of inconsistency. So you are know finally admitting that sexism is involved? Sexism not directed at the poor misunderstood menz?
What the fuck are you babbling about?
Obvious obfuscation is obvious.
You can’t win by filibuster in Pharyngula. Or baffle us with bullshit. Sorry to break the news.
See above.
And apparently it isn’t worth considering that sexism is involved. At least not sexism against women. Because heaven forbid. Oh, yes, it is just good ol’ toxic masculinity! And that obviously has nothing to do with sexism at all! Because reasons!
Way to be a living example of the things we are talking about, Otis. You can stop playing King Douchebag any time now.
@Inaji: You’re misrepresenting what I wrote. I didn’t say that “mansplaining” is equally man-against-man. I rejected “mansplaining” as a valid concept and noted that some associated behaviors are equally man-against-man. Further, your whole post is based on caricatures and absurd generalizations. It is extremely common and normal that men consider women worth listening to.
Otis Idli
That’s a blatant irrelevant quibble if I ever saw one. Are you actually going to say something of substance at some point or is just going to be a series of dissatisfied grunts and “nuh uhs”?
Someone sure does seem to have a lot invested in mansplaining not actually being a thing. A whole lot. A suspiciously large lot.
No worries, anteprepro, I’m sure Otis will be along to explain that to us, ironically both shortly and at length.
CaitieCat: For a minimalist definition of “explain”. I guess that’s just why mansplain seems like such a good word to me. It is not only obfuscatory bullshit transparently used to dismiss women or clog up conversations about women, but it is just so obviously terrible as an “explanation” anyway. Mansplanations are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Sadly, Otis cannot even bring himself to be interesting enough to fill his mansplaining with fury. It’s just got a dash of that and he makes up for it with even more sound. This is bargain bin level shit, Otis. I demand a refund.
@antepro: You continue to post little more than personal insults and reckless assumptions about me without tackling the ideas themselves. Again I have to observe that your behavior towards me here is incredibly similar to the examples of “mansplaining” given via that tumblr above. I have rarely encountered such un-self-aware rudeness and dismissive rhetoric as you’ve posted here. The fact that you are “mansplaining” towards me and the fact that I’m not a woman is evidence of my claim above that “mansplaining” is not about sexism; it’s about some people just acting like jerks towards other human beings.
@anteprepro: You evidently missed the part where I wrote “my opinion” and the part where I spent an entire prefatory sentence explicitly qualifying my statement and dismissing the very premise of “expertise” on that matter.
You suggest I’m an “MRA”. I actually just learned of the existence of this term and the existence of this “movement” a few days ago, and in my small and casual exposure to this topic, it seems to me like a bunch of pseudo-intellectual dudebro jerks wallowing in contrarianism, so I think you’ve made a false judgement.
It appears you’re asking for my opinion about affirmative action. Okay, here it is. I think affirmative action is a good idea in some cases and a bad idea in some cases. As far as the relationship between affirmative action and racism, that’s a pretty complex topic I wouldn’t make any rash or simple statements about.
My jaw fails to drop at the observation you don’t fathom how those two concepts of discursive behavior are distinct and independent.
You wrote, sarcastically, “dire taint of Feminism”, implying your presumption that I’m an anti-feminist. Allow yourself to stand corrected, because I’m not an anti-feminist and I would never make rash generalizations about a word used in such different ways by different people.
Do you always dismiss other people’s interest in a topic motivated by personal experience as an “axe to grind”?
Otis Idli
Have heard of the First law of holes”?
Otis Idii:
Stop handwaving the well observed social phenomena of mansplaining and perhaps people will stop being insulting.
This is a rude blog. Don’t believe me, go read the commenting rules. You won’t get anywhere complaining about being insulted.
Again, you don’t understand the inherent sexism involved in mansplaining. It’s a specific activity directed toward women, from men. The men involved dismiss any knowledge the women have, and act as if they know more than she does. In the process, they attempt to demonstrate the inferiority of women.
This is part of the wider soci-cultural problem of men thinking women are inferior. That thinking doesn’t always manifest consciously either. We’ve all absorbed it. “He throws like a girl” is an example of treating women as if they’re inferior to men.
Get used to the rudeness cupcake, or go away.
The fact that you think you’re being mansplained to shows you don’t understand the word. If you were a woman who understood the term, and men were trying to explain it to you, then yes, that would be mansplaining. No one knows your gender, and just as important, you *dont* know the definition of the word, bc your usage does not match up with how the term is overwhelmingly used. Your attempts to redefine the term to suit your needs isn’t going to fly around here.
Amazing how many people, usually men, show up around here, spout MRA talking points, and then claim that they either just heard of MRAs or have never heard of MRAs. Almost like it is part of a script.
@Tony: I’m not complaining about being insulted. I’m shaming “anteprepro” for their shameful behavior. I love discourse, including harsh discourse, and I’m dedicated to social justice. How can you read the posts of “anteprepro” and not see that it’s the same as some of the behavior documented on the “mansplained” tumblr blog? I’m an educated, pro-feminist, anti-sexist, anti-misogynist discussing a nuanced and complex topic in a productive way using clear and earnest prose. Why am I being bullied in this thread? Who is so confident in their understanding of the vast complexity of language and sexism that they can crudely dismiss a thoughtfully expressed opposing viewpoint?
Setting that boring “meta” topic aside, you’re again accusing me of “redefining” a word. I’m observing incoherent usage and drawing conclusions about the ways it could be defined. How can you say I “don’t know the definition of the word” when you yourself informed me of your putative definition and I had already acknowledged my understanding of multiple potential definitions? I read your first post. I understood it. I now possess the knowledge you imparted to me. I understand what you think the word means and I understand what I think other people think it means. I’m discussing and comparing different definitions. You’re espousing a primitive and reductionistic concept of lexicography, while I’m acknowledging the complexity of the issue. You refer to “how the term is overwhelmingly used”, but your usage examples cover a wide range of behaviors that can’t be pinned to man-against-woman sexism. Sorry, language is not that simple. So far it appears your definition of “mansplaining” is something like “condescension and arrogance”, but do you deny that men act this way towards other men? Do you deny that women act this way too? All the evidence seen so far suggests that “mansplain” is a word based on cherrypicking a hodgepodge of examples of men acting like jerks towards women, while ignoring the larger context and complexity of those behaviors.
Something happened to part of my reply to “anteprepro”. It hasn’t shown up yet. I tried to re-post it in a smaller chunk, but it still failed to appear. I wonder if it was automatically held in a queue because it contains racial slurs. It doesn’t use the slurs. It mentions them, using quotes, so it’s totally acceptable, but an automatic algorithm may not understand the difference. I’d like try to finish my reply to “anteprepro” here using better blockquote formatting so people don’t get confused, but I just tried again the post didn’t get posted. Is there a moderator who can fix this problem? Mahalo.
If you think racial slurs are ever permissible here, you are one stupid fuckwitted idjit.
Shaming is you being an arrogant and ignorant idjit. You are therefore shaming yourself with your attitude and behavior….
Otis Idli
There is only one moderator and he’s at a conference.
You seem to know what the problem is with your comment, so why not fix it all by yourself?
Otis bleats:
You continue to post pretentious and contentless word salads with a whine garnish.
You have to observe and yet you don’t show your work. Because that is so much less convenient than just baldly asserting shit, right?
So that’s just a “NO U!” or are you going to ignore that you are just regurgitating the same criticisms I gave you?
Wow, you sure got us there *eyeroll*
You evidently missed the part where I was just making fun of you for being a pretentious, self-important fuckwit.
I think that shoe fits you pretty damn well, despite you continuing to assure us otherwise.
Great work, keeping up the bafflegab. Just terrific.
I bet you’d even let a feminist use your bathroom, by golly!
I’m sorry, are you going to try to Jedi Mind Trick away the fact that you mentioned that you have had the horrible personal experience of being accused of Mansplaining? And how that
Shameful behavior? Cry more, asshat.
Mockery =/= Mansplaining.
A key relevant part of mansplaining is the gender dynamic.
You are deliberately not getting it. You deserve all the mockery I have given you and much, MUCH more.
You are talking about the word “mansplained” and handwringing over the term so you can dismiss it. Your academic credentials and your purity of heart mean jackshit when your actual behavior here is utlimately just you providing apologetics for the things you supposedly, deep in your heart of hearts, oppose.
Yes, because we are so crude, and you are so thoughtful. Because this was all supposed to be in depth discussion of the merits of the word mansplaining! You certainly didn’t turn the discussion into that because you are a self-absorbed, pompous asshole! Nope, it was always about that, and all about Teh Nuance and complexity of the English language, and about the strict, logical definition of mansplaining! It was never about anything else! Fuck women, this about linguistics! But that isn’t sexism, because I am such A Good Guy. Do I have that down right?
Otis seems to be convinced that they can simply say they are X, and we are compelled to believe them and stop criticizing the actual evidence to the contrary that he is shitting out all over this thread. Otis thinks we are stupid.
The smug is reaching critical capacity.
How about “condescension and arrogance towards women”? Fuck, using your “logic” you would argue that racism isn’t a thing, because racism is just “discrimination and hatred” and you can discriminate against people and hate people without doing it on the basis of race, so ergo racism is disproven. You are a quibbling, word game playing little fucker. And you whine and shriek when you are called out on it, trying to pretend to be some scholarly and prestigious gentlemen who is Just Answering Questions (That No One Asked). We aren’t fooled.
And if you don’t get a clue real quick like, I hope that you do just go fuck yourself.
Otis, why the fuck are you bringing racial slurs into this anyway? As if you couldn’t make things any more stupid and poisonous.
Also Otis: learn to blockquote or regular quote or some shit. We know you just love the sound of your own voice, but at least try to make it clear what the fuck you believe you are responding to.
@Nerd: Oh, come on, what are you doing on a blog like this? I assumed this was a bunch of smart people. Don’t you understand the difference between use and mention? I *explicitly* said I did not *use* any slurs. In the sentence “Bob hates people who say ‘ptoof'”, the word “ptoof” is mentioned, not used. Even if “ptoof” is a very offensive word, there’s nothing remotely offensive about the sentence. It is absolutely essential to refer to words if the topic of discussion is words, just like you refer to things like dandelions and papayas when the topic of discussion is plants. This whole thread is about bigotry in language, with one side saying “mansplain” is a sexist slur and the other side saying it’s “a real thing”. Referring to other slurs is a natural part of the discussion. I hope this clears it up for you, and I forgive you for rashly attacking me.
We are, you aren’t. DUH.
Doesn’t matter, if you used them or quoted them. Racial slurs in any form are for abject losers. Are you admitting you are an abject loser? If not, apologize for the slurs and go about not complaining about or mentioning them again. That si what intelligent people do. You, I don’t think so Tim…
Otis
So let me get this straight: Your thesis is that “Mansplaining” is a sexist slur, against men, comparable to actual racial slurs against racial minorities severe enough that they are blocked? You went so far as to compare “mansplain” to the fucking n-word or something like it? By god, I didn’t think you could get more ridiculous, but you did. You did it beyond my wildest expectations.
You just don’t understand privilege do you? What a fuckwit.
We all know Otis is a MRA/PUA who doesn’t like the label of being of sexist male chauvenist pig. Who the fuck cares what Otis thinks, since he obviously thinks we are pile of idjits who will swallow his bullshit without question. Mature up Otis, and realize people here are smarter than you, more experienced than you, and just plain have more honesty and integrity than you. Who lacks the latter….
Thanks for your reply, but I can’t fix it myself unless I changed the actual content of my post, which would be an injury to the integrity of our discourse. I suppose I could try to write stuff like “n-g–r”, but I personally find such practices to be mildly objectionable at an aesthetic level and profoundly objectionable at an ethical level (censorship) and technological level (it distorts linguistic corpus search/data integrity). After all, we’re not children or Mohammad cultists here.
Well, your maturity is definitely under scrutiny for think racial slurs have anything to do with your MRA/PUA fuckwittery. Don’t like the label, you stop sounding like one by shutting the fuck up. Or, it is de facto evidence you are an abject loser….
Here’s my Otis in a nutshell:
“WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ!! WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ!! I’m totally pro-feminist you guys, but WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ!!”
Are you seriously baaaawing about not being able to use the n-word freely? And implying that only children or Dem Filthy Muslims (what!?) would want to prevent blatant racists from being blatantly racist on a private website?
Otis, stop digging. Every post brings you to new, darker depths.
Otis:
Rats below. No, no you aren’t.
Here’s the thing, Otis – mansplaining is not a nuanced and complex topic. It’s very, very simple. By the way, this isn’t going to help your “I’m not an MRA!” stance, as they just adore calling every little thing “nuanced and complex”. is one of their favourite sayings.
Y’know, Otis, this would be a great time to shut the fuck up, because you aren’t looking better. Just worse for every word you write.
If you’re all upsetty that you can’t unleash racist rhetoric here, fine. Go somewhere else, please. The internet awaits your great visions of dark nuance, Cupcake.
Otis Idli
Believe me when I tell you that no one here would even notice an injury to your discourse.
And no one cares about your prissy dislike of the “aesthetics” of n-g-r.
Inaji
They also share the same tendency to use “you’re bullying me” as part of their argumentative barrage, are similarly oblivious to anything involving differences in privilege, and will also reassure us about how much they Love Women before they say “But….” and start piling up the bullshit again using the same fucking pseudointellectual filibuster-like silencing tactics.
Sorry folks, I accidentally blockquoted my new comment. In comment #73 the outer blockquote cites “anteprepro” and the inner blockquote is my reply.
Yep, you are treating womenz as second class citizens. And you are the sexist. Don’t like it, don’t do it. Who gives a flying fuck what YOU think about it, since you don’t think…..
Anteprepro:
True that. Let’s see if Otis is capable of learning something simple…
Hey, Otis! You don’t need to be a genius to make your posts easy to read by properly quoting. Let’s see if you can grasp this simple process. Use:
<blockquote>Place Text Here</blockquote> to get:
Also, Otis, the ideal place to argue (pardon, debate) your magical thesis would be here: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/
Otis sez:
If it quacks like a duck. I only have your word that you aren’t anti-feminist. Which is worth jackshit. Your continued lack of concern for women and your obsession over semantics and what words we are using to mock you speaks louder than what you claim to be.
No, I did engage them. Mockingly. You are just ignoring my point of view because of the tone I presented it in. Fancy that.
I’m sorry for taking your word and assuming you had accurately summarized your own words. I have no idea why I should have believed that something so fantastical and outlandish could have occurred.
“Bigotry is bigotry whether mild or extreme”
“I would never suggest it’s comparable to the likes of the n-word”
Something’s got to give.
Also, your thesis is still that mansplaining is sexist, which is still ridiculous.
Clearly you are a fucking self-loving blowhard who just wants to hear themselves talk and is the very picture of a mansplainer.
The definition of mansplain was not the topic of this thread. It is not relevant. You have not approached the subject in a nuanced or academic fashion, you have just outright ignored or denied the points that other people have made. Just shut the fuck up already.
Great. Now take that opinion, put right back up your asshole where it came from, spray some Febreeze, get back up on your high horse, and ride off on into the sunset. Your work is done here. We have now been informed how you personally feel about the word mansplain. Congratulations.
And another thing, if you are the only one who notices that your comments are
“well-stated, reasonable and nuanced”
or
“using clear and earnest prose”
they aren’t.
That’s a circular definition. A defense of the concept of “mansplain” would start with an observation of all relevant discourse behavior, extract a coherent pattern of behavior, analyze it and then conclude it’s sexism (or possibly something else, like a gender-dependent variation in discourse behavior). You can’t start by assuming the gender dynamic.
Logical error aside, wow, you did manage to eke out one sentence that’s not pure trolling. That’s progress.
Fixed that for you abject trolling loser….
Why are you being bullied, Otis Idli? I’m surprised that with all that education, your totally upright moral character and a life experience which apparently out-classes the combined experience of the entire commentariat of this blog, your attempts to work out why are so disappointing.
Let’s try another hypothesis – that you are not being bullied at all. You are getting the bollocking – quite mild by the standards of this place – you richly deserve for attempting to impose upon people of whom you know nothing a meaning for a single word. Not only do you provide no evidence, no examples, no argument but endless repetition for your proposed definition which, while not entirely ridiculous, is at odds with current usage. You also display ignorance of the history and the etymology. So why would we take any notice of you?
Far from being bullied, you display some of the characteristics and use the techniques of a bully.
(And don’t bother writing in to tell me I was being rude. That was my intention.)
“providing apologetics”? Where did I suggest that the cited examples of mansplaining are acceptable behavior? My claim has been that the cited behavior isn’t sexist in essence. Whether the behavior is man-against-woman or woman-against-man, it’s equally objectionable.
Otis
Oh my god, you are fucking persistently dense. The really tragic part is you think you are so gloriously insightful and intelligent or something.
The gender dynamic refers to what we already know. What you have already admitted exists. The social and cultural divide in how men and women are treated, and how men have more power. How men are more privileged. That is the context in which mansplaining occurs. You continue to ignore it in favor of pulling your pathetic, quibbling bullshit.
Really, truly, go fuck yourself.
Your claim is dismissed as sexist fuckwittery. You uneivdenced opinion about anything is dismissed. Don’t want to be dismissed, shut the fuck up….
Otis
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this point.
Are you being this stupid intentionally or is it just natural for you?
Also:
For all your bluster about linguistics, you don’t really seem to know how words actually work. This would be a way to get a definition of mansplain that passes scientific muster. Get a precise, operational definition. I get the feeling that if we applied your garbled criteria for a “coherent” word to every word in the English language, we would be left with nearly nothing. Which is why you are getting the response you have gotten: Your skepticism is selective. Arbitrarily. Overly high. It is hyperskepticism and we know it. And it is hyperskepticism used to distract and annoy and silence. Do you understand that or is that just one more thing for you to pretend to understand and then either conveniently forget immediately or use extreme and thorough quasi-logic to deny?
Whoa, I took the time to patiently explain the difference between use and mention to you, and the reason why it’s important and necessary to mention offensive words, and this is your reply? You demonstrate a failure to comprehend an elementary, important idea and you call me an “abject loser”. You are hereby filed under “creationists, adolescent yahoos, intellectual incapacitants, etc”.
Watch out, anteprepro.
Next you will be asked to define ‘hyperskeptic’.
Is there a difference between the use of the term ‘pompous git’ and the mention of the term ‘pompous git’?
There is no reason except in your delusional mind. Why you think otherwise is why you are an abject fool to be ignored.
No, there is no elementary concept, except in your delusional mind loser….
And you are filed under sexist fools, delusional, fuckwits, not to be believed unless they provide third party evidence for everything they say. And you links are missing sexist fuckwitted idjit….
chigau
Oh shit. And it won’t stop there, will it? It will be “coherent” redefinitions all the way down!
@anteprepro:
No, I’m not. I have no desire to use the n-word and I have not expressed any desire to do so here. As I stated above, I did not use the n-word in the in-limbo post I wrote earlier. It appears you didn’t read or comprehend my extremely clear and explicit post explaining the difference between use and mention. That is sad and your comments continue to be deeply shameful. You’re hijacking this thread with endless personal attacks and misrepresentations. Please stop.
Otis Idli
I you look up the definition of “hijacking a thread”, it will not say “disagreeing with Otis”.
Suck it up, buttercup.
@anteprepro:
Nothing I’ve written here supports that caricature of me. Please give an actual quote to support your caricature or stop attacking me. It appears that you have some stereotype of “MRA” people that you enjoy criticizing. That’s fine. I don’t know much about “MRA”, a term I discovered only a few days ago and didn’t spend more than 10 minutes investigating before concluding it was a bunch of silly cranks. The problem comes when you decide to shoehorn me into your pet target and attack me on that basis, without any supporting evidence. Everything I’ve written in this thread directly contradicts your judgement that I’m an “MRA”. Again, put up or shut up.
@Inaji:
It’s not simple, and I’ll repeat the evidence right here. If you visit the following site, you’ll find copious documentation of odious human behavior labelled as “mansplaining”.
mansplained.tumblr.com
So far nobody in this thread has claimed that any of this labelling is mistaken, so the burden is on you to take that corpus and present your “very, very simple” explanation of what unifies or characterizes that behavior. Is it a specific behavior? Is it something that women don’t do to men? What’s the intensional definition of “mansplaining”?
My claim is that the behavior cited can be assimilated to diverse patterns of human behavior, including both sexist and non-sexist behaviors. That’s a whole lot of human behavior and if you don’t think that’s nuanced and complex, you should publish your grand unified theory of psychology/sociolinguistics and be rightfully hailed as a titan of science.
Bigotry in general is not simple. When you reduce it to caricatures and oversimplification, you’re actually undermining your ethical goals, because the only solution to bigotry is education and understanding of what it is in all its messy complexity as a basic cognitive tendency that typically requires conscious inhibition. If you think it’s just black-and-white, you don’t really understand it and you’re just perpetuating it.
Actually it is, once you understand we don’t give a flying fuck what your inane definition is, but we will continue to use our own sexist chauvinist pig….
@Inaji:
Look, you’re slandering me. If you have any evidence to support your implication that I wish to “unleash racist rhetoric”, then please present it. Absolutely nothing I’ve written in this thread would suggest I wish to “unleash racist rhetoric”. Please think before you type and show respect for the intellectual substance of this thread instead of making adolescent attacks on me.
Only in your deluisonal mind bigt. It is very simple. You give the attitude, no matter how you phrase it, you are the bigot. As you so amply evidence…
@chigau
Please examine what you’ve posted there. Did you add any substance to the discussion? Did you say something truthful or interesting or relevant? No. You actually misrepresented me by mentioning the minor objection I made to forms like “n-g-r” and omitting any reference to my serious objections (ethical and technological/scientific). What you’ve accomplished is 1) insulting me and 2) distorting my views. Please stop making comments like this.
anteprepro wrote:
Please tell me that you’re not surprised that Otis is likely also an anti-Muslim bigot. The anti-“Political Correctness” brigade almost always carry more than a couple of those around with them, despite trying hard to pretend they don’t.
The various details of specific instances of bigotry? Complex.
Whether some actually is or is not bigotry? Very simple.
The fact that you can’t recognize it, or are too dishonest to admit it, is part of your problem. And it is your problem, not ours.
ck, I am more surprised that Otis thinks they are fooling anybody by denying the existence of things he just said and that we can easily just scroll back up and read.
And Otis continues to whine about being misunderstood. Poor Otis. Always the victim.
Otis Idli
Read this
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/rules/
and stop telling people what to do.
You are sounding more pathetic with every comment you make.
Otis sez:
Brrr.
Shades of StevoR whining about how we were being so mean to him and how we should apologize.
Everyone else, please carry on. I’m enjoying the mockery directed at Otis. He wants to reject the observed phenomena that has come to be labeled mansplaining? Fine. At first I took him seriously, now I don’t. He clearly cannot see that men treating women as inferior and talking at them about subjects with smug condescension exists within the well observed and evidenced sexism and misogyny our culture. We could call that behavior Dingdongits and it would still be attached to the sexist behavior demonstrated by men to women. He fails to understand that yes, women can and have talked at men with smug condescension, but that doesn’t exist within the context of a culture where men are viewed as inferior. He dismisses the context.
Yes, please stop defending you obvious bigotry….
Otis:
No one is holding a fucking gun to your goddamned head. If you don’t like the insults, you can simply stop commenting and go elsewhere. It’s not like you’re making headway here.
Stop everyone, stop immediately! There is Internet Slander afoot!
(Tony! nailed it with the StevoR comparison)
Maureen Brian:
You have such a terribly polite way of being rude, Maureen. A bit like wielding Ronnie Soak’s sword.
@Maureen Brian:
1. Nowhere in this thread have I made any claims to noteworthy levels of education. I referred to myself as “educated” and nothing more. In context, that clearly meant that I have enough basic intelligence and knowledge to deserve respect and dignified treatment. I’m not a troll or an idiot. I’m not posting ungrammatical or incoherent statements. The passionate vitriol and insults directed towards me at that time were already far out of proportion to anything I’d written, and they continue to intensify.
2. Nowhere did I claim to have a “totally upright moral character”. I claimed to be anti-sexist/misogynistic, which is only one component of morality. I could very well be a very immoral person in other ways.
3. Nowhere did say anything remotely suggesting a claim of “life experience which apparently out-classes the combined experience of the entire commentariat of this blog”. I have personally experienced an accusation of “mansplaining” several years ago. That’s the only life experience I’ve claimed.
So why are you making such cartoonish statements that misrepresent my comments in this thread? You made a blatant ad hom attack. Do you consider that to be acceptable behavior? What is your goal in saying such things? What are your values in treatment of other people? What is your attitude towards social justice? Do you care about it or do you think it’s a petty concern that can be “bollocked”. When somebody stands up to defend universal human values in an earnest, articulate way, as I have done here, do you think it’s fun to mock them? Do you think it’s better if people like that just shut up? If you disagree with someone who is engaging in civil, productive discourse, do you think it’s okay to attack them personally instead of addressing their ideas?
“attempting to impose upon people of whom you know nothing a meaning for a single word”
From this part of your comment, I’m guessing you read a very tiny percentage of my comments in the thread, ignored the rest and made very bold assumptions about what I actually argued. I’ll save you the trouble of reading the other comments and summarize it quickly for you here.
In my second comment in this thread, I plainly disavowed an interest in debating the definition of “mansplain”. In the remainder of the thread, I have not made any attempts to defend or impose the definition that I proposed in my first comment. Instead, I made several comments about comparing definitions and the coherence of the cited definitions. The point I’ve been focusing on is the sexism of “mansplain” *as defined by others*. So what you wrote, accusing me of “imposing…” is plain false.
Next you claim I gave “no evidence, no examples, no argument”. Well, I gave a lot of evidence and arguments for the claim I’ve been making, which is that “mansplain” is a sexist term. I’ve made plain arguments citing the large corpus of putative “mansplaining” on the “mansplained” tumblr blog. That’s a lot of evidence. So far nobody has given a counterargument. They are simply repeating something like “mansplaining is real, so stop minimizing it and shut up”.
You say I’m ignorant of the history and etymology of the word, yet others have given information right here on this very topic that I’ve read. Furthermore, the history and etymology of that very new word is a rather sparse topic with little status beyond a footnote. It’s the copious actual usage that we are concerned with here.
Finally, you suggest that I’ve acted like a bully in this thread. Please give any shred of evidence for this outrageous suggestion. I’ve consistently addressed the substance of what others’ write here, listening to them and responding thoroughly, even when they are simply trolling. Meanwhile, several people have piled heaps of abuse on me without engaging my points. Many comments directed towards me have been crude injunctions for me to shut up. Yet you claim that I’m simply being “bollocked”, not bullied. This seems like mob psychology. You don’t think it’s bullying when you’re on the side of the bullies.
Amidst all your plain lies and distortions, your post contains no actual ideas relevant to the debate.
Otis continues to say nothing in as many words as possible.
*Snicker*. You aren’t honest and have enough integrity to deserve anything other than ridicule.
What evidence is required for YOU TO BE WRONG? Honesty and integrity require a real answer, so we will supply the evidence for you to be wrong, both to the lurkers, and in your own eyes. No answer means you have no honesty and integrity….
@anteprepro: In comment #86 you merely restated your circular definition of “mansplain”.
@anteprepo: In comment #89 you rant about lexicology, but I don’t understand your point, if you have one. You could atone for your puerile bluster by simply giving us a casual, straightforward, informal, dictionary-style definition for “mansplain”, with the criterion of capturing the usage cited on the manspained tumblr blog. If you can’t do this, you have no legs to stand on in this debate. My claim is that the usage is inconsistent and doesn’t match the definitions given by others in this thread, e.g. @Tony. My operational definition is something closer to “men acting like jerks towards women”. Well, to me, the best word for all that odious behavior is just plain old “sexism”.
@Nerd
I shouldn’t be feeding the trolls here, but I insist you provide some shred of evidence for your serious accusation that I’m a bigot. Otherwise, please stop attacking me.
Not surprising for a stupid idjit.
I don’t need to supply a word. YOUR OWN WORDS WHERE YOU QUESTION OUR DEFINITION OF “MAINSPLAINING” IS ENOUGH.
Just how stupid are you? WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR YOU TO ADMIT YOU ARE WRONG¿
No answer is the same as admitting you are trolling, and nothing else…..
Adding “troll” to the list of words Otis Idli uses unlike anyone else.
@ck
FYI, I’m not an anti-Muslim bigot. In fact, I’m a deep admirer of many Muslim cultures and people, and routinely enjoy my collection of many thousands of Islamic music recordings spanning many Arabic, Turkic, Persian and Austronesian cultures. I am, however, an anti-theist and hence anti-Islam, which is one reason I follow this excellent blog of PZ Myers, an accomplished critic of theism in general and Islam in particular. Please note the distinction between hating people and hating an idea. Also, I agree with the Harris/Hitchens school of thought that Islam is currently more dangerous, and possibly inherently more dangerous, than any other religion, making me very strongly anti-Islam. My hatred of Islam is matched only by my love of Islamic culture and people.
I’m also not “anti-PC”. For example, I support things like the recent shift from the word “n-g-r toes” to “Brazil nuts” and I support replacing “man” with “person” in many words.I tend to consider the concept of “PC” a strawman and as soon as someone launches an anti-PC schtick, I tend to tune them out immediately and assume they have no credibility.
Now that you know, you don’t have speculate about my beliefs. If you have any other troubling suspicions that I’m an evil scoundrel, please just ask me instead of speculating or assuming.
Hee hee.
“A Goon is a being who melts into the foreground and sticks there.” – Diana Wynne Jones.
Otis, you are a Goon. And that’s the nicest thing one could say about you. More accurately, you’re an Asshole Goon.
Otis Idii:
If you’re going to continue commenting, whining about people being mean to you isn’t going to accomplish anything. Deal with it or go the fuck away. You’ve earned the mockery you’ve gotten.
The term is new. The behavior is not. The term mansplaining accurately describes a pattern of behavior observed over and over again in society.
I’m not sure why you can’t see why this is sexist behavior:
Yes, we acknowledge that women do it too, but they’re not doing so in the context thousands of years of sexism and misandry. It’s like the difference between a man insulting a woman by calling her a c*nt and woman insulting a man by calling him a dick. Although both are slurs, the former is significantly worse because its use occurs in a society where women are treated as inferior and have been routinely been discriminated against and oppressed for millenia. It’s part of an overall pattern of sexist and misogynistic behavior.
The fact that you continue to refuse to accept this is one of the reasons you’re getting so much pushback.
Oh, and btw, there are no air quotes around anteprepro’s nym. Nor any need for them.
Otis @ 115
Of the set of actions that make up “men acting like jerks towards women”, one of those items is mansplaining. You cant see the trees for the forest. You are confusing an item part of a set for the set itself. For all you grandiloquent posts, you come off as not terribly insightful.
@Amphiox:
You’re making a very serious and alarming claim here. Please give evidence to support your claim that I’m a racist and have failed to recognize or admit it. If you have no evidence, please stop attacking and slandering me.
So in short, a word coined to describe a sexist activity is sexist.
If you don’t want to be called an MRA, don’t take a page from their playbook.
What evidence is required for you to admit you are a fuckwitted idjit?
Otis:
Oh my. My, my, my.
Otis, we have seen and read the results of your basic intelligence and knowledge. They don’t deserve the slightest bit of notice, let alone respect and dignified treatment. Y’see, when you first started posting, people were nice enough to explain things to you, clearly, and with a fair amount of reading matter generously linked. All you have done since is 1) insist words mean whatever you want them to mean, and 2) repeat yourself ad nauseam.
As you won’t stop behaviours 1 and 2, you’re getting mockery. Fully deserved mockery. After all, we deserve some amusement in the face of your being an ignoranus. You may console yourself, however, as I’m sure you have a 3 digit IQ hiding someplace or another.
Otis Idii:
Nerd is not a troll. That would be you. Remember, you’re the one whining about how you’re being treated so badly, yet you keep commenting. It’s like someone is literally holding a gun to your head and demanding that you continue to type out vapidly verbose responses in an attempt to get the last word.
If you want people to stop criticizing and insulting you, stop saying things worthy of criticism and insult.
I didn’t define anything in number 86 except what I meant by “gender dynamic”, you fucking idiot. Not everything in life boils down to definitions.
Amazing! Otis finally finds something his magnificent mind does not understand! Hoorah!
My point was that not every word in the English language is a precise, scientific term, fuckwit.
If only you could atone for your own.
Because heaven fucking forbid there be multiple terms describing similar things. Apparently the English language doesn’t have synonyms either! Congratulations, master of English and linguistics and logic and all things under the fucking sun. Your war against “mansplain” is only resulting in the entire rest of the dictionary as collateral damage. And yet you are too fucking thick to even acknowledge that your “logic” would result in such if it was actually applied with anything resembling consistency.
Why haven’t you fucked off yet?
@chigau
Thank you for the link. Other than the fact I was a little slow to pick up on the formatting conventions with blockquotes, quote numbers, etc, I have not violated any of those rules, but it is worth noting that two others have egregiously violated these rules here: “anteprepro” and “Nerd of Redhead”. They have violated the following rules: I.5, I.6, II.2, IV.9, IV.10. The posting of “chigau” (you) and “Inaji” seems to be a borderline case because of several repeated personal attacks without any other content.
As far as I can tell, asking people to stop making personal attacks on me without any supporting evidence is not a violation of these rules.
Anyone know where I can purchase an Otis to English dictionary? His use of terms is rather…odd.
Also: OH NOES INTERNET SLANDER.
(Written slander is libel, by the way, master of linguistics)
Otis:
Oh great, this stupidity again.
Thankfully I addressed this recently at B&W:
To even begin to claim that Islam is the worst, you’ve got to have some sort of metric to judge it by, and you have to get widespread agreement on that metric. Good luck with that.
Even if you do, then what? How does knowing that “Islam is the worst religion in the world” help fix anything? What measures can be taken against it? Does that mean we ignore the problems of other religions until we can fix the problem of Islam? How do you even begin to “fix” a religion?
I’m opposed to all religious belief, and I see no point in ranking them. There’s nothing to be accomplished in playing “Which religion is the worst?” Unless you like mental masturbation games.
I see Otis is also an expert in Internet Law as well.
Regarding I.5 and IV.9 and IV.10, see section V.1. You have a very low bar for “abusive” apparently.
Regarding I.6 and II.2: blatant projection is blatant.
Also pertinent to you: II.1 (because you are an idiot making a stupid point by referencing racial slurs), II.3, all of section III, and VI.3.
You continue your marvelous streak of lacking self-awareness.
Otis:
No, it’s not a violation. It’s just whining like a petulant child who isn’t getting what he wants.
Dunning-Kruger personifying mansplainer who drops racial slurs to illustrate just how mean the word “mansplain” is to Teh Poor Menz is also an Atheist Brand Islamophobe. Who would have guessed, who would have guessed.
Gee, what a fuckwit, as you don’t admit to what rules you have violated, which is many.
Now fuckwit, what evidence needs to be presented to prove you are WRONG, so we can provide it, and you can fade into the bandwidth with you tail between your legs….
HONESTY AND INTEGRITY REQUIRE AN ANSWER.
@Tony
Okay, you are a noble person amidst this mob of bullies because you’re actually engaging the topic. My response is simply that the same smug condescension is observed man-against-man and woman-and-man. I think that it’s a really interesting hypothesis that men are usually the protagonist in this behavior. I don’t know if that’s true–it’s certainly complex and controversial–but I know that hypothesis has been widely circulated among prestigious academics, as I mentioned earlier. I’m agnostic on that non-sexist variant of the “mansplain” hypothesis. In any case, I can claim with confidence that the man-against-man case is extremely common, possibly far more common than the man-against-woman case. And you have just conceded the woman-against-man case. What these observations show is that the smug condescension is a discursive phenomenon independent of sexism. Therefore, its usage as an arbitrary catch-all for discursively oriented sexist behavior is inaccurate and hence sexist.
You’re saying something rather vague about “existing within the context” of sexism, but I really don’t understand what you mean there. It sounds like weasel words to me. I could just as well say something like “…man-against-man smug condescension exists within the context of a culture where people are rewarded for verbally-based intellectual aggression and where abstract intellectual competitiveness is valued more than bodily, sensory or practical skills…”.
So Otis why does your definition not match up with the examples Inaji listed? Why should your personal definition take the place of all others? What makes you so privileged?
*snicker* The answer is unacknowledged sexism……
Now, Otis, what is necessary to prove your sorry ass wrong. We will be happy to supply the readily availble commody…..
First, some clarification. Just what is mansplaining? I like this definition.
Mansplaining isn’t just the act of explaining while male, of course; many men manage to explain things every day without in the least insulting their listeners.
Mansplaining is 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.
Bonus points if he is explaining how you are wrong about something being sexist!
Think about the men you know. Do any of them display that delightful mixture of privilege and ignorance that leads to condescending, inaccurate explanations, delivered with the rock-solid conviction of rightness and that slimy certainty that of course he is right, because he is the man in this conversation?
That dude is a mansplainer.
So, herewith, I open the official TSZ “You May Be A Mansplainer If…” thread. Feel free to post your favorite examples, though I expect there may be a certain loopy repetition after awhile…
[snip]
I will start us off with a few recent examples. Many, many thanks to commenter Michael Hawkins for these delightful examples of You May Be A Mansplainer If…
1. You MUST explain why everything I said is beside the point, and wrong, and silly.
2. You MUST explain why you are not a mansplainer, then re-explain things to the wimminz. Also, call them sexist.
3. You MUST explain that you mansplain because you assume that blogs are written by men, then re-explain things to the wimminz AGAIN.
4. Ignore everything everyone says, then accuse everyone else of being sexist to you. Follow this with some SERIOUS explaining! Teh wimminz are slow, but they will surely understand someday! Because you are a MAN! And you are SPLAININ’!
Source: http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/2010/01/25/you-may-be-a-mansplainer-if/
Otis
Otis, Otis, Otis. You are an absolute idiot. Appallingly so. It has already been pointed out by several different in several different ways that this is not relevant. It just isn’t. Men have more power than women. The smug condescension against someone you have more social clout than is different than condescending to someone with equal privilege or greater privilege. You just consistently refuse to get it. You just keep repeating yourself and then just bleat about us being mean to you or repeating ourselves when arguing against your latest regurgitation of the same bullshit.
Get a clue or go fuck yourself. Get a clue or go fuck yourself. Get a clue or go fuck yourself .
Otis:
Mansplaining is a term that describes sexist behavior of the part of men directed at women. Part of the reason it is so bad is that the term is used within a society that contains copious amounts of sexism and misogyny (context).
Even when women engage in the same behavior, it is not in the same caliber of sexism (as when men use it), bc it is not used within a society that contains copious amounts of sexism and misandry.
You continue to refuse to accept how the word is used, the very definition of the word, and the extent to which the behavior occurs. If you’d accept the definitions given, rather than asserting that your personal definition is the uber sooper special def, and then follow that up by listening to the stories women tell, you might come out with a much better understanding of where we’re all coming from. But you’ve got to lose your damned biases, or at least be willing to be wrong.
And I’m alternating between engaging with and mocking you. You ought to have noticed. I tried engaging you reasonably over 100 comments ago, and you just refused to engage honestly, preferring to redefine the term mansplaining, and rejecting the examples I gave. As you continue to do so, you deserve the mockery you’ve received.
Inaji quotes:
“SEE ALSO: Idli, Otis”
Otis, the definition of discussion includes the possibility you are wrong. What would it take to prove you are wrong?
Somebody who is preaching can’t be wrong. They can also be dismissed, ridiculed, pointed to, and laughed at. What is your choice?
Tony!
Tony!, you were already fed up with the troll and had succinctly summarized his ignorance at comment 37 XD Otis is lucky that you are even giving them a half-serious effort.
Pardon the length of this, I don’t think Otis can be trusted to click a link and read.
Otis! Your privilege is making blind.
What it does mean is that on the scale of life advantage, white males are at the top of the privilege list, which often prevents them from seeing just how imbalanced the power dynamic is when it comes to women. So, Otis, here ya go:
The Male Privilege Checklist
1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed.
2. I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex – even though that might be true. (More).
3. If I am never promoted, it’s not because of my sex.
4. If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won’t be seen as a black mark against my entire sex’s capabilities.
5. I am far less likely to face sexual harassment at work than my female co-workers are. (More).
6. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job.
7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are relatively low. (More).
8. On average, I am taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces much less than my female counterparts are.
9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question.
10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity will not be called into question.
11. If I have children and provide primary care for them, I’ll be praised for extraordinary parenting if I’m even marginally competent. (More).
12. If I have children and a career, no one will think I’m selfish for not staying at home.
13. If I seek political office, my relationship with my children, or who I hire to take care of them, will probably not be scrutinized by the press.
14. My elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more this is true.
15. When I ask to see “the person in charge,” odds are I will face a person of my own sex. The higher-up in the organization the person is, the surer I can be.
16. As a child, chances are I was encouraged to be more active and outgoing than my sisters. (More).
17. As a child, I could choose from an almost infinite variety of children’s media featuring positive, active, non-stereotyped heroes of my own sex. I never had to look for it; male protagonists were (and are) the default.
18. As a child, chances are I got more teacher attention than girls who raised their hands just as often. (More).
19. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether or not it has sexist overtones.
20. I can turn on the television or glance at the front page of the newspaper and see people of my own sex widely represented.
21. If I’m careless with my financial affairs it won’t be attributed to my sex.
22. If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex.
23. I can speak in public to a large group without putting my sex on trial.
24. Even if I sleep with a lot of women, there is no chance that I will be seriously labeled a “slut,” nor is there any male counterpart to “slut-bashing.” (More).
25. I do not have to worry about the message my wardrobe sends about my sexual availability. (More).
26. My clothing is typically less expensive and better-constructed than women’s clothing for the same social status. While I have fewer options, my clothes will probably fit better than a woman’s without tailoring. (More).
27. The grooming regimen expected of me is relatively cheap and consumes little time. (More).
28. If I buy a new car, chances are I’ll be offered a better price than a woman buying the same car. (More).
29. If I’m not conventionally attractive, the disadvantages are relatively small and easy to ignore.
30. I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch.
31. I can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of violence is called “crime” and is a general social concern. (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called “domestic violence” or “acquaintance rape,” and is seen as a special interest issue.)
32. I can be confident that the ordinary language of day-to-day existence will always include my sex. “All men are created equal,” mailman, chairman, freshman, he.
33. My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.
34. I will never be expected to change my name upon marriage or questioned if I don’t change my name.
35. The decision to hire me will not be based on assumptions about whether or not I might choose to have a family sometime soon.
36. Every major religion in the world is led primarily by people of my own sex. Even God, in most major religions, is pictured as male.
37. Most major religions argue that I should be the head of my household, while my wife and children should be subservient to me.
38. If I have a wife or live-in girlfriend, chances are we’ll divide up household chores so that she does most of the labor, and in particular the most repetitive and unrewarding tasks. (More).
39. If I have children with my girlfriend or wife, I can expect her to do most of the basic childcare such as changing diapers and feeding.
40. If I have children with my wife or girlfriend, and it turns out that one of us needs to make career sacrifices to raise the kids, chances are we’ll both assume the career sacrificed should be hers.
41. Assuming I am heterosexual, magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are rarer.
42. In general, I am under much less pressure to be thin than my female counterparts are. (More). If I am fat, I probably suffer fewer social and economic consequences for being fat than fat women do. (More).
43. If I am heterosexual, it’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll ever be beaten up by a spouse or lover. (More).
44. Complete strangers generally do not walk up to me on the street and tell me to “smile.” (More: 1 2).
45. Sexual harassment on the street virtually never happens to me. I do not need to plot my movements through public space in order to avoid being sexually harassed, or to mitigate sexual harassment. (More.)
45. On average, I am not interrupted by women as often as women are interrupted by men. (More.)
46. I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.
Source: The Male Privilege Checklist.
@Tony
Look, a few of these people are repeatedly attacking me with really serious claims against me, calling me a racist, sexist, bigot, etc. They are repeatedly making these claims without any supporting evidence and they are making these claims in shockingly rude ways. It’s bullying, cut and dry. There’s no way you can defend that behavior. It’s unethical and violates every community standard of internet discourse. Do you really think it’s better to just stop commenting instead of defending myself? That would accomplish nothing. I think it’s better to confront them and ask them to take responsibility for their behavior. That might accomplish something. I think it’s a mistake to let people silence you through bullying. I keep commenting because I care about social justice and I think “mansplain” is a sexist, stupid concept and I have an argument that hasn’t been refuted yet, or hardly even acknowledged. Unlike others, you’ve engaged the topic, and I’m grateful, but you’re also guilty of some bullying here too. Your comment quoted right here is evidence.
Otis! Click over and read: The Male Privilege Checklist.
Your own words aren’t enough? What planet do you live on?
dWho dthe fuck are you to define anything, if you misdefine mansplaining?
Whereas I think it’s mistake if you can’t/won’t acknowledge what will prove you wrong. What will prove you wrong? Until you admit what will prove you wrong, you are simply preaching, and will be dismissed. Only if you allow yourself to be wrong, can you be right….
@Arawhon
The forest here is the larger pool of bad human behavior that includes plenty of non-sexist behavior, and I’m on the only one talking about that. As I’ve pointed out many times here, the behavior labelled “mansplaining” is commonly found in man-against-man and woman-against-man and woman-against-woman versions. That makes it a different problem than sexism. It overlaps with sexism of course, but it’s not subsumed by sexism. Not by any stretch. Secondly, the “item” you assume to exist hasn’t been defined yet in any way that matches the cited usage. The mansplained tumblr blog is a a huge mound of evidence. Those are the two main insights I’ve offered. They have barely been acknowledged in this thread dominated by bullies.
@Rey Fox
No, “mansplain” is a word coined to describe a mishmash of rude or stupid human behavior that sometimes overlaps with sexism and sometimes doesn’t. The claim that such behavior is sexist is therefore false in general. The word “mansplain” is therefore sexist because it falsely attributes sexism. In general, we can define the various forms of bigotry–racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc–as the usage of a demographic category in a false or irrelevant way. I hope that clarifies my reasoning.
All you are doing is jacking off.
What is required to prove you wrong. Your lack of answer is telling everybody you bad intentions, whether you want it to or not. The only recovery to is say what will prove you wrong……
Hilarious.
Otis shrieks to the heavens:
Really serious claims! Sure, Otis can say that mansplaining is a sexist slur, but you dare accuse Otis of sexism the same way!!!? Otis will see you in court!
What part of “rude blog” are you not getting, exactly? Was understanding words written by people who aren’t you not included in part of this esteemed “education” you were speaking of?
Unethical? Violates standards of internet discourse? So, one, you fail at ethics. Two, you apparently are new to the internet. Please, show us more about what you know jackshit about.
What you call “defending yourself” is really what I might call “proving us right”. You really kinda suck at it. Just thought you should know.
I agree. That’s why we aren’t just patting you on the head on saying “boys will be boys” and letting you scamper on your merry, ignorant way. Your obviously bullshit quibbling on this matter has been taken to task. You have yet to take any responsibility, but we certainly didn’t let you just leave a turd in the punch bowl and then waltz away like you would in other areas of the internet that don’t give as much of a shit about obvious anti-feminist bullshit.
You care about social justice….for men. That’s all we have seen. That’s your only overriding concern. That “mansplain” is somehow sexist against men. No concern about women at all. Dismissing the role of sexism against women in order to quibble about the definition of the term. Yeah, you care about the same kind of “social justice” as MRAs. As has already been pointed out. Yet your only response to that has been “lol I just googled MRA three days ago lol” and “INTERNET SLANDER HOW DO YOU WHAAARRGGGLGARBBBLL”.
The most charitable assessment I have of you is that you are incredibly self-centered.
Really? No one has addressed your arguments?
You are just far too precious for this blog. By fucking god.
Yeah, see you in court.
Otis, what is require to prove my null hypothesis that deities are imaginary: physical evidence that would pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers as being of divine, and not natural (scientifically explained), origin.
See how simple it is. Why can’t/won’t you do that, unless you are a troll…..
So a behavior isn’t sexist because it could conceivably be perpetrated by a minority citizen to a majority one, or same-on-same. Guess we’ll have to throw out “lynch”, “redline”, and…pretty much everything else. It’s basically the “reverse racism” whine.
I think antepro had it right in comment #48.
I’ve got the popcorn and grog, if anyone wants some.
**
But seriously, Otis Idli, has it not yet occurred to you that you might (are) mansplaining. right ow, right here in this very thread? You have told several commenters, many of whom are women that they can’t possibly know what mansplaining is. Yet they’ve said several times that they have experienced it in their own lives.
Further, has it not occurred to you that you are quite irritatingly and successfully negating our lived experiences? When you deny and devalue what is oft lived through, you can expect rude words to flow. And as mentioned several times, this is not a polite commentariat.
Learn from your mistakes, admit it and apologize, or go away.
Might *be*
Sheesh. Folks, I’m replacing that grog with some pumpkin spice mead. It apparently causes the dropping of verbs. *sigh*
The grog is an offering to Tpyos now.
Otis: you keep forgetting the context here. Let’s try an example: Person A punches Person B, knocking them unconscious. In most contexts, that would be called assault. In a boxing ring, it’s called a knock-out. Context fucking matters.
So while any given person can be condescending to any other given person, there’s a little extra sting to it when a man who knows nothing about me tries to (using real examples here): explain to me how to properly cook a steak, takes over, then serves a bunch of completely rare steaks to people who wanted them medium; or takes my own hammer away from me and won’t let me hammer my own damned tent stakes into the ground (while my male colleagues were all left alone to put up their own tents in peace).
Oh, and if you complain about not being able to make posts with the n word in them (even though you were simply attributing the word to someone else), it makes you look racist, no matter what you may actually believe, and people here are going to call you on it. Seriously, you couldn’t just come up with a different analogy rather than whine about the aesthetics of an already ugly word?
I mean, never mind that mansplaining is a prevalent and well-documented phenomenon. Never mind that it’s pretty obvious that men who do it are, consciously or unconsciously, doing it on the assumption that women can’t possibly know more than they do about a subject. Never mind that they do this even when the woman is a recognized expert in the field in question. No, apparently because sometimes, occasionally*, a superficially similar thing happens between men and men or women and men or whatever, then “mansplaining” can’t possibly be a term describing a sexist behavior.
* Yes, I don’t have the numbers, but I would be quite surprised if it was anywhere near as common for a woman to condescend to someone purely on the basis of that someone being a man. And when it happens between men, there is usually some other bias at play, like the mansplainer is older than the target of the mainsplaining, or of a higher social class. It all rolls downwards whatever the axis of privilege in question is. And that does not help Otis’ point.
Otis:
I’m confuzzled. How is this bullying?
If I’d said No one is making you comment. If you don’t like it the insults, , you can stop commenting and go elsewhere, would that have been bullying?
What is your definition of bullying?
Otis:
Your comments about Islam are so dangerously close to the same type of things many bigots have said that I don’t think people are out of line to call you a bigot.
Cyberbully 2: Fahrenheit 911yngula
Agony In Analog, Danger in Digital
Starring:
Robocop AS Tony! Shooprano
The Terminator AS The Nerd Of Bled Heads
A Giant Fucking Mechanical Spider AS Chigauniggurath
GLADOS with a machete AS Inaji
A Fox With A Laser Cannon AS Ray Fox
Like, the Entire Fucking Matrix AS Phaddeus Zeta Meyers
C3PO With A Chainsaw AS ANTEBEEP0
Conjoined Monster Trucks AS Amphi Ox
A shit stain on the carpet AS sparkles
Steve Buschemi AS every single lurker.
Betty White AS The Minister of Haxxorz.
And Robin Thicke AS Our Hero, Otis Idiotically.
Come for the dramaz, stay for the BLOOD. IN 3D!
I suppose it would be this:
Attacks on his sterling reputation as a world-music-listening feminist superhero. Do you not know how serious these are? He may never work in this internet again!
Ha! Otis is fucked. right. up. Have I missed out, or is the joint still going round the circle?
I’ll sign off on that, got to correct the spelling though. Can I have a consultant credit for all that?
I think it is big enough to get around to you…
anteprepro @164:
I’m starting you a queue.
That was priceless.
Misspelling was intentional to protect the innocent, but I will understand if your agent is not having any of that. And go ahead. Have everything you want. We are going for a $12 budget and are showing for one night in my mom’s basement. If we have anything from that, take it. But damn, are Betty White and Steve Buscemi gonna be pissed. Robin Thicke will be strangely cool with it though.
Thanks Tony! Think I should set something up on Kickstarter? Give me five minutes and three napkins and I am sure I can have a full script prepared.
Uh oh. The Artist formerly known as Brownian is in the building. Might have to have one queue at the front door and one at the back…
anteprepro:
We’ll need a bigger room than that if we’re going to get Michael Bay to direct…
Nevermind, I think I’m already good. anteprepro’s comment #164 reads like the wickedest movie…
How can I insert this into a joke about the queue…
Otis Idli wrote:
Ahem.
Those were your words, remember them? I don’t really care for the religion of Islam, but those words you used are specifically crafted to denigrate the people, rather than religion. You can talk about how you
let them use your bathroom“are a deep admirer of [their] culture”, but your earlier words have already betrayed you. What’s worse is that it’s hardly the first time…Butbutbut… I’m *still* in Brownian’s queue. I can’t be two places at once!
Anteprepro:
Sweet! I’m more of a fleuret though.
http://replygif.net/i/1247.gif
A Giant Fucking Mechanical Spider AS Chigauniggurath
I am fucking pleased.
@anteprepro #129
Well, the only words that are precise, scientific terms are… scientific terms. So you’re numbing us with banality here. Imprecision is the normal and functional property of language. Words work better when they are flexible. Both vagueness and ambiguity are powerful features in language. But that’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card for defining something. Dictionary definitions usually strike a balance of precision and accessibility. Accuracy and coherence is more importance than precision when defining words. If you could write a dictionary-style definition for “mansplain” that actually matched the usage, it would be a great achievement. In comment #138, @Inaji pastes several dictionary definitions, which is helpful, but unfortunately none of them actually match the cited usage of the term, so we have to conclude that either the definition or some of the usage is wrong. It would be nice if people gave their opinions on that, but so far nobody else has even acknowledged that problem.
@anteprepo:
“mansplain” and “sexism” are obviously not synonyms or even particularly similar, because “sexism” refers to a vastly wider range of phenomena. And as I’ve said a few times, there are copious non-sexist cases of the behavior labelled “mansplaining”. It’s pretty funny how much bluster and blather you inject into your comments even when you make blatantly false statements. Your comment-rage is terrifying and disgusting.
@Tony #130
I won’t go off-topic and discuss the Harris style thesis of Islamic exceptionalism in this thread, but I will take a moment to acknowledge what you wrote there and in your link. I think both sides of that debate have a lot of strong arguments, so it’s not a position I hold with any special conviction. I think your argument is reasonable and intelligent, but I’m not convinced by it. I am currently convinced by Harris and others. The two sides are not so far apart.
@anteprepro #136
I have not dropped any racial slurs here and I’m not an Islamophobe, so unless you have any evidence to support such seriously defamatory claims, I will once again ask you to stop attacking me with false claims. Your bullying will not silence me. If you continue to bully, harass and troll me, I will continue to call attention to it and ask you to stop.
@Tony
Are you talking about the definition I offered in my first comment in this thread? I have made no attempt to defend that definition and I said as much in my second comment. It’s just one possible definition among many. So I have never said that particular definition should take the place of all others. Why would you accuse me of that dozens of posts later? You’re suddenly arguing against a strawman out of the blue. Odd. I’m not interested in defending any definitions for “mansplain”. I’m interested in evaluating the definitions other people cite to see if they match the usage they cite. So far nobody has succeeded in this task, but I’m open to the possibility that somebody will. That would involve them classifying a lot of usage as false usage.
Otis Idli
It’s way too late but once again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_holes
@Inaji #142
That post doesn’t add much to the other definitions you cited earlier. It doesn’t match the usage and it doesn’t address the issue of non-sexist examples of that type of discursive behavior. It’s also a self-indulgent failed attempt at humor that seems to aiming for snark instead of truth.
@anteprepro #143
Are you claiming that all men have more power than all women and that all men have equal power or privilege as all other men? That is an utterly absurd claim. I think the data can be explained much easier in terms of personality differences and context-specific power imbalances, which is not necessarily related to sexism at all. You’re arguing in terms of a cartoonish, broad-brushed generalization about “privilege” as some kind of intrinsic artificat of gender, but privilege isn’t a unitary phenomenon. There’s all kinds of different privileges and if you take any two people there can be a lot of different power imbalances. My point about man-against-man, woman-against-man and woman-against-woman dynamics is the crux of my argument and you haven’t refuted it with your cartoon fairytale about “privilege”.
@Tony #144
You’re back on that strawman from your comment #140. Again, I have not been claiming that I have a better definition for “mansplain” than everyone else. You refer to “the very definition”, but which one is that? Many have been offered and none match the usage. They match little patches of the usage and totally fail to capture gender-independent generalizations about the usage. Again, the phenomenon in question is not about sexism. It’s about discourse dynamics between any two people of any gender.
@Tony #144
Again, your argument fall apart when man-against-man behavior is considered. Why is a certain kind of condescending behavior “worse” in the man-against-woman case compared to the man-against-man case? These vague appeals to context of a sexist society doesn’t add up to any argument I can discern. If someone acts like a jerk, how is that related to the general climate of sexism in society? If a man acts like a jerk towards both men and women on a regular basis, which is a typical case in my estimation, why would you explain one set of data using the sexism hypothesis and then invoke some other explanation for the other set of data? Can’t you see that the mansplaining-as-sexism hypothesis is just a failure to capture a big generalization about human behavior?
@Inaji #149
“male privilege” is pretty much a new term that means “sexism (against women)”. It could be replaced with the term “gender privilege” to cover a wider range of sexism. What’s your point in sharing that link to a list of examples of male privilege? I agree that sexism is a serious, pervasive problem in every part of the world I know about, and that sexism against women is basically 99% of the sexism in the world, so it’s the problem we should pay most attention to. How is it relevant to this debate?
Otis Idli
So you are really not from this planet.
.
Keep this up through the weekend and you are pretty much guaranteed your ‘merit’ badge.
Just had to insert your missing words there. And want to remind you of my question, way up when.
Please provide examples of the term mansplaining being used as a “relative of lazy ad hom argumentation”, or forever be filed under “woefully awful waffle”.
Meanwhile, I’m staying in the original queue, but I hope many people will jump to the new queue and shorten the wait time. *Looks anxiously at blue ticket #74933H* One day, some day, my number will come up, and I’ll get some of that sweet, sweet brownian motion.
That’s directed at Otis Idli comment #188, for interested observers.
Suido
We also have a Louis queueueue.
There is some intersectionalityness.
But no one really groks the fullness.
@anteprepro #155
I have not been quibbling about the definition of the term. I’ve been giving a careful argument that the cited definitions are sexist. All of them. I don’t care which definition you choose. So far they don’t match the usage and they falsely implicate sexism in a more general pattern of human behavior.
As far as your claim that I don’t care about sexism against women, let me tell you what I care about it, and if you don’t believe me that’s your choice, but you’d have to wonder why I would lie about my beliefs to strangers on the internet? What benefit would I receive?
Earlier in this thread I explicitly stated that I’m anti-sexist and anti-misogynstic. I was raised to be anti-sexist and anti-racist and I’ve been that way my whole life. Sexism isn’t just “against women” or “against men”. Any form of bigotry hurts all humans. Nobody is free until we’re all free. So it’s false to accuse me of “no concern for woman at all” just because the specific instance of sexism I’m refuting happens to target men.
In my opinion, sexism against men is a very tiny problem compared to sexism against women and sexism against minority genders (third/fourth/etc genders). I don’t even think anti-men sexism is a very interesting topic. I mean, to me it’s like talking about capital punishment. Really, who cares? It’s such a tiny issue. For any one innocent person who might be tragically killed by capital punishment, there are many thousands of innocent people who are tragically killed by drunk driving or alcohol-induced violence. The rampant abuse of alcohol is to me an extremely important topic that dwarves capital punishment beyond significance. People discuss capital punishment a lot because they find it philosophically interesting–good debate fodder–whereas nobody really disagrees about the problem of drunk driving–it would be like preaching to the choir: “hey, drunk driving is wrong. yawn.”–and people feel mostly helpless to solve the problem. For every man that suffers from sexism, there are thousands, maybe millions, of women who suffer profoundly worse from sexism. Recently I heard some references to this “MRA” stuff you guys keep talking about, but as far as I know, which is not far, it’s just some irrelevant bullshit not worth paying attention to.
You might wonder why I’m so passionate about this issue with “mansplain” then. It’s not because I’m concerned about men suffering from a dumb, sexist concept. After all, it’s just a trifling insult that bruises the ego, while the suffering of women from all sorts of sexism is sometimes also trifling, but often intense and serious. And we don’t even have to cite the extreme stuff like honor killings to make this observation. The answer to the question is that I’m passionate about language. That’s it, sorry that it’s such mundane reason. It’s my academic background and a source of endless fascination. I think this topic is really interesting because it lets me think about sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, etc, some stuff I personally care about a lot at a hobby-level. “mansplain” is a stupid, sexist term, but it’s not earth-shattering or important. Nevertheless, I think that if you can achieve conceptual clarity on very small topics, this can become a tool to tackle more important topics. Linguists, entomologists, microbiologists, artists and plenty of other sorts of people seem to spend countless hours mesmerized by seemingly irrelevant tiny details of the world, but sometimes it’s just what they enjoy and sometimes it reveals a universe in a grain of sand. Sexism is a big problem, but we might gain a deeper understanding of it by analyzing a very small, insignificant example of it. If I could make any tiny contribution to this topic, I would be satisfied.
In your comment #155 you also accuse me of being an “anti-feminist”. You have no evidence to support this claim, and let me tell you what I actually believe so you can stop putting words in my mouth and perhaps be less inclined to invent slander against me. In my understanding of feminism, my prescriptivist definition for the term, the goal is gender equality for everyone. The goal is to let all humans be free to live without arbitrary gender-based restrictions. It means letting women choose to embody stereotypes of masculinity, and likewise letting men choose to embody stereotypes of femininity, among many other fluid possibilities of gender and sex. It’s not about putting women ahead of men or any other strawman caricatures of feminism. We call it “feminism” because the main obstacle is millenia of entrenched discrimination against women, because that’s our historical reality and our ongoing and primary struggle, but the ethical principle applies equally to women, men and any other gender.
@Rawnaeris #158
Please show exactly where I told anybody “they can’t possibly know what mansplaining is”. If you don’t have any evidence for this bizarre claim, then please stop making bizarre claims that wildly caricature my carefully stated arguments in this thread. Seriously, where did that come from? Do you think you’ll convince me by throwing in a strawman? If you want a clear-cut example in this thread of the behavior labelled “mansplaining”, you’ll find an embarrassing giant oozing mess of an example in the posts by “anteprepro”.
I’ve never denied the existence of an odious behavioral pattern that people label “mansplaining”. I’ve never denied the odiousness of it. I’ve never denied or negated or devalued anybody’s personal experience of such behavior. I’ve never denied that some cases of this behavior are caused by sexism. My claim has consistently been that “mansplain” is not a well-defined or coherent concept in the cited usage. Additionally, its false implication of sexism is sexism. The primary topic here is the word and concept of “mansplaining”, not the behavior.
@cactusren
That’s an interesting set of examples and I think I understand your argument. It’s also nice to talk about something concrete and personally meaningful. I think you’re saying that a certain kind of condescending behavior is worse when it’s also sexism. That’s actually a trivial observation that doesn’t affect my argument about “mansplain”, because if you have two bad things A and B happen to you at the same time, it’s not surprising that it would be worse than having just one bad thing happen to you. My point is just that A and B are independent. Consider the same scenario with a woman being condescending to you instead of the man. You might think “oh, it’s another person with this whole boss/leader/teacher/egotrip personality, how annoying” instead of thinking “oh, it’s another guy who thinks I’m stupid and helpless because I’m a woman”. But isn’t it the same essential behavior in both cases? There’s even another possibility of a scenario where the man isn’t actually being condescending because a general sexist perception of women. The motivation for his behavior might be flirtation and his social skills or lack thereof might cause him to attempt to impress you with his supposedly superior skills and knowledge, like puffing his feathers. Well, that kind of behavior is basically sexism too, but it’s a different kind, probably more innocent in some people’s judgement. I probably didn’t do a good job analyzing this example, but I think my argument still works out where sexism is one of several possible contexts that can color or intensify an experience.
By the way, I’m not sure how relevant this is, but in my personal opinion, which apparently is an extreme minority opinion, boxing is extremely, crassly, incontrovertibly unethical and it’s sheer insanity that boxing is legal in modern societies. In my eyes, the assault is an assault in the boxing context too. I don’t think it’s ever okay to brutalize another person. We sensibly outlaw cockfights and dogfights, but we allow boxing? It just crushes me to think that so many people can be so vile. Your example of boxing still makes a point in any case. The context does change the meaning of the act. I would call it an illegal assault versus an assault sanctioned by an unethical society driven by mob psychology. I expressed my condemnation of boxing a few times to people I know who have pretty similar cultural backgrounds and worldviews and they figuratively kicked my face in for saying something so absurd. They weren’t as abusive as the trolls on this site, but I was pretty shocked.
@cactusren #160
I have to admit it really hurts me that seemingly intelligent people like you would say such outrageous things. I thought everybody understood the difference between using a word and mentioning a word. It’s such a fundamental, everyday distinction. We have dedicated rules of punctuation for it that all literate people know. You don’t have to be versed in the turgid works of Willard Van Orman Quine to understand use vs mention. I even wrote a super clear and simple explanation of this to defend myself against one of the trollbots earlier. Let me put this is no uncertain terms: it is absolutely, positively not racist in any way, shape or form to mention racist words. When you mention a word, you put it in quote marks (writing) or use noun modifiers like “the word” (speaking) and the linguistic context makes it exceedingly clear that the word is being referred to as a linguistic object just like you would refer to a chair or bird and is not a linguistic act of using the word.
Talking about a word by putting it in quotes is not necessarily attributing it to someone else. It’s just referring to a linguistic object, plain and simple. Attributing it to someone else would be referring to both the linguistic object and a speech act.
When you say “couldn’t you just come up with a different analogy”, it’s like telling a botanist “couldn’t you just study a different plant?”. Um, why should someone just ignore some chunk of the universe? Should I try to figure out which offensive, bigoted words are arbitrarily filtered by a software algorithm so I can talk about the ones that aren’t filtered, or maybe talk about ones that are somehow less offensive? Or would it be okay if I depicted the same word using Cyrillic or Japanese script instead of English? The topic of this thread is words and how they relate to sexism. We are referring to words. Words are cognitive events, sometimes represented by strings of symbols. That’s why I typed “mansplain”, with quotes, a zillion times today.
My post containing the n-word and some other examples of unethical words, a post that still doesn’t appear on this page because it was deleted or put into a moderation queue, was very boring and insignificant. It was just a tiny clarification in response to a trollbot who didn’t understand my phrase “ethically justifiable concept”. Just to help clear up the confusion and spare me these silly criticisms, I’ll paste it here with the offensive words camouflaged.
It’s an unfortunate diversion to the topic of this thread that I have to bother with this trivial topic, but I’m certainly not going to stand by and let people accuse me of racism without setting them straight.
Otis Idli @ 189:
Please go read up a little on privilege before embarrassing yourself in this manner again.
To be slightly more specific re: your second sentence, substituting the term “gender privilege” implies a symmetry that does not exist.
I am dropping into this thread after a couple of days away, and is this really what I find? Otis Idli taking howeversomany comments to mansplain mansplaining? What the hell just happened here?
I’m late to the party but since I was commenting along while I reading, I’ll go ahead and share.
85 Otis Idli
You say the tumblr doesn’t prove anything but social blunders and sexism by men, as if that’s no big deal. Yet huff and puff that women have a specific word for this.
And say mansplaining isn’t sexist “in essence” (stooooooooopid) because anyone can be condescendingly rude talking over someone else. That’s like saying hiring practices aren’t sexist or racist in essence because anyone can be hired. This isn’t Earth-Perfect, dear. When there’s more white men than anyone else despite having others equally or more qualified, clearly something must be the cause. Hand waving that discrepancy way like no big deal so people don’t have to work to change it is in fact apologetics. You’re only servicing the status quo here.
112
Otis Idli
If you think education of any level will magically grant you respect and dignity while you spout bullshit, go apply to Fox news.
LIAR! What you said in #32:
This is complete bullshit. No one has been non-sexist and non-misogynistic their entire life. Growing up in our rigidly sexist society it’s just not possible. Everybody starts sexist because different treatment based on sex starts when born. There have been studies shown how people treat babies differently based on genitals and that effect on people.
You weren’t raised by wolves or in a vacuum.
139 Otis Idli
It’s not just smug condescension. It’s a known, documented phenomenon in this sexist ass world where men talk down to women, as if ignorant children, on topics such as THEIR OWN BOOK. Why the fuck can’t we have a term for this specific activity?
OH NOES IT’S ASSUMING ALL MEN, LIKE SCHRODINGER’S RAPIST!!!! WOMEN DO IT TOO!!
/snort
148 Otis Idli
You’ve clearly never been bullied, like those precious Christians who claim being bullied over everything.
Telling you to fuck off isn’t’ bullying, asshole. It’s free advice from people tired of your shit.
151 Otis Idli
No, mansplaining is for the specific subset of men assuming they know more than women and talking down to them, putting them in their place, and silencing them. Just being an asshole is and can be described using other words. Like you’re being a condescending fuckwit.
We’re not going to stop using a defined word just because someone, somewhere “incorrectly” labeled you as mansplaining. You keep bleating about usage being wrong including the OP poem, which is as clear as day mansplaining. You didn’t even get that right. I’m sure someone has told you that previously, but I doubt they were wrong at this point.
So what if someone said you were mansplaining, big whoop. Examine your behavior, learn, and adjust. Or just get the fuck over it and out of here. No one cares ’bout your fee-fees.
Because it’s not a big generalization like sexism. It’s specific because mansplaining has a chilling effect while just being an ass to another man is different in presentation and results.
196
Otis Idli
Intent isn’t magic. Doesn’t matter if that man is like that to everyone, doesn’t know he did something wrong or was just “trying to help”; if the effect is sexist, it’s sexist. Hence, stop mansplaining you fucking twit.
Use the one we us asshat. Or you are mansplaining….
If you don’t like being called a bigot, there is a very easy solution. YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP. Your vain attempt to say you aren’t sexist just means you ARE sexist. We’ve been there before with MRA/PUA fuckwits. You argue like they do. And as stupidly.
Otis sez
while PZ sez
Yet somehow Otis believes that 46 comments out of 199 – well over 40% – is a perfectly reasonable amount of spiel from him, never mind almost as many again which are about him or in response. By any reasonable definition that is dominating the discussion, after you’ve derailed it that is.
Shouting people down because they disagree with you for good reason is not social justice.
ProTip 1: Most of us are aware of the scientific convention that the person who finds or pins down the characteristics of a new species has a say in its naming. Mansplaining happens to women, women crystallised the thinking on it and created the word, ergo …..
(None of which means that mansplaining cannot also be seen as a subset of other undesirable behaviours – that’s also not instead.)
ProTip 2: The computer which trapped a post is a machine, programmed to catch those very few words which PZ regards as inevitably so laden with negativity that he doesn’t want them on his blog. There is not, sadly, a little homunculus in there to catch why and in what context the word is used, yet the sheer horror of having a post trapped occupied several more posts by Otis. Why?
ProTip 3: Social justice will begin to be possible when e.g. women are allowed to speak freely on any topic they wish, especially matters which profoundly affect them.
That 4O% is a typo, obviously. Over 20% is still too many.
Wow. Otis is still being Otis. Excessively.
181: Says that of course language does not need to be precise, silly me! It just needs to be accurate and coherent and by fucking god, what a quibbling wanker. Also, apparently I am such a fool for saying that mansplain and sexism describe similar things. Stupid me. Believing Otis when he says that exact fucking thing.
182: Otis ironically is averse to going “off-topic” (how many trolls derail threads and then are deadset against deviating from that one derail?) and says that BOTH SIDES of the Islamophobia debate have merit. Oh, and he still is on Harris’s side of it. Because reasons. But don’t talk about it, you guys!!!!
183: More cries of us bullying the privileged asshat. More shrieks of INTERNET SLANDER!!!
184: Otis apparently does not need to defend any position. He just exists to dismiss any definition of mansplain that comes forward. Or just outright ignore them, like the example definitions Inaji presented.
186: Otis proves that if snark, humor, or insult is involved, Otis’s brain turns off and he can suddenly not find the point or message.
187: Otis fails to understand/outright denies the existence of privilege, calling it a fairy tale, and presuming that privilege means that every man is more powerful than every woman. Because the idea of average group differences means nothing to such a nuanced, reasonable, and educated mind as Otis.
188: Otis has the gall to cry out “strawman”. Also Otis just flat out admits that he does not understand how a sexist society plays into the significance of “mansplaining”. But of course that ignorance doesn’t stop Otis from continuing to yammer on, self-assured.
189: Again, Otis fails to understand privilege. Again, Otis dismisses words involving sexism, saying that the only word we really need is “sexism” and nothing more. Because fuck English.
194: Says he wants to prove mansplaining is sexist, admits that sexism against men is a trivial issue anyway, and that his main concern is just because he is interested in language. Glad that your interest in language trumps your concern for women though, Otis.
195: Doubles down on “everyone is mansplaining to me baww baww baww” and doubles down on mansplaining being sexist. YOU HAVEN’T MADE A CASE FOR THAT BUT YOU KEEP REPEATING IT. YOU CLAIM IT IS YOUR MAIN POINT, BUT YOU KEEP AVOIDING IT. If the facile arguments you have made so far are really all you have got, then you are just wrong. The fact that you deny being proven as such is just par for the fucking course.
196: Otis continues his argument:
-Mansplain is sexist, unwarranted condescension against women.
-But unwarranted condescension happens elsewhere!
-Ergo, mansplain isn’t a thing!
With the addendum: “Oh, of course unwarranted condescension plus sexism is worse than regular unwarranted condescension! That doesn’t affect my stance at all, silly!”
You are tedious and obtuse, Otis.
197: Otis is still incredibly indignant about people not being incredibly supportive and enthusiastic of his desire to invoke racial slurs to make his pathetic, asinine case. And is baffled at the idea that someone would dare to suggest that he use other analogies. Apparently that is an affront to his sensibilities and an undue burden on him. Also, fantastically and as a surprise to everyone, it fails to actually clarify the “ethically justified concept” idea, why we should give a fuck about it, or why mansplain isn’t one.
Otis, you are pathetic. In so many ways.
Otis in a nut shell two:
“I care about social justice, I do. I just care about handwringing and dismissing language that conveniently labels male sexist behavior more! MUCH more!”
It’s a busy weekend, and I’m tired of dealing with long-winded bullshitters. Otis is banned.
Well, then.
What shall we talk about now?
I shaved 5 minutes off my 5K time this morning… Feels good!
Well. Pumpkin Spice Mead is amazingly good, and I plan on drinking a fair bit of it today.
All the bloody rain we’ve had, and it just has to dry up in time for fireworks. I have pissed off some rain god or another.
@Chigau: I did pause before writing the above, as queuing for Louis sounded more familiar than queuing for AnthonyK, but I went with what Tony! had written.
Turns over ticket to read the back: Admit 1 to Queuey Louis and the Booze
Well, that’s embarrassing.
Otis tells us that the word is wrong,
He tells us long, and tells us strong.
And through his blusterous dance and song.
We try our best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to ignore well,
He calls our arguments unsound
And often asks us not to yell.
We cannot win, he makes his exit.
The planet goes on being sexist.
– Antie Prope
Poor Otis. Deprived of his divine internet right to repeat himself ad nauseam, Now he is going to have no choice but to bring his tragic tale of being bullied and censored elsewhere. I wonder if a pitter will offer him a shoulder to cry on?
Suido:
Kinda has a Florence Henderson & The Machine vibe to it…
anteprepro:
Vying for Cuttlefish’s position at FtB?
Aww. I have so much more popcorn left.
Rey Fox:
You might be able to make use of it over in the Cumia thread.
Tony:
No kidding. All the asses are showing now.