"Mansplaining" -- A Made-Up Social Crime That Helps Feminists Demand That Women Be Treated As Eggshells, Not Equals
From Wikipedia:
Mansplaining is a portmanteau of the words man and the informal form splaining of the verb explaining and means "to explain something to someone, typically a man to woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing.
More from Wikipedia:
"Lily Rothman of The Atlantic defines it as "explaining without regard to the fact that the explainee knows more than the explainer, often done by a man to a woman."
Heh. The truth is, in my blowhardier 20s (no comments, please, from those who think these days never ended -- I'm trying), I think I did this with some frequency to everybody, mainly out of insecurity.
I read and think a lot, so if there's one cudgel I've always had available to me, its information -- in combination with my genetic heritage. (My mom's a pain in the ass intellectually, who will shake people's weak arguments like a bulldog shakes a rag doll, until they're in tatters on the floor.)
On a related note, I know evolutionary psychology pretty damn well. I am, in fact, the President of the Applied Evolutionary Society, and I've been going to ev psych conferences for almost 20 years and reading evolutionary psychologists' journal articles and book chapters.
And that's not all. I spoke at the 2015 ev psych conference (on applied evolutionary psychology), I've had my applied ev psych reviewed in ev psych journals, and I did a poster about some applied ev psych I did that anthropologist Jerome Barkow spoke about and chronicled in his book, "Missing the Revolution: Darwinism for Social Scientists."
I'm also included in some other books -- including Mating Intelligence Unleashed -- and Scott Barry Kaufman, who wrote that with Glenn Geher, included a bunch of quotes and my thinking from my column in a talk he gave at the Northeast Evolutionary Psych Society meeting a few years back. There are other examples -- these are just a few.
Yet sometimes, some guy in a bar will start telling me what, oh, David Buss thinks or what some study (sometimes one I've just pored over for a day) says.
This happened to victim feminist Rebecca Solnit, who took it verrry personally. Again, from Wikipedia:
More:
In an essay titled Men Explain Things to Me, Solnit told an anecdote about a man at a party who said he had heard she had written some books. She began to talk about her most recent book at the time, on Eadweard Muybridge, whereupon the man cut her off and asked if she had "heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year" - not considering that it might be (as, in fact, it was) Solnit's book.
Because I don't go out into the world trained to be a victim, I don't see every interaction through a victim's eyes. I also don't think everything is about me. So I see people's blowhard-y comments for what they are: those of human beings who want to seem interesting and are using whatever information they can to do that.
So, after somebody tells me what they know, I'll say, "Yeah, I've read that" or something like that, and tell them more about the topic. It's called "Having a conversation," and I really enjoy it.
And frankly, nobody's going to push me around conversationally. And that's why I think the notion of "mansplaining" as some social crime against women, is just ridiculous.
An evolutionary psychologist I respect thinks similarly, and took it a step further. Diana Fleischman (see her research here) -- tweeted this:
There's already a word for mansplaining. It's called being patronizing. And I'm as good at it as any man.
— Diana S. Fleischman (@sentientist) October 1, 2016
On a related note, I went out for drinks with the woman who became my best friend eight years ago, when she emailed me after Instapundit posted a link to my blog item sneering about the concept of "mansplaining," "Rebecca Solnit is a Sniveling Idiot."
Here's the piece:
Rebecca Solnit Is A Sniveling Idiot I couldn't believe the piece by Rebecca Solnit I read in the Sunday LA Times Opinion section; mainly because I found it too stupid to publish.Solnit mewls on for 1,863 words about how women are patronized and silenced by men.
But, wait. Let me check. (Peering down into pants and then panties) Yup, there's a vagina in my pants, which suggests I'm either a woman or there's a matched, escaped set of labia taken up hiding in my underwear. Most mysteriously, I don't seem to suffer the myriad conversational injustices from men that Solnit and so many other women apparently do.
Solnit opens her piece by describing how she was conversationally pummeled by a guy about Eadweard Muybridge, when she'd actually written the very book the guy was holding forth on. "Men explain things to me," complains Solnit, "and to other women, whether or not they know what they're talking about. Some men. Every woman knows what I mean."
We do? I think somebody forgot to send me the memo. Yet, Solnit claims this terrible injustice is something "nearly every woman faces every day," which "makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field," and "keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare." ("When they dare"? The woman writes like Mr. Darcy is going to pop up from behind the copier at any moment.) Solnit goes on and on about how this "syndrome" (yes, everything must be pathologized) "crushes young women into silence" and "trains" women "in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence."
First of all, I write a syndicated dating and relationship column, and I have to say, if there's one problem with men these days, it isn't "unsupported overconfidence." I likewise can't say I've ever felt "crushed into silence" or any of the maudlin rest. So...either my dad, who taught me to stand up for myself, and told me over and over that I could do anything boys could do, is unique among fathers in America, or there's a name for what Solnit's peddling, and it's "grassy-knoll feminism."
Meanwhile, Solnit herself, who, most annoyingly, Likes To Use Capital Letters For Emphasis All Over The Damn Place, says that even she, a woman who has "public standing as a writer of history," had a moment when she "was willing to believe Mr. Very Important and his overweening confidence over (her) more shaky certainty."
Sorry, but if you have "shaky certainty," do you blame men, or sign up for a little assertiveness training? So much of what women do blame men for -- women's lower starting salaries in the workplace, for example -- traces back to women passively accepting what's presented to them, whether it's some boorish jerk's assertion, or the first dollar offer they're made for a job. This is correctable, but not by writing long-winded screeds against men in the Los Angeles Times.
Although Solnit comes up continually short on guts in conversational situations, she's remarkably gutsy about aligning herself and other privileged Western women with a silenced sisterhood of women living under Islam, "where women's testimony has no legal standing; so that a woman can't testify that she was raped without a male witness to counter the male rapist."
Of course, the difference is that women in Muslim countries are not, by law, allowed to testify. Western women like Solnit simply refrain from speaking up. Some loudmouth cut her off? Wow. While Muslim women fear lashings and death if they speak their minds, Solnit's simply too limp-willed to say, as I've said numerous times, and to men and women, "Don't interrupt!" or "My turn to talk!"
When that doesn't work, as it didn't when I was on the TV show, "Faith Under Fire," with the booming blowhard Frank Pastore, I began removing my mike, and told the host I was going to walk off if Pastore kept shouting over me. (I may not have been born with balls, but I keep a little set in my makeup bag, and bring them out on an as-needed basis.)
So, is every movie, television show, or commercial that portrays a man completely flummoxed by loading a dishwasher, putting soap in a washing machine, or fastening a baby's diaper and a woman rescuing him an example of "chicksplaining?"
Condescension works both ways, ladies.
Conan the Grammarian at March 22, 2017 7:35 AM
Conan makes a good point. But I wonder, why do we need these gendered words anyway? Isn't condescension rude in general?
Or maybe, just maybe, sometimes it's more an accident.
I mean, when talking to a person you just met who happens to mention a topic you just read a book about... what are the chances it's the AUTHOR of the book? Basically nil. So, maybe it's a pretty fair assumption, regardless of gender, that you aren't talking to the author.
Sometimes, somebody has an unexpected set of experience that we don't have reason to suspect. People aren't rude for that - they are making reasonable errors. Better to point it out and move on than bother being indignant.
Shannon at March 22, 2017 8:12 AM
Great point.
And if you're a woman who finds a man's well-intentioned desire to help around the house not quite up to your standards, well, maybe you should let him out of his cage and do the work yourself.
Amy Alkon at March 22, 2017 8:13 AM
Yeah, I've had people try to explain to me the basics of things that I'm already knowledgeable about. I usually just nod, unless they are being particularly condescending. I've run into some people who assume that I can't possibly be well-read on any subject because I have a Southern accent. Some people are just jerks. Whaddaya gonna do.
A hazard of social ballroom dancing is dancing for the first time with someone you've never met before, and trying to guess what their level of expertise is so that you can adjust your dancing accordingly. Sometimes I can tell, but sometimes the only way to find out is to ask: "How long have you been dancing?" I've had the experience of starting out doing a very basic foxtrot with a new partner, realizing after about 20 seconds that she's bored out of her head... "Do you dance silver? You do? All righty then..." Full-up, body-contact frame, huge first step and we're off to the races. The really fun moments come with someone when you're both experienced dancers -- but in different styles. Wrestling match!
Cousin Dave at March 22, 2017 8:28 AM
And BTW, Cathy Young has an article in Reason today punching a huge hole in a claim that Solint made in one of her essays, regarding the novel Lolita. Solint had accused a commenter of mansplaining to her regarding the novel -- but it turned out that the commenter, who had a gender-ambiguous given name, was actually a woman. Young exposes the fact that Solint retro-edited the essay (in a way that causes continuity problems for the reader) without acknowledging the error.
Cousin Dave at March 22, 2017 8:31 AM
Is it just me or is there also a crippling sense of self-importance among those who complain about mansplaining? What I'm hearing is: "I'm upset because you explained something to me that I could have explained to you, thereby making me look more foolish than I am, which made me feel bad about myself. I had to be the one explaining to feel good about myself."
I once organized a project in a team of four, and I instructed everyone on what we all had to do. This one girl rolled her eyes and said, "I know," immediately after I gave her the instructions as if I had just offended her intelligence or something. Look, they were simple instructions, and she probably knew what her responsibilities were, but as the organizer, I had to make sure she and I were on the same page. If I just assumed that she knew something she didn't actually know, then the project could've fallen apart, and the onus would've been on me for failing to communicate clearly with my team members. I wasn't out to insult her intelligence or even her memory, but that was how she seemed to take it. She didn't think about my circumstances, the group or the project; she seemed more concerned about her victim status.
These people need to understand that there are many reasons why someone might appear to "mansplain," and far more often than not, there's no intention to condescend or victimize.
Kenii at March 22, 2017 9:11 AM
One of the big differences between men and women is that men are fascinated by how things work. They will take things apart. They fix things. They read articles about the tax code or rebuilding engines or all sorts of stuff. I travel a lot for business. At airports and on planes I see many men reading serious material like the Wall Street Journal or business magazines. Almost never is a woman reading something serious--usually women's magazines or novels. If you bring up most any topic with a group of ten adult men, some of them will know about it in depth. They can explain it. Most women are NOT fascinated in the endless details of machines and software and finance. Thus they generally know less about these things.
There is also a sexual side to it. Men express their superiority by their competence and confidence (with the guys but also with women). Not every guy is successful in this, but with confidence comes sometimes talking when you don't know what you are talking about, but that is ok.
cc at March 22, 2017 9:26 AM
If you are upset about something said in a conversational tone (not insulting or condescending) then you are not ready for the "big time".
Cousin Dave and Kenil point out two examples of simple conversation that was ignored or beyond the social grasp of their partners.
The responses (not initiating "do you know?) and "eye rolling" indicate their lack of social grace/knowledge not the man's. Their lack of initiative reflects poorly on them, their observational skills, and plain good manners.
Rude is rude (SJWs look on in horror).
Bob in Texas at March 22, 2017 9:38 AM
I'm in a male-dominated sport, and there are times that guys assume I don't know what I'm doing/talking about.
But I think it's more complicated than "man splaining."
Yes, there are a few guys who truly do think women should NOT be on the mats and are wasting everyone's precious time by being there and will be super patronizing about it. But those guys are VERY rare, generally quit my school quickly and, until they do, I simply avoid them and alert the instructor if I think they're actually dangerous to other students.
But most of these guys are "explaining" out of insecurity. For example, they can't tell when I've allowed them to complete a sweep on me so they can get the feel for completing a movement, and so they'll happily explain to me proudly how they did that very basic sweep. They do this to male upper-belts, too, and it's hilarious. And I don't respond with accusations of man-splaining. I simply smile and say, "Yes, that's right, good job! That's exactly how you do that move," and pat them on the back. I know they'll feel really dumb about it later, as they level up.
sofar at March 22, 2017 9:51 AM
A hazard of social ballroom dancing is dancing for the first time with someone you've never met before, and trying to guess what their level of expertise is so that you can adjust your dancing accordingly.
I take a lot of beginners classes because I like a certain instructor and it's a great way to build community.
And I actually LOVE it when a lead, having seen me exiting the class and heading over to the social floor, eagerly pounces and offers to "show me how" to do the dance. The moment they realize I know way more than they think I do is super flattering. It's that "OMG oops" look in their eyes, and I live for that.
Now, when a guy who can't dance for shit decides to "teach" me, because I can't follow his crap leads -- that annoys me. Even that's not man-splaining, however, because women are also notorious, ruthless "explainers" on the dance floor. Either way, you handle it like so: Smile and say, "Shut up and dance with me" and then, if they ask you to dance later say, "No, you talk too much." Solves the problem quickly for both genders.
sofar at March 22, 2017 9:59 AM
Kenii makes a good point. But still, there is such a thing as being a know-it-all who can't stand not being the center of attention, even when he/she is not officially in charge of the others. Not to mention that talking about things one doesn't really know about (and trying to cover that fact up) brings to mind what Aesop said: "Stretch your arm no further than your sleeve will reach." I.e., it always backfires and makes one look foolish, eventually.
What I said, from a thread from last October:
I know a Polish psychologist in his late 80s who owns at least 5,000 books (I help him organize them, sometimes), and he's known me for years, so he knows I don't have a degree in psychology. Yet, if he wants to talk about, say, B.F. Skinner, he will ALWAYS ask first "what do you know about Skinner" before assuming that I don't know what he's about to tell me. Same goes for any other subject, psychology-related or not.
There's nothing noble about this; it's just a common courtesy that everyone should practice. Just as people who ASK for an explanation of something should be polite and humble enough to listen at least up to the point where they've heard everything they didn't already know - and say "thank you."
lenona at March 22, 2017 10:14 AM
there is such a thing as being a know-it-all who can't stand not being the center of attention
Scott Adams calls that person "Topper".
http://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=Topper
I R A Darth Aggie at March 22, 2017 11:44 AM
Her; You are Mansplaining.
Me: Yes. And I shall continue to do so until you Womunderstand.
The WolfMan at March 22, 2017 11:50 AM
As a man I could have 'splained this in two paragraphs or less; albeit without the colorful aspects and digressions. (Looking in your own pants, I blush.)
Man'splaining is annoying, no doubt. Shannon, Kenii, and Lenona have good points on how to manage it. I think the feminine counterpart may be scene setting. Sometimes I'll wait and wait and wait for a relevant detail to show up during a story. We get to them eventually, but by then I have to pee.
Canvasback at March 22, 2017 12:27 PM
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg
Old, but on point, I think.
Isab at March 22, 2017 3:19 PM
So many things wrong with that.
First: passive voice. There should be a death-pox on passive voice.
Second: experience. Women are very good at intuitive knowledge; far less so at systematic and gained knowledge. Very many men can envision, in detail, every element of a car in operation. Men, significantly more often, and to a far greater degree, are knowledgable about geography, plumbing, weather, directions, structures, etc, than women.
Unfortunately, but very understandably, it is very difficult to know what you don't know. Solnit has no bloody idea how vacuously ignorant she is about a great many things most men take for granted.
Hey, Rebecca. Here's a wrist watch with hands and the sun. Which direction is south? Hey, Rebecca. You want an electrical outlet here; you know what to do, right? Hey, Rebecca. The sunroof on your car stopped working. Take a look at this electrical diagram and tell me where I should start looking for the problem.
Looking for the problem? How about this. You are so ignorant of how so many things work, along with almost all women, that you can't fathom why men might think you don't have a clue about almost everything.
(Except the realm of intuitive knowledge, about which men are sucktastic.)
Jeff Guinn at March 22, 2017 3:51 PM
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg
Believe me, I do NOT complain unless I want advice. (Even to my best female friends, as a rule.) I don't want anyone doing that to me either. So we're even.
lenona at March 22, 2017 6:58 PM
Looking for the problem? How about this. You are so ignorant of how so many things work, along with almost all women, that you can't fathom why men might think you don't have a clue about almost everything.
_____________________________________
Funny, I was with a 70-ish man at Old Sturbridge Village last summer, and he seemed to have more trouble understanding some of the mechanical diagrams than I did. Like the ones about the water wheel, for one. Yes, he's somewhat mechanically minded.
lenona at March 22, 2017 7:02 PM
Men need to explain things in part because our activities tend to be harmful to our bodies. I would much rather hear "I'd move that finger before you shoot." than "Yeah, a buddy lost the tip of his finger when he shot that thing."
It's in our nature. Plus we are prideful.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Number_and_rate_of_fatal_occupational_injuries.png/525px-Number_and_rate_of_fatal_occupational_injuries.png
Bob in Texas at March 22, 2017 7:13 PM
Ahem. There is an element of "mansplaining" which is target-rich for men who are the object of such instruction. Often, some fool in a social group will begin a story boastful of his knowledge of a particular subject. I have had the odd pleasure of having such a fool at a bonfire start explaining about ballistic missile submarines, stuttering to a halt when everyone there then looked at me and asked if he was correct (no). It often is an ego thing, largely safe due to the public's apparent need to know nothing about anything.
Radwaste at March 22, 2017 7:17 PM
I never understand why Solnit was unable to speak up and tell the guy that she wrote the book he was quoting.
KateC at March 22, 2017 8:48 PM
> why Solnit was unable to
> speak up
☑
Crid at March 23, 2017 3:19 AM
Sofar, I got a few laughs out of your posts...
"Now, when a guy who can't dance for shit decides to 'teach' me, because I can't follow his crap leads -- that annoys me. "
First rule of leading: If you're dancing with a reasonably good follow, and she fails to follow something properly, it's must likely because you didn't lead it properly.
Cousin Dave at March 23, 2017 8:53 AM
It often is an ego thing, largely safe due to the public's apparent need to know nothing about anything.
Radwaste at March 22, 2017 7:17 PM
Speaking of which...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/books/the-death-of-expertise-explores-how-ignorance-became-a-virtue.html
It's a book review. You can print it on one page, if you like, without making the font too small.
"THE DEATH OF EXPERTISE: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters."
By Tom Nichols.
lenona at March 23, 2017 10:12 AM
Men and women view different parts of a story as important. Men will happily discuss the tax code or swords or refinishing basements in detail. Whoever knows actual stuff will get points for knowledge, at least among my friends. Most women find this coma-inducing.
Women tell stories and explain relationships (his brother's wife's cousin etc). Men find this impossible to follow, nod politely, and wish fire ants would come eat them.
It is not anyone's fault. They are different.
cc at March 23, 2017 1:04 PM
From THE DEATH OF EXPERTISE:
"Donald J. Trump’s taste for advisers with little or no government experience; his selection of cabinet members like Scott Pruitt and Rick Perry, who have expressed outright hostility to the agencies they now oversee; and the slow pace of making senior-level appointments in high-profile departments like State, Treasury and Homeland Security — all speak to the new president’s disregard for policy expertise and knowledge, just as his own election victory underscores many voters’ scorn for experience.
This is part of a larger wave of anti-rationalism that has been accelerating for years — manifested in the growing ascendance of emotion over reason in public debates, the blurring of lines among fact and opinion and lies, and denialism in the face of scientific findings about climate change and vaccination."
Wow, that's misleading.
The approach of an entrepreneur, when faced with a department, division or business which does not work is to replace management style, not just install another empty suit mouthing the same things as before.
Take the VA, proven to have let veterans die to lower their personal workload: did having an expert in policy help those veterans? Hell, no!
It's not "disregard", it's disdain.
If you have some sort of respect for the agencies which leadership has been replaced, do tell.
Meanwhile, this author seems not to notice obstruction by Congress when he cites a "slow pace". Hm.
Radwaste at March 23, 2017 1:59 PM
Tom Nichols said:
“To reject the advice of experts is to assert autonomy, a way for Americans to insulate their increasingly fragile egos from ever being told they’re wrong about anything. It is a new Declaration of Independence: No longer do we hold these truths to be self-evident, we hold all truths to be self-evident, even the ones that aren’t true. All things are knowable and every opinion on any subject is as good as any other.”
To that I'd add: It's a way for Americans to assert a false sense of dignity and importance, as each individual becomes swiftly less important (and desperate) in a world of 7.5 billion and counting. Sort of like the well-known British fictional character, Eustace Scrubb, who refuses to acknowledge that, even though he's not even yet in the double digits (presumably), he's not the equal of experienced adults or at all important.
lenona at March 23, 2017 2:34 PM
To Isab, one more thing:
I believe Miss Manners has said, many times (though I can't remember a clear-cut column on this) that very often, the only way to convince your friends and co-workers of how terrible your personal problems are is not to talk about them and/or stay at home. (Of course, it's not the same thing with one's S.O.) This is not just because other people have their own painful burdens and should not be made more miserable; it's because if you end up blabbing about your problems, even if only when asked to do so, chances are the other person will think "that's ALL? I have to get out of here before I burst out laughing!" Or: "If only you knew MY problems...sheesh!"
While she doesn't talk about how to get people's sympathy here, she at least talks about the importance of false cheer IF you're going to accept social invitations at all, not that one has to. (This is from 1981):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1981/06/14/what-the-world-needs-now-is-more-false-cheer/a005706f-fad9-48a7-9be5-2ef47f480045/?utm_term=.f1acd640d2dd
First paragraphs:
"You wouldn't want me to pretend to something I don't really feel, would you? You don't want me to have to put on an act when I'm feeling rotten, do you?"
Miss Manners is always puzzled by such questions. Her answer is, "Why, yes. Please."
She spends the better part of her life (never mind how she spends the worse part) trying to persuade people to fake such feelings as delight upon receiving useless presents, curiosity about the welfare of the terminally boring, pleasure in the success of competitors, and sincerity in the wish of prosperity for all people, even those who dress offensively. She also expects everyone to give a rousing imitation of having loved the school concert.
What the world needs is more false cheer. And less honest crabbiness...
(snip)
lenona at March 23, 2017 3:08 PM
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