A Briton Makes A Point of Cassandra's

A writer notes a rough form of equality.
[T]he point that I think has been missed by Solnit – and by all the women who have written and talked about mansplaining ever since – is: men also talk this way to each other. It’s not that they don’t defer to women. It’s that they don’t defer to anyone....

At the start of this column, I said there had been two recent stories about mansplaining. The first was that the 600,000-strong Unionen has launched a mansplaining hotline.

And the second, which followed soon after, is that the majority of calls to the hotline have been from men: anxious, self-doubting men, asking exactly what mansplaining is and how to avoid doing it.

Beware of throwing your ire at the wrong target.
Her contention that the biggest issue facing society is a lack of kindness is a point worth considering.

16 comments:

Cassandra said...

She nailed it here:

Women don’t want to be silenced by men. But I don’t think the answer is for us to silence them in return.

Tom said...

And that is a good article.

raven said...

With the kind of tools I use, if it is not explained in some detail, there will be a blood trail. Sometimes, a detailed 'splain is an absolute requirement. Physics does not care a whit about ego.

Here is my take- if somebody knows more than I, you, him, or her, shut up and listen, then challenge if you don't believe it. And if I, you, him or her knows more than they, then say so, and be prepared to defend your knowledge or be proved wrong.

I think the entire concept of "M'splaining" is rooted in crappy education, and feminist ultra sensitivity, so that when any opinion is countered, it instantly becomes a crisis because the individual has neither the education to back it up, nor the self confidence to deal with a new line of thinking. All that is left is "Wwwaaaaa".

Sitting in the dentists chair, out of curiosity, I asked the new assistant about how much a gold crown weighed. Her response-"maybe an ounce?" I said, "no, a gold one ounce coin is about this big, and a crown is a lot smaller than that, so it must weigh less."
The next words out her mouth- "why are you mocking me?" Yikes.


jaed said...

The original concept of "mansplaining" was someone condescendingly explaining something that the target already understands, perhaps better than the explainer. Think of someone "explaining" the existence of the Electoral College to a constitutional scholar, and perhaps getting it partly wrong to boot. Or providing a simple-minded "explanation" of carburetors to a woman whose Army MOS involved wrenching on large trucks for a living.

This sort of behavior is legitimately enraging. (But I've never noticed it being limited to men.)

Assistant Village Idiot said...

What jaed said. A fun concept was ruined by appropriation for political purposes.

The stereotype is that men say "Actually..." when mansplaining. The irony is that this is very much what boys/men with high-functioning autism say, and it is wise to pay attention to them. They may have gotten the social read wrong, they may have focused on an unimportant detail, they may lack perspective, but they almost always have the actual facts dead on. This gives support to the doubly-male theory of the autistic brain.

Cass said...

This sort of behavior is legitimately enraging. (But I've never noticed it being limited to men.)

Bingo. I've encountered "mansplaining" quite a bit at work, but it's not *all* men who do it. It's more like, "Pretty much all the people who do it happen to be men, but they constitute a small fraction of all men."

There's a guy at work who is very smart (and actually a very nice man - he's be horrified if he understood what he was doing, but with him it's almost like Tourette's - I'm not sure he can stop himself). He often starts to lecture me on subjects I know far more about than he does.

And what he's telling me is wrong!

The most infuriating example is, I say, "This area of the code is extremely complex - the logic is hard to follow, but when you chase down the details, it all makes perfect sense."

Him: "It's not very complex at all."

Me (to myself) "You only think that b/c you don't understand it"

Him: "I don't understand why you keep saying it's complex. It's actually quite simple" (followed by incorrect summary of said logic)

Me: I will lay it out for you in a diagram and we can discuss later.

So I lay out all the logic, walk him through it, he has trouble following the logic even though I've simplified and clarified a lot of behavior that's not obvious via the UI. He says he understands much better now and goes off to code.

His requirements doc comes back and (though we had agreed the current behavior was correct and he wasn't to change it), he... changes it in ways that will cause beaucoup problems when interfacing to our other products.

After weeks of arguments and several bug reports, he ends up changing it back to the way I said it should be from the beginning.

Flash forward a few months, the subject comes up again and he...(wait for it) begins telling *me* how it all works. As though this entire debacle had never occurred. I gently remind him that I was the one who diagrammed and summarized the current behavior, so I don't need it explained again. Hard to do tactfully, and very annoying.

*aye, chihuahua* :p

I do think men who mansplain may be more likely to do it to a woman than a man because women generally either remain silent (while fuming internally) or respond gently, as I did, to avoid hurting their pride/feelings. But that's not really sexism, I don't think. Different risk/reward ratio.

E Hines said...

Sitting in the dentists chair, out of curiosity, I asked the new assistant....
The next words out her mouth- "why are you mocking me?" Yikes.


I hope your dentist is worth this trouble. When I'm in the chair, my hygienist and I carry on some spirited political discussions. As do his assistant and I while we're waiting for the dentist. As do the dentist and I.

Oh, wait--my dentist was a Navy dentist who transferred to the Marines before he joined the civilian world. Maybe that's the difference.

And my female GP is always...mansplainin'...to me about medical things. Prolly 'cos she's the doc, and I'm the patient.

It's the oversensitive crybabies for whom I have little patience and no sympathy.

Eric Hines

Grim said...

I've only had a dentist for two years out of my adult life. Otherwise, I haven't had insurance that would cover dentistry. As a parent, I paid for dentists out of pocket. For myself, I've just brushed my teeth and so on.

Cass said...

The stereotype is that men say "Actually..." when mansplaining.

That is funny, because my boys both said, "Actually, Mommy" when they were very small and I've noticed a niece and my granddaughter doing the same thing as toddlers. Never fails to crack me up.

I was thinking about this more, and realized one of our other male developers, who I think is brilliant, will often launch into long, detailed, technical discussions when I ask him a question. Usually he stops several sentences in and says, "This is probably way more detail than you wanted". I almost always say, "No, please continue!"

The difference, I think, is that he really *does* know way more about his topics than I do, and his manner is very different. He's not self effacing or diffident - just quietly confident, and socially aware enough (even over the phone) to give other people an out if they don't want/need the 10 minute explanation.

So I love hearing him explain things because I invariably learn so much.

Grim said...

I was thinking about this more, and realized one of our other male developers, who I think is brilliant, will often launch into long, detailed, technical discussions when I ask him a question.

My wife does both things. She loves "explaining" as much as any man ever did, and will gleefully hold forth (in the manner of a college professor, which she is not) on any subject about which she considers herself expert. And like the men in the article, she really loves nothing better than doing this. It's her very favorite social activity, I think.

The only difference between the one thing and the other is whether she knows what she's talking about. Sometimes, she really does -- especially if she's holding forth on plants, but also artwork and art history, jewelry, etc. She just uses the very same tone and manner when holding forth about things that are just things she thinks she knows about.

I'm pretty sure she learned it from her father, though. He was an engineer and had exactly the same manner -- and exactly the same habit of lecturing both about the things on he was genuinely expert, and other things as well. :)

douglas said...

AVI, I don't know about high functioning autistics being right when they go off on some topic. I've had experiences with several (including a brother) who are sometimes not so correct- but they're sure they are. Most of the people I've met who tend to do this (correct or incorrect), seem to more than anything just enjoy that someone is listening and taking them seriously, so I do my best to do so, even if sometimes I contest them on one or another thing. So long as you don't try to 'win', they take it o.k. 'Face' is important- after all, they just wanted to look good for a moment. I understand.

Cassandra said...

Most of the people I've met who tend to do this (correct or incorrect), seem to more than anything just enjoy that someone is listening and taking them seriously, so I do my best to do so, even if sometimes I contest them on one or another thing.

I think this is a big part of it. Another possible cause is sheer intellectual curiosity (the joy some people take in trying to understand things). The first guy in my examples probably falls at least somewhat into this category - he just likes to know and understand things. It's a great quality, and something I genuinely admire about him.

People are just funny - we all have our quirks and annoying habits. It always amazes me when people get so bent out of shape with each other that they feel they need to write an essay about how horrible other people are, and how it's all so unfair (seemingly with little/no awareness that they probably irritate/offend other people too).

Seems like a form of the same self-righteousness and certainty they're objecting to :p

raven said...

"
People are just funny - we all have our quirks and annoying habits. It always amazes me when people get so bent out of shape with each other that they feel they need to write an essay about how horrible other people are, and how it's all so unfair (seemingly with little/no awareness that they probably irritate/offend other people too).
" Yep.

Most of the very competent people I have met were quite relaxed about it- they had enough belief in their own capacity there was no need for ego enhancement ritual. Not all, but most.

I never had any insurance for dental care, but dental care ,in itself, is a form of insurance against other maladies. Infections for example. And pain.

That ultra sensitive assistant is no longer there, no surprise.

The worst dental experience the very worst, worse than having teeth drilled with a cable powered drill with no novocain, was the VA "dentist" who removed my wisdom teeth. He used a hammer and chisel. No joke. Took months to heal. I lived on milkshakes via straw.

Cassandra said...

The worst dental experience the very worst, worse than having teeth drilled with a cable powered drill with no novocain, was the VA "dentist" who removed my wisdom teeth. He used a hammer and chisel. No joke. Took months to heal. I lived on milkshakes via straw.

Heh :) My Dad likes to tell the story of his Navy dentist doing a root canal. In the middle, the dentist swore loudly, then said, "Oh Bill... I am SO sorry." :p

Reminds me of Bill Cosby's "Oops" routine.

Ymar Sakar said...

I never had any insurance for dental care, but dental care ,in itself, is a form of insurance against other maladies. Infections for example. And pain.

I would use peppermint therapeutic grade oil for those problems. Tends to heal issues that would later require "doctors" and hospitals. In the latter case, that's where people go to die.

Ymar Sakar said...

As for society losing kindness, why would a bunch of humans who have begun to see the benefits of obeying gods other than the God of Abraham, and who prefers Lucifer's view of things, increase in charity/love; they wouldn't, they would decrease.