meme time!

[kookaburra1701]

I ganked this from mmouse15. A bunch of questions about me, because I like talking about myself. :)

Comments

[mdperera]

*waves*

I have two questions. What's "mansplaining", and what happened to your horse?

[anon_decepticon]

I think it refers to when men patronizingly and/or condescendingly explain traditionally male-gendered stuff like cars or computers to women, operating on the assumption that our wee girly brains couldn't possibly grasp such complicated stuff without their august tutelage. Or something like that. ;)

[kookaburra1701]

That's part of it, but it mostly refers to a man pontificating to women while being stunningly blind to his own privilege.

"Why, how can you say our workplace is sexist? I've never seen any sexism here!"

[kookaburra1701]

Mansplaining is something like what anon_decepticon said, it's also when men refuse to believe a woman when she's trying to share what experiencing life is as a woman, and they explain that there couldn't possibly be any sexism in the workplace because they haven't experienced any.

It's also what I like to say when men come blustering on to various feminism message boards/ blogs I frequent, assuming that the women present actually care about what they have to say. "Thank you so much for mansplaining that to us!"

Oh, and I forgot about my horse: I sold her when I went off to college.

[mdperera]

I get it. :) I wonder if men have a similar term for whatever we do that annoys them.

Too bad about the horse. Hope you found a good home for her.

WARNING: RADICAL FEMINISM 101 RANT AHEAD

[kookaburra1701]

Men couldn't have any similar term, because it assumes an inherent privilege and entrenched power imbalance. IE: men can choose to never see anything from a woman's perspective and still lead blissful, happy lives, but women HAVE to be able to see things from their perspective because it's shoved down our throats all day, every day, and in order to survive in the Patriarchy, we have to be able to understand and anticipate what men will do.

[mdperera]

I grew up in the Middle East, which takes sexism to a whole 'nother level, so the problems in First World countries don't seem as bad in comparison. It's a matter of perspective, though. Explanation appreciated. :)

[kookaburra1701]

yeah, while North America isn't the best (USA and Canada aren't even in the top ten for gender parity) we certainly aren't the worst, that's true.

[kookaburra1701]

Here's a good example of "mansplaining" in a Roger Ebert review.
Nicholas Kazan's script makes the evil husband (Billy Campbell) such an unlikely caricature of hard-breathing sadistic testosterone that he cannot possibly be a real human being. [...] The husband's swings of personality and mood are so sudden, and his motivation makes so little sense...

Here, Roger Ebert is "explaining" domestic violence to an audience where a majority (women make up 51-52% of America's population) have PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with domestic violence against women, and would likely take issue with the fact that men have to "have a reason" to be violent, and that they don't just do an "about face" in personality. In doing so he is discounting and marginalizing women by explaining away many, many women's experiences.