Comment by techdragon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by techdragon | Hacker News Reader

So ... can we men get a gender neutral term for "mansplaining" ?

Men are not the only ones who do this. Yes the name comes from a male biased behaviour in the tech community but I have witnessed plenty of this out in about in non tech fields... "oh your an man, there's no way you would understand" or starting to explain something before asking if I need an explanation how it works, because why would a man ever need to know how a thing, like say a sewing machine, worked...

Calling it "mansplaining" (which is in my iPhones dictionary!?) does nothing to help stamp out this behaviour as undesirable. It arguably provides excuses for women to engage in the behaviour since they aren't "men" how can they be "mansplaining", and contributes to its continued existence by allowing this "mode of interaction" to continue regardless of gender.

Other than that. Awesome company, and I hadn't heard of the product despite having a need for something like that. So I may buy that milling machine in the future which is pretty cool.

>women to engage in the behaviour since they aren't "men" how can they be "mansplaining",

Stuff like this is really bothersome. Another example is when a woman is clearly being a misogynist, but thinks that's impossible because she's a woman too. The worst and most sexist things I've ever heard were from white professional women who think the rules don't apply to them, epsecially if they are discussing younger more attractive women or poorer, less educated women. And in the workplace no less!

I think we live in an absurd level of PC pressure and I think that partly explains why guys like Trump are doing so well in the polls. People are just sick of navigating this stuff and its all fairly arbitrary. Ignoring this isn't doing anyone any good, especially the Democrats who keep losing elections. Not sure what the solution here is, but I hope the pendulum is beginning to swing the other way. The fact that 'mansplaining' is in the iphone dictionary is especially odious. Its a straight up slur. Being a tonedeaf know-it-all knows no gender.

> Another example is when a woman is clearly being a misogynist, but thinks that's impossible because she's a woman too.

Do you mean misandrist, perhaps?

Misogyny is literally about hating women. A woman can be a misogynist, but only by hating women. A woman (or a man) that hates men is a misandrist.

Somebody who hates people regardless of gender is a misanthrope.

> The fact that 'mansplaining' is in the iphone dictionary is especially odious. Its a straight up slur. Being a tone-deaf know-it-all knows no gender.

Of course mansplaining is a slure. Misogynist is a slur as well. That is the point of that sort of word.

Well... they did go on to talk about women talking trash about other women... so I would think they actually did mean misogynist.

In my defence, that wasn't what the comment said when I replied to it. :) (What I quoted was the entire paragraph at the time.)

But, is a woman who criticises other women necessarily a misogynist? It's no more necessarily true of a woman than of a man who criticizes women. If a man criticizes other men, we don't immediately accuse him of misandry: of criticizing those men because they are men.

If a woman criticizes other women for, e.g., using their looks - and possibly more - to get ahead, is she really displaying hatred towards "women", or just those women?

I am, to be clearer than I really should have to be, not saying that women can't be misogynists, or that the only thing women criticize other women for is using their sexuality to get ahead. But women criticizing women isn't automatically misogyny: it may simply be criticism.

> But women criticizing women isn't automatically misogyny: it may simply be criticism.

If only men were given so much benefit of the doubt.

I can only speak for my experience...

In my work life, I see men criticizing women (and vice versa) all the time. There is never a hint of anyone thinking that man-to-woman criticism is being only given, or is only as pointed as it is, because of the sexes of the people involved. Maybe I'm just lucky that my co-workers are professionals. (It's about a 30/70 female/male split in my workplace, FYI.)

In my personal life, I really don't see much of people criticising anyone, except each other. Maybe I don't hang with the right people.

With one recurring exception, I cannot recall an instance from my "real life" in the past decade, say, where I've seen a woman criticised for something where a man wouldn't have been criticized in the same way. The exception being the automatic assumption many (but of course not all) drivers have that any bad driver must be a woman: whilst a man will still be criticized for bad driving, he is a bad driver because he is a bad driver, whilst a bad woman driver is a bad driver because she is a woman.

Online, I see (presumed) men criticising (presumed) women all the time. Naturally, said criticism is not necessarily very constructive. Perhaps it is just my bias, but criticism of women seems to far more often focus on her gender and sexuality than criticism of men does.

tl;dr In my experience, men are.

I think he actually did mean misogynist - women that dislike even other women and try to keep them from positions of power and authority absolutely do exist. Female competition exists, after all, and oftentimes social minorities that climb into positions of authority adopt the cultural biases of those that held power before them (see: accusations within disadvantaged communities for "acting white" or acting "like you're better than everyone else").

It can be difficult to determine if a leader is adopting a cultural meme or if there's something intrinsic to the person. There's a bit of a disturbing trend in the military where even female commanding officers will shy away from acknowledging cases of sexual assault against female personnel. Furthermore, there's evidence for private sector that women that get promoted oftentimes try to act more "like a man" in aggression and even bias against female subordinates, sometimes even to the point where they're more exclusionary than their male counterparts ever were. I can't provide citations right now for them but the first can be Googled quickly I presume.

I find it surprising that I see so many negative votes in a thread of discussion that, considering the subject matter, is extremely civil and respectful.

I was actually concerned I would be down voted, I've got a few, no loss to me. But I'm amazed at some of the down votes I see deeper in the thread... :-/

Words are not their etymologies. Mansplaining is gender neutral if it is used in a gender neutral way.

A woman who understands the meaning of mansplaining will not believe that it is only bad to be patronizing[1] if you are a man because the word "mansplaining" exists, any more than she would believe she is not a human being because the word "mankind" exists.

Conversely, a woman who is already of the opinion that men can't understand how sewing machines work isn't going to be shamed into adopting a new opinion because somebody coined the word "condesplaining".

[1] Of course, "patronize" is a gendered term if we go by its etymology.

Thats great for those enlightened enough to understand the phrase with some comprehension. Alas, all of humanity is not that wise - I've had to deal with 'mansplaining' too many times from women, as well as men, for it to make any sense for there to be any gender-form in the phrase. And justifying this just doesn't make any sense. Its a terrible phrase, and should be replaced with something that doesn't imply that the phenomenon has anything to do with ones sex.

Because it doesn't. And that is sexism.

I agree, I also think it unlikely that the adoption of the term 'mansplaining' encourages non-men to patronize more people.

On the other hand, what I understand from the criticism of the term is that it hurts some people to hear it used. We choose our language because we don't want to cause others pain; when someone tells me that calling someone a b*tch causes them pain I stop using the word around them. If I have reason to believe that using the word causes a lot of people pain then I stop using it in public. Similarly, lots of people (some reference below) are pained by words like 'mansplain' and 'manspread.' If someone tells me that they are pained by it, I don't go and try and convince them that the word is actually fine to use and they shouldn't be pained, I stop using the word.

REF:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2015/feb...

http://www.xojane.com/issues/why-you-ll-never-hear-me-use-te...

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/phoenixandolivebranch/2013/02/w...

http://halginsberg.com/lets-stop-using-terms-like-mansplain-...

>On the other hand, what I understand from the criticism of the term is that it hurts some people to hear it used.

It has a negative definition. It was chosen to be a gendered word, a tongue in cheek attack on the prevalence of accidentally gendered words like mankind and manslayer. When we are moving away from words that use the root word man to avoid accidental gendering, why would a new word be created that is gendered if it is not an attack on that gender?

"Words are not their etymologies. Mansplaining is gender neutral if it is used in a gender neutral way."

You make a valid point, but some words are just inappropriate for most contexts because the general lack of understanding of them causes unnecessary tension. To me this is a clear flaw in a communication model that I believe "mansplaining" falls under.

Another example would be the word "niggardly." These words pretty much only have use in an academic setting at best.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_%...

Have you seen people regularly use the word "mansplaining" to describe the actions of any women (while knowing that the person they were referring to was a woman)?

I don't believe that I have seen that.

The meaning of words is not their etymology, but it is how they are used and understood.

And, ime, people seem to use the word "mansplaining" to refer to actions of (people that they believe to be) men (or corporations?).

Perhaps your experience differs on this topic though?

To be honest, I have never seen the word "mansplain" used except as an example of a word that somebody didn't like. :)

> Mansplaining is gender neutral if it is used in a gender neutral way.

I'm just imagining the furor if someone said that about, say, "harpy" or "hysterical."

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