Femsplaining

Just taken a glance (I'll read it in ufll once I'm home) but I have to say that after being exposed to feminist writings online and in the guardian, it is so unutterably pleasant to read an article so careful and precise in it's language that it doesn't feel like paper cuts on the scrotum.

If men are considered "default" we don't really need a system or a space to share our experiences, as wider society kinda fulfills that function. Besides we've had and indeed still do have a fuck tonne of exclusively male spaces on top of that societal default.

I think Leslie Knope says it best:

screen.yahoo.com/leslie-knope-takes-mens-rights-132923802.html

Ah, my misreading, I apologise.

I also share feminism assumption that women suffer oppression, or the reasons why. I simply tend to disagree on the best approach to combat it.

Buffy

That would be fascinating, thank you.

I find it a little confusing that masculinism would be considered part of womens studies, as that sounds like a department of exclusively men claiming to be a centre for womens studies, but I'm sure the article will enlighten me.

ifyourehoppyandyouknowit

But it's still not 'femsplaining' because we're still not considered an authority on these issues. We still have little power even if we do the majority of the work. As Lucio very clearly explained. It is not an equivalent phrase.

I feel that women are still assumed, as a result of patriarchal prejudice, to have a greater expertise in the sphere of child care and therefore within that sphere the phrase would be apposite. However I do not dispute that this area is 'sidelined' in present society, and that therefore the use of 'femsplaining' beyond the areas I suggested would be inappropriate.

But when discussions around gender relations have an impact on law and policy and feminism is the dominant discourse within it, I believe that labelling the phenomenon in such as way as to link it to the non-equivalent male counterpart is valuable.

Feel free to fuck off away from the Feminism board then, eh?

I know I shouldn't, but this made me laugh

EElisavetaOfBelsornia

This board was once known as "Feminism/Women's Rights".

I support the latter, utterly and without qualification. I do not believe the former is the exclusive way of doing so.

However, if others on the thread agree that I should leave, I will go.

^For women, discussions around child care or the 'domestic sphere' as described by LurcioAgain.

For feminists, discussions around gender relations and gender issues.^

But it's still not 'femsplaining' because we're still not considered an authority on these issues. We still have little power even if we do the majority of the work. As Lucio very clearly explained. It is not an equivalent phrase.

And those areas - domestic and childcare related are dismissed as unimportant, in a way that 'men's' areas are not.

oh yes lurcio, sorry, i wasn't disagreeing with either of you - just that both definitions seem to have been used on this thread (and i don't think either are valid for those reasons you, buffy and others have stated)

it's clear to me that white feminists are guilty of whitesplaining to WOC, and straight feminists of straightsplaining to lesbians (if those are the terms that might be used) etc, but that is relevant to actual advantages and privileges that are upheld by society

Meph "I don't claim to have insight (as I'm not a feminist)". Feel free to fuck off away from the Feminism board then, eh?

ifyourehoppyandyouknowit

For women, discussions around child care or the 'domestic sphere' as described by LurcioAgain.

For feminists, discussions around gender relations and gender issues.

BuffyEpistemiwhatsit

Very sorry Buffy, but as I said my knowledge of masculinism is very superficial indeed. My main encounters have been with what can be described as a 'classic MRA troll' via sites like fstdt.com or references on feminist blogs and articles.

From what I can derive from what little valid commentatary exists (as opposed to the very obvious misogynists seeking theoretical validation for preexisting hatred) it very simply is the use of analytical tools developed by feminism to elucidate the issues experienced by men. It is a genuine mirror image to feminism, but with the same fragmentation, radical fringes and none of the polish that's been developed over many years in feminist theory. It seems to share certain ideas with feminism, but from another perspective.

For instance, I have seen those claiming to be masculinists accepting the existence of a 'kyriarchy' as opposed to a patriarchy, or claiming that the very issues that you mention as addressing with your theoretical work are evidence of equivalent levels of oppression for both genders.

As for vision and objectives, it appears that they wish masculinism to be equivalent to feminism so that future gender relations are not defined solely by a group that focuses on the needs of only one gender.

But as I said, this is very much a superficial reading and I may be trying to see a greater degree of rational intellectualism within the nascent movement than actually exists. While I feel sympathy for some things they may say, I would by no means describe myself as a presently holding the ideology.

Petula - Well, if it's about feminists in particular, then surely Buffy's point about part of the point of feminism being to carve out a space for female voices answers that point.

Though I do remember a discussion in a reading group once where we were reading Gilligan's "In a Different Voice," and one of the men said (a propos of her suggestion that men made moral decisions in a fundamentally different way from women) "I don't recognise myself in that description at all."

My response was to say that I broadly agreed with him - I think in the more theoretical bits of the book Gilligan falsely attributes the difference between a kind of Kantian absolutism versus a more consequentialist ethics to "male decision making" versus "female decision making" (the great strength of the book is when she moves from the theoretical to the case studies, where she gives a voice to women who've had abortions). But I also pointed out to him that what for him was a one-off, weird experience was the experience I had all the time when I read psychology books by men saying "this is how women think/feel/make decisions" - I sat there in a continual state of "but that isn't me..."

So I suppose that the part of me interested in intellectual fairness says "yes, we should try to give an accurate representation of the variety of men's opinions when we write about how their behaviour impacts us." But the activist part of me, the bit that wants improvements now, not at some unspecified time in the future when we've got a theory of everything says "Actually, it's okay to give a greater amount of consideration to the bits that actually damage us - the shitty, unpleasant behaviour and thought processes."

Femsplaining is only a valid concept within the limited spheres where feminism, or women, are dominant.

What are these areas specifically?

I agree with LurcioAgain, with few caveats.

Femsplaining is only a valid concept within the limited spheres where feminism, or women, are dominant.

I disagree that the equivalence is false, particularly where gender issues and the discussions around them have a direct impact on law and policy or on subjects like domestic abuse.

lurcio i think that depends on whether your definition of femsplaining is about women in general or feminists in particular

Okay, returning to the OP, if we take "mansplaining" to be using one's privileged position as a member of the class (men) socially and culturally expected to know more about the area under discussion (IT, or engineering, say) giving a patronising explanation to a woman about something she actually knows a great deal about (IT or engineering, say), what would "femsplaining" look like?

Presumably, we'd find an area (cookery?) where women were culturally expected to know more (in a domestic setting - this will turn out to be relevant), and have a woman patronisingly explain something to the men in the room when in fact they were very good cooks. (I have seen this happen in fact at a friend's pampered chef party).

But would it really be "femsplaining" in the sense that it carried the same weight in undermining and minimising the importance of the men in the room? No, for two reasons.

Firstly, the areas where women are culturally granted the small concession of "knowing more" are generally clearly delimited and set aside by mainstream culture as "domestic" or "trivial". All that happened at the pampered chef party was that the woman giving the presentation looked a bit of a twit. Compare that to the situation of a woman being "mansplained" to at, say, a large IT conference. If the audience doesn't have independent reason to know that she's actually an expert, the bloke doing the mansplaining gets to look like the big, well-informed man, and the woman is assumed (by the audience) to be the twit.

Secondly, returning to the cookery example - women's "dominance" is confined to domestic cookery - ask yourself what percentage of chefs in top restaurants are female.

So "femsplaining" is like "misandry" - one of these false symmetries which in virtue of the gender inequalities in society at large is actually, on closer examination, an entirely false word made up to silence uppity women and stop them talking about a real phenomenon - "mansplaining" - which is used to belittle and demean them in professional and political settings.

ifyourehoppyandyouknowit

I made no claims about how to do feminism or otherwise. I can't, because I'm not a feminist and therefore do not possess the necessary perspective.

All I was seeking to demonstrate was that femsplaining was a valid concept because in the narrow area of gender studies/issues feminism is the dominant paradigm for discourse, the same way that masculinity is the dominant form in other areas and generates the mansplaining effect.

Coming on to a thread about 'femsplaining' so you can mansplain how we're doing feminism wrong.

ifyourehoppyandyouknowit

That's indisputable. However, if you never accept that a man might have an alternative, yet valid view on the explanations on such behaviour then it is possible that crucial clues as to how to end such a culture of excuses might be missed.

I'm not dismissing lived experiences. I'm saying that there is a culture of excusing poor behaviour from men, towards women. That's not feminists projecting and putting words into men's mouths. That's men actually saying the words themselves.

Like this conversation, right now.