to think men seem to have taken to MN in their droves recently......and I don't like it

[LadyBlaBlah]

Every thread I go on, there are men putting forward their opinion

I have enough of men in RL. AIBU thinking they should bog off to DN or go play the X Box or something?

So much for the Brotherhood.

"The existence of male privilige doesn't defend this use of "man-"."

OK, so what word, which encompasses all that privilege and disrespect, would you use instead?

I think I said, ooh about 3 hours ago, that I'd be quite happy to use a different word. But no-one has come up with one that hits the nail so much on the head.

It is male dominated.
What can be done though?

What can be done?

Adopt feminism, that's what.

Ah, but I'm a priviliged male.

Do you want to convince me? how would it effect me?

Oh Lord. This could go on even longer than the Bald Fanny debate....
FWIW I always thought BrianAnd His Balls was a man, but apparently he is All Woman.

Carry on.

Bald Fanny?
Is she a feminist?

No, you're thinking of HairyFanny.

vesuvia - yes, "they" (whoever they are) chose it specifically to ANNOY YOU. They named Manchester for the same reason.

I'm fed up with being "men". Men do this, men do that, aren't men awful?... When did it become fashionable to deride all men for the actions of some?

One reason I don't think "mansplain" hits the nail on the head (apart from it just sounding like such a horrible neologism) is that you invariably have to explain what it means. Don't believe me? Try dropping it into a (RL, not online) conversation and see the reaction you get. "You what? Man-WOT? Are you serious?" is not untypical. The effective new words in the language, those which slide effortlessly into a gap, are those which don't sound as if they have been artificially coined. I don't believe it will catch on the way other net-speak has. But YMMV. :) See you in 5 years about it.

The cliche about expressing yourself in easy/exam/tutorial situations doesn't do either gender any favours. It makes men out to be boorish, always-on-transmit people who talk over others, and women to be pathetic little mice who can't express themselves without being all deferential about it.

I clearly have more testosterone than any man I know, but I do apologise about it a lot...

Truckulent I'll do you the respect of assuming that you don't need to be convinced that treating half of humanity as less valuable than the other half, is simply wrong.

"The cliche about expressing yourself in easy/exam/tutorial situations doesn't do either gender any favours."

Sorry I don't understand what you mean by that. Can you explain?

I'm a hairy handed trucker me

HB: because it isn't complimentary about either gender. As I've elaborated in my subsequent sentence. Sorry, I mistyped "essay" as "easy".

But I don't understand which cliche you are referring to?

This thread needs more smileys.

UnquietDad Sat 15-Jan-11 16:31:45
"I kept reading while at university that the exam format supposedly favoured the boys because we were more used to expressing our views in a way in which examiners liked to read them - confident, solid opinions expressed as facts, not hedged around with modifiers or ambiguities. This sounded like little more than a sexist generalisation to me, and certainly wasn't borne out by the people I was at university with."

Probably bad form to quote my own post, but that's what I'm referring back to.

I was pretending to be a corporate fat cat, instead of Joe Average.

I wrote - "How do you know the intention behind the creation of the word "mankind" was not to patronise?"

UnquietDad replied "vesuvia - yes, "they" (whoever they are) chose it specifically to ANNOY YOU. They named Manchester for the same reason. "

UnquietDad, I've learned very little from your reply. As you don't seem to know the answer to my question, you could have replied with a polite "I don't know".

I wasn't claiming that the "man" in "mankind" is patronising. I wondered if anyone knew the derivation. I asked my question because you seemed so sure that it isn't patronising.

If a group of people say that they find a particular word offensive should you stop using that word?