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?

"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."

With respect, UQD, the word wasn't coined for your benefit. Clearly you've never been on the receiving end of a mansplanation. It makes perfect sense to me, however.

I'll vote to get rid of the hideous LOL and ROFL.

One of my cousins on the dreaded Facebook must be a hyena and spend most of his time horizontal.

He starts and ends sentences with LOL.

Lol going to the shops lol.

Hun and babe should go as well.

HB - I'm afraid you haven't hit any nail on any head. Sorry none of us were scurrying round in response to your musings. We were much better employed getting on with the task of wildly misunderstanding each other.

• it's good job our very continuance as a race isn't relying on internet posters sorting it out between themselves -

Lenin - am no better fwd on the irony bit. The carrots were silent on the subject.

But that particular cliche isn't entirely untrue.

If you get a group of men and women together around a table, in general the men will dominate the conversation, even when they have no more knowledge of the subject matter than women.

That's not because women are pathetic or because men are crashing boors (although obviously, both sexes have both pathetic and boorish members). It's because men have been trained to consider their views important and to be self-confident about expressing them and women have been trained not to be pushy and "strident".

I do love the phrase "with respect". It is invariably followed with random synonyms for "I think you're a wanker"

Are you the self-appointed smiley monitor then, Tiggy :)

BoF

Is this a class or age thing as well then?

The women I know don't let the men dominate anything, if we get above ourselves we're soon get put in our place.

No I think it's a sex thing Truck.

A lot of the women I know are also v. assertive and the men are aware of that phenomenon of men taking over so they consciously don't do it, but there have been plenty of studies on this.

Truckulent I would think that's more to do with familiarity with each other.
At more formal meetings/discussions I see it more often. Not sure of the boundaries I suppose. or perhaps more accurately, the consequences of breaching them.

Not sure if age is a factor - I'm sure I remember reading a few times that older women are more assertive than younger ones.

Which probably is common sense. I expect older men are more assertive than younger ones as well. Confidence comes with age.

Yes Networkguy, I am, and this thread is only managing 19.8% smileys when the current EU minimum is 30%.

I havent experienced that herbeautitude in my cirlces when men and women are together it is the women that talk, and talk and talk and talk and dominate the conversations and wont let the men get a word in edgeways. I know cause I am one of them .

Ooh, good, I've got a "with respect"... I ought to be playing Bingo.

I'm just saying that random RL groups of both men and women are not familiar with this odd word. It doesn't matter that it wasn't coined for my benefit.

HB, I'll have to have a look at the conversational dynamics next time I go out in a mixed group. My feeling is that people really don't appear to stress about it as much in RL as they do online.

:) at noodle, who may well be right!

vesuvia: I'm no linguistic expert, but I believe "mankind" arose out of middle (old?) English and the words "werman" and "wyfman". It doesn't have any connection to the word "man" as we understand it in today's modern English, any more than the "man" in "Manchester" does. So my comment was not as flippant as it might have seemed.

I think I am unquietdad all I ever hear is god will you lot let us get a word in, you are allowed to take a breath you know etc. We have heard it all before though and we always just say its just a girl thing, we cant help it we get carried away.

I used the word mansplain the other day in RL and every single one of the women, who had never heard it before, immediately "got" exactly what it meant. The two blokes there, looked blank.

But I accept that's just anecdotal evidence based on a small sample.

Ah i see I don't do formal stuff anymore can't be bothered.

All work meetings are normally all male, as is the line of work I'm in. God they drag on.

I am questioning HB assertion re conversation dominating - I ahve two sisters who wouldn't entertain this. I can name 3 female friends who I can talk to about this sort of stuff, of years standing who would poo poo that, and I work in a MASSIVELY female-dominant work place and I know none of them wouldn't stand for it.

Perhaps in the past, but I would suggest that contemporary society has moved on remarkably in this regard, supported by the womens movement.

I definitely notice that if there are either the same number of men as women, or if men slightly outnumber the women, the men get all loud and assertive and boomy, and the women get irritated.

If there are more women, the women can take over a bit.
But of course, in general, men tend to be more assertive. There is an exercise you do in Drama classes where the men have to "be" a woman and vice versa using only body language.
Men do physically tend to take up more space, and women tend to try and take up less space.

Similarly men tend to speak louder and longer , and this is crucial, when they have an opinion they want known. If it is just chat, they will hold back.

Yes HB, in my experience women 'get' what mansplain means straight away too. But hey, UQD says it's a silly neologism that none of his friends have ever heard of, so I guess we're just being silly.

sorry, none of them would stand for it.

and back on mansplain, am with UD - so artificial, and the gods of good diction would be squirming. "we gave them language and they do THIS with it!"

See in my life it is always the women that get too loud and noisy. That is a young women thing though and I think that comes from talking being a lot of womens favourite interest. I think it is something that drives a lot of men crazy as they dont ever get a break from it, but I dont think any of the women I know do it on purpose it is just seen as a thing women do.

I have never heard of mansplain though either. Its not something I would know what it was until I read this thread. I would of thought it sounds like a place!

Do you all hate the term "man-flu" with such passion?

And what term shall we use instead?

What on earth does 'artificial' mean when applied to a word?

In case you didn't realise, all words are arbitrary. Are you saying that the thing the word signifies is non-existent or are you actually spouting an entire crock of shit on a public forum to be viewed by everyone for the rest of time? How embarrassing for you.