Mansplaining

[Featherstickers]

Is it a thing? Or another media cliché?

I believe Dh is a huuuuuge mansplainer and I find it frustrating infuriating at times.

AIBU to ask if it's a real thing and how to cope with it to protect my sanity.

We need a diagram!

Antigrinch re the joke thing, do you remember when Cherub Blair had her baby. She made a joke that "she had forgotten how awful labour can be."

Cue just about every newspaper/Have I Got News For You etc making a BIG joke all about how she had clearly inadvertently made this comment which could be interpreted quite differently, ha ha ha . . .

Because as a highly intelligent woman, QC no less, she wouldn't have been capable of making a joke containing a play on words concerning the word "labour," would she?

@Lweji

Interesting expression. What do you mean by this?

I mean that in the past, we (women) were treated as inferior by law and by society. Rape by a husband was not illegal, job opportunities were not equal, education was not equal and sexism in the work place or general society could not be challenged. That isn't the case now.

In all those annoying videos and presentations and lectures

Annoying?

I can't think of a self-identifying feminist from the last decade whom I did not find annoying.

What is ridiculous? Why?

The interpretation of feminism is ridiculous.

In the past it was by women, for women, when we were an underclass and needed to fight together to be treated equally. Now, it is a man-hating tribe which has swung too far the other way. The difference between medicine and poison is the dosage!

At no point did the vast, vast majority of men fit this description of feminism alltouchedout although, by the definition of feminism being "belief in equality of the sexes (whatever it may be in real life)", there is no reason your father can't know more about and be more of, a feminist, than you.

Hush! Alltouchedout is clearly being misled by her father's penis.

So, you think men and women are treated as equals by society and the law now?

How do you explain the salary gap, lack of women in certain positions, different expectations regarding children and housework, different judgement values in terms of sex, dress and behaviour?

there is no reason your father can't know more about and be more of, a feminist, than you.

You know him, then?

So, you think men and women are treated as equals by society and the law now?

Yes, we have absolute equality of opportunity and, in many instances, we (women) have the upper hand. Throughout education up to and including university education, we are outshining men. We are more likely to get a graduate salary and graduate job after more of us (than men) attend university and leave with better degrees.

How do you explain the salary gap

It's nonsense and economists agree with me. The same pay for the same job exists. The difference appears when you take into account the jobs women chose to take or allowing for them choosing to have children.

lack of women in certain positions

What positions? If you want to get to the top, you can't take years off as a SAHP. Adjusting stats to remove this 'mothering' effect, men and women are extremely equal in most jobs. In others such as STEM, I've made my position as regards blue vs pink brain perfectly clear. This accounts for tendencies.

different expectations regarding children

Can men grow children in their uterus or feed them from their breasts? What do you mean?

and housework

not my house

different judgement values in terms of sex, dress and behaviour?

I disagree with the behavioural aspect but with regard to dress, we have different bodies. Breasts, vaginas, willies and balls are not nice to look at and covering them up benefits us all.

Breasts, vaginas, willies and balls are not nice to look at and covering them up benefits us all.

Does it?

Covering breasts up doesn't benefit breastfeeding mothers or the children who are being fed.

Work in a scientific industry traditionally dominated by giant companies run by men. Ours, by selecting the most capable for the role, happens to have a 70% female exec and and a roughly equal number of male and female in management. No manpslaining happens, and if it did would meet bemusement and be addressed, forthwith. (Delighted also, that thanks to a clear anti-ageist policy, I got to work there.)

^How do you explain the salary gap

It's nonsense and economists agree with me. The same pay for the same job exists. The difference appears when you take into account the jobs women chose to take or allowing for them choosing to have children.^

Bullshit.

In fact let me repeat that in capital letters:

BULLSHIT.

My company's own internal audit showed a pay gap of 10%, by individual role (not because women chose to do the lower paying jobs). They then said they didn't have the money to fix it. My case (and that of a group of my female colleagues) is slowly wending its way through the courts right now, 47 SODDING YEARS AFTER THE EQUAL PAY ACT.

YES, I DO FEEL LIKE SHOUTING ABOUT THIS!

there is no reason your father can't know more about and be more of, a feminist, than you

There are many reasons. You seem to have decided that I believe my father isn't a feminist simply because he's a man. That certainly isn't the case. In the conversation I was referencing, I was talking about why feminism mattered and what it was like to be a woman in a particular situation, and he said that he thought he knew more about that than me. He doesn't.

@Snotgobbler99 Freud would have a field day with this thread :)

My dad does this. He explains the meanings of jokes. Drives me nuts, glad it has an official name'

I once had the pleasure of hearing a man explaining something to a woman in great detail. He was proud of his knowledge in this area of science, delighted to impress her a mere woman. She took it all very well given that he was a total beginner in the subject, nodding appreciatively at his wisdom. Then gave him a business card. He was a bit taken aback to discover she was an Oxbridge professor in that very subject

BalloonSlayer, I had blanked that out from my memory but it is a classic example of joke-splaining.

You don't have to believe in mansplaining, anyone who doesn't want to. It's subtle; it isn't the same as being a crashing bore (not gendered), as being a person who has stock monologues that get triggered by certain key words and then will bludgeon on inexorably (not gendered), it isn't the same as stating the blinding bloody obvious in a clumsy but well meaning attempt to make small talk (not gendered).

It is something else, something very particular. you may not be able to tell the difference, in the way that not everyone can tell where a wine comes from, or what grape it is made of. It's ok. but only a certain class of fool insists "they all taste the same". And sometimes it is nice to have a conversation with someone with experience, who can tell the difference

I did say apologies for the typos Lweji!

Anyway, there are a lot of studies done, as you know no doubt, by Simon baron cohen about male and female brains. It's not my field, so I've only read what he published. I came out with quite a male brain, and this makes sense to me, and my work is in STEM.

I agree the pay gap is a disgrace and not founded on any facts.
The reason for the pay gap is the incorrect (and male serving) belief than "girls" are somehow stupid and don't work as hard as men, and are therefore less deserving of the money men get.
Good luck with your case hedgehog.

Patronising cockwombles do exist and explain things to the little women. They need to be stopped immediately you twig what they're up to.
Life is shorter than you think, and it's a pity to waste it listening to pompous and cretinous men spouting off, even if you do have a business card to flourish later as a denouement.

I say "I have to interrupt you there, you're not telling me anything I don't know, I'm an expert in this field", and I physically turn away........ my spacial awareness superpower, along with my inability to not give a shit, serve me well in this as, I don't spill my wine, and, I get to spend my time with people who aren't patronising cockwombles.

AntiGrinch Yes! The Jokesplainer, showing in a pub near you 7 days a week.

M0stlyBowlingHedgehog

BUT, ON THE RARE OCCASION IT HAPPENS, YOU TAKE THE EMPLOYERS TO COURT AND THEY WILL BE FOUND TO HAVE BROKEN THE LAW. [Oooh, caps can be great!]

When people talk about the pay gap, they are talking about a divide between the sexes, not a single company which is in court.

Not so much of a mansplanation but along the same lines: being told by a man (it's always men), that I think too much, I mustn't think too much and mustn't be 'heavy' i.e emotional, i.e hysterical.

And I'm like 'fuck off, I'll think as much as I like thank you'

It is something else, something very particular. you may not be able to tell the difference, in the way that not everyone can tell where a wine comes from, or what grape it is made of. It's ok. but only a certain class of fool insists "they all taste the same". And sometimes it is nice to have a conversation with someone with experience, who can tell the difference

One of the things that came across from Solnit's original story, and comes across here, is that a large component of mansplaining is not listening to women. We have probably all at some point made the mistake of not realising that the person we're talking to is an expert in the field we're talking about. However, if you're listening you'll pick up on this quickly and if necessary apologise for not realising earlier. The mansplainer doesn't listen and just carries on regardless.

At work we have a storeroom that has a dehumidifier in it. We need the dehumidifier. One day the roof started leaking and water was running down onto the dehumidifier. So we had a double whammy of water somewhere it shouldn't be and the means to help drain it couldn't be used.

I had a phone conversation with a builder about it. It went:
Him: why don't you just move the dehumidifier?
Me: I can't. Instead of water running into a tank, there is an outlet pipe that goes directly outside. The dehumidifier is fixed to the wall and the pipe passes through the external wall
Him: OK, I'll come out and have a look at the roof and the dehumidifier.

He came out. He looked at the roof. Twice more he asked about moving the dehumidifier. Twice more I explained that it was fixed to a wall with an outlet pipe running through the wall.

We went into the storeroom. He looked at the dehumidifier. "Oh look" he said "isn't that clever, it's got an outlet pipe that runs through the wall and it's fixed in place". How I didn't thump him I don't know.

There's the assumption that I won't know something because I'm female - he would have thought a man would know. And he also would have listened to a man's explanation. But three times he ignored me and then he explained it to me. Bastard.

Mars The UN disagrees with you on paygaps. They exist, systematically, in many, even most, areas of employment.

www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/economic-empowerment/facts-and-figures

It's telling that you insist the paygap doesn't exist - when you work in a female-dominated environment. I work in a male one. I can assure you, systematically throughout my industry, the gap exists even when women don't have childen/take career breaks etc.

The reasons for the paygap are complex and multiple. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Did we read the same thing BossOfMe?

That have not said that women are paid less for the same job. The pay gap myth is about a man and a woman in the same role with the same responsibilities and a difference in their salary. It is not talking about how women are more likely to be in lower-paid sectors or do unpaid work.

I had a builder once tell me i was using the wrong hoover

I nearly lamped him with it

Mars not only did I read it, I helped write it. Read the citations, not just the summary.

Boss, what were your thoughts on the Office of National Statistics report a few years back that stated that women out earn men by a small margin in their 20s and 30s?

You should do a lot more reading around the subject, Mars, before you start offering yourself as an expert on it. The pay gap issue is not only about men/women doing exactly the same job. It's about women not being able to access the same opportunities to do that same job - subtly kept in "less valuable" roles within organisations, that then allows that organisation to justify a pay gap. Eg a female junior broker given the less lucrative clients to work on (because they aren't so tough, and she's not so tough), with the male junior broker given the bigger, higher spending clients (because he's a big boy and can handle the rough and tumble). That gender bias is a key cause of pay gaps.