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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think gender alters the perception of what is said on MN?

507 replies

1DAD2KIDS · 26/11/2017 11:00

I use a username that clearly identifies my gender (and is also my biological sex). Often I feel that if people assumed I was a woman their response would be different. Or if you swapped the genders around some people's responses would be completely different?

OP posts:
BoreOfWhabylon · 29/11/2017 18:02

Grin Sensimilla

DadDadDad · 29/11/2017 18:09

Sensimilla - on your planet question (and yes, I'm well aware of the irony of a man answering this on this thread Grin ), there's only an approximate relationship between the planets' distances from the Sun. An astronomer explains: curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/57-our-solar-system/planets-and-dwarf-planets/orbits/237-what-is-the-pattern-to-the-distances-between-each-planet-and-the-sun-intermediate

There may be some effect from orbital resonance, ie certain ratios are favoured, or at least, some distributions of planets are excluded because over millions of years they would be unstable and a planet would be pulled out of orbit. But it doesn't seem like there is a clear explanation on this. See the section Coincidental 'near' ratios of mean motion here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance

Sensimilla · 29/11/2017 18:17

Oh.My.days

I'm Chartered. But , thanks for the wiki-link

DadDadDad · 29/11/2017 18:28

"Chartered"?

Lweji · 29/11/2017 18:40

Nature is full of patterns, mostly caused by simple rules.

It's not too hard to imagine that the disk of dust around the Sun eventually congregated at fairly regular distances, as if ripples caused by a stone falling in the water.
It doesn't require a higher intelligence or a supernatural force.

Sensimilla · 29/11/2017 18:46

I'd take on the lions over spiders, any day;

Pumperthepumper · 29/11/2017 18:54

DadDadDad have...have you read the thread? Did you genuinely read the thread, ignore all the points raised, then - wait for it- mansplain to a pp? You must be on the wind up, come on now!

DadDadDad · 29/11/2017 19:45

I have read the thread (well, not all 1DAD2KIDS's posts because they are a bit long Confused ).

I didn't mansplain. I answered a question raised by another poster, by pointing them to answer written by somebody else, who I notice is female, but then for some discussions surely the sex of the contributor is neither here or there? I wasn't trying to offer a male perspective, just sharing a bit of scientific knowledge.

Pumperthepumper · 29/11/2017 19:49

Here’s Cherry’s definition from earlier:

'Mansplaining' does not mean 'a man explaining'. It is not frustration that the voice belongs to a man. It means a man explaining to women something that those women are experts in, and doing it in a way where he believes he is educating them as if he knows more than they do.

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 29/11/2017 20:07

Oh come off it. How is D3 "mansplaining"?

This accusation is just ridiculous - it gets thrown out far too often.

It means a man explaining to women something that those women are experts in, and doing it in a way where he believes he is educating them as if he knows more than they do

This comes with the assumption that a woman said it - it must be correct - how dare anyone say otherwise. There was nothing in D3's post to justify that accusation.

Pumperthepumper · 29/11/2017 20:12

This was Sensimilla’s post:

Also, there is a FORMULA for the distance of the planet's from the sun...they follow a pattern. Like a times table. How is that possible?

  • which DadDadDad corrected.
Pumperthepumper · 29/11/2017 20:13

Sorry, posted too quickly.

Do you think she was actually asking a question? Her reply to DadDadDad would suggest not.

BoreOfWhabylon · 29/11/2017 20:13

Hear hear Lass

I'v been on many a thread with DadDadDad over the years and he's definitely not a mansplainer.

Sensimilla · 29/11/2017 20:16

I was referring to Titius-Bode Law

AssassinatedBeauty · 29/11/2017 20:19

It was a clearly rhetorical question given the rest of her post, not asking how scientifically it was possible, but pondering on whether there's some divine intervention in the universe. I thought that was fairly obvious. Then DadDadDad comes in, misses the whole nature of the post, assumes that she doesn't know anything about the science, and throws a couple of Googled links at her that anyone could have found in a moment's search. How is it not mansplaining?!

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 29/11/2017 20:27

Oh fgs I have skimmed the posts in question and Lewiji's. I don't understand any of them. D3's reads as if he knows what he is talking about.

As for the crime of posting a wiki link - I do that and I'm sure loads of others do - not because I had to Google it but I wanted back up for something I already knew.

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 29/11/2017 20:28

assumes that she doesn't know anything about the science that is your biased spin on what he wrote.

Pumperthepumper · 29/11/2017 20:32

He posted to correct her, under the guise of ‘answering a question’ that it’s fairly obvious (to me) she didn’t ask. He also directed her to the wiki links despite having evidence that she already knew about it.

Pumperthepumper · 29/11/2017 20:37

Plus, I know tone is difficult to get right online but there is a difference in saying ‘I find this so interesting, I was reading about this here (link)’ and saying ‘on this thread about how intrusive some men can be, I have chosen to ignore all of that to correct you on a flippant point you made’

AssassinatedBeauty · 29/11/2017 20:55

"Biased spin"? Or simply just my perception, which you can agree or disagree with as you will.

UsedtobeFeckless · 29/11/2017 20:57

We need an irony alert emoji ...

rale124 · 29/11/2017 21:01

"Mansplaining' does not mean 'a man explaining'. It is not frustration that the voice belongs to a man. It means a man explaining to women something that those women are experts in, and doing it in a way where he believes he is educating them as if he knows more than they do.

I have seen men explain PND, periods, pregnancy and menopause on here lately. Most of the time they've got it wrong.

If you, as a man, try to 'educate' women about women's issues you throughly deserve to be called a mansplainer."

That's still quite bollocks though. People less educated or informed about a subject lecturing others who are more educated or informed is a fact of life hardly exclusive to women.

My brother who had an accident with a saw while working as an engineering apprentice was told by a new non-engineerig teaching assistent at college that he should of been wearing gloves. Clearly she neglected to think a saw capable of cutting through metal would be capable of cutting through a glove, he was wearing gloves.

In my experience more confident people deal with this better as they tend to aggresively assert their value and capabilities for example by cutting people short and reeducating them when they try talking out their arses. People see that and don't bother talking cr@p in future.

Again in my experience I don't think women on average are as good at asserting themselves as men. Leadership in any sense and that includes 'knowledge leadership' (been a leader or expert in a certain subject for example) is inherently competitive. Men who lack confidence struggle in that regard aswell from what I have seen.

Pumperthepumper · 29/11/2017 21:24

It’s not bollocks - it’s a definition of something that happens often enough that it struck a chord, and it works. It’s accurate. But it’s a definition of a specific circumstance - when a man assumes he knows more than a woman, even though he doesn’t, and still feels the need to explain it to her.

So what happened to your brother wasn’t mansplaining and no-one is pretending it is. He was speaking to a woman who said something stupid. Nobody is pretending that never happens - but it’s not mansplaining.

I don’t inderstand the point you’re making in your last paragraph, sorry. Why do you think women aren’t as assertive as men?

DadDadDad · 29/11/2017 22:27

Sorry, been away from the screen, so only just caught up with the discussion.

I don't think I can win with some people. I get criticised for providing a wiki link, but if I'd written a long post trying to put it in my own words that surely would have been closer to mansplaining (since I'm not an expert).

Pumperthepumper · 29/11/2017 22:36

Why not just skip by it? Since she wasn’t asking a question and your reply wasn’t an invitation to conversation.

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