Femsplaining

[MissyMelMo]

I got accused of femsplaining today. I asked what it meant and he said something about boorishly converting everything into feminist explanations and expecting everyone to accept it without question.

Well he can fuck off :)

But I've googled this term since coming home and can't make out where it sits - some groups seem to use it positively. So I thought I'd ask someone!

Thank you :)

what is the "dominant feminist narrative"

is it the narrative that dominates feminism(s), or the narrative that dominates generally is a feminist one?

MephistophelesApprentice Thank you for such an intelligent an informative post

( Your post: Thu 05-Mar-15 15:00:05 )

Perhap's we'd talk less about men's motivations for things if men didn't constantly try to explain away their shite behaviour?

ApocalypseThen

Surely a black person experiencing the attitudes and behaviours of white people would only have a black persons perception of a white persons perception? And wouldn't their damaging experiences therefore alter their interpretation of that perspective?

While our culture is certainly steeped in analysis based on male perception, any female experience of that analysis would be utterly different to a mans. Indeed, the exclusionary nature of male discourse - men writing for men - would likely undermine any attempt by someone not a man to accurately perceive the experience being shared.

If this is true, then a woman claiming to know mens experiences is like someone looking through a window into a meeting that's taking place. They can see what's projected onto the screen, they can see that a discussion is taking place, but the actual words and views being shared are muted. They can make assumptions, but they have no means of verifying the truth. To then claim that they were aware of the outcome of this distant, separate discussion would likely be untrue.

Perhap's we'd talk less about men's motivations for things if men didn't constantly try to explain away their shite behavior?

I wish I could say the same about your post 'ifyourehoppyandyouknowit ' as I did about a previous post

PetulaGordino

I was referring to the preeminence given to feminist ideology in discussions around gender issues. I certainly would never claim to have insight into internal feminist discussions (as I am not a feminist) and I would certainly not claim that feminism is the dominant voice in areas outside of gender discussions (because that would be a paranoid delusion).

I'm not arguing that it is necessarily wrong that feminism should be so dominant in the field of gender studies or discussion, only that it is considered by many to be the only valid format and therefore the traditional power dynamic in this very narrow limited area is to a limited extent reversed.

ifyourehoppyandyouknowit

There are indeed cases where men try to justify appalling behaviour that can and should be easily dismissed, but it would be unjust to dismiss every report of a lived experience simply because it came from a man.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

What are these areas specifically?

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."

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.

ifyourehoppyandyouknowit

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

For feminists, discussions around gender relations and gender issues.

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?

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

^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.

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.

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

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