One of the indicators of a dying nation is preoccupation with utter bullshit instead of tackling the serious problems it is facing. In that regard, Sweden is a prime example. Quite recently, the largest labor union of that country ran a week-long “mansplaining hotline”, giving women an outlet if a male colleague alerted them to the fact that their work was insufficient. I find the claim that this was an initiative for increasing equality rather amusing. If anything, it is a transparent attempt at discriminating against men. Where would you go if a female colleague kept spatting bullshit? HR would probably encourage you to seek employment elsewhere, if you raised the issue with them.
In general, “mansplaining” is a rather absurd concept to begin with. To understand why that is the case, recall that feminists consider science and logic instruments of oppression. Make a logical argument why a harebrained idea promoted by a quota-woman in your department deserves to be shut down, and you’re guilty of mansplaining. Isn’t that convenient? Great female leaders like Angela Merkel, Carly Fiorina, Marissa Mayer, and Elizabeth Holmes surely would have benefited enormously from “mansplaining”.
In their research-budget for next year, they are using zero kroner on integration research, while at the same time they are using a lot of money on researching racism. Makes sense, I mean it’s not like they’ve recently taken in a lot of immigrants…..
“Man-splaining” is how men have talked to other men for millenia. That’s how we bond, we talk down to eachother. Femenists want to be treated not as equals, but as superiors.
Mainsplaining is in interesting concept actually (Had to put it in there), the original version of it isn’t even that invalid.
They way it was explained as first when a man was acting to a women like he was the expert about a certain book. Totally oblivious that the woman in question had literally written that book. And if I remember correctly, he explained the book incorrectly, and was telling the author of the book she was in the wrong. All while now knowing she was both right, and the author. And refusing her rebuttals. (I think it was this story here: https://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-men-explain-things-to-me/ Starting from this line “I still don’t know why Sallie and I bothered…”. Have not read the whole article).
Which is clearly the Dunning–Kruger effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect. And something we have probably all experienced, or perhaps have done at times. (Calling this mansplaining is fine, as Dunning-Kruger effect is a bit of a mouthful).
Sadly nowadays it has morphed into ‘men explain something to me in a tone I don’t like’ or ‘men talk try to talk over me like they would do to other men. And I don’t know how to deal with it’ (something a lot of men also struggle with), and even ‘He started his explanation with “Actually …”‘ (people tagged usage of ‘actually’ as mansplaining on twitter) . And Rebecca Solnit has (no source) even mentioned she agrees with the broader definition. And even includes stuff like ‘muslim women not allowing to speak’ which is way to broad. And could even create a sort of ‘motte-bailey’ defense of the concept. And by making it so broad, I think the valid usage of it has been totally lost.
It is indeed a sexist variation on dunning kruger. The obvious irony as you know is that women ALSO can and do suffer from dunning kruger. Calling a human “flaw” “mansomething” is sexist, because it implies only a male can have that flaw.
It means a woman can’t suffer from dunning kruger and then go around “splainin” stuff to more qualified people? I see it all the time. In my specific specialty, i’m a professional trainer. Complete and utter female NOVICES who don’t know I’m a trainer, on their day one start teaching me (they just learned their first knowledge 5 minutes ago), and these women start “teaching me”.
Now here’s a FURTHER more twisted irony though. What if the RECIPIENT is actually the one suffering from dunning kruger? Not only does the concept “mansplaining” assume the perpetrator is a male… It also assumes the recipient is always right in her assessment of being “too capable to be educated by someone”.
What if SHE is the one suffering from dunning kruger, and the man explaining things to her IS ACTUALLY more qualified. In that case she would complain that a less capable man was explaining things she was more proficient in. But her assesment would be wrong if she were suffering from dunning kruger.
Yeah, as a guy who spends most of his working week with and around typical, mostly blue-collar masculine men in a rather conservative setting (think farmers, truck drivers, mechanics, construction workers, heavy machinery operators), I can attest that this so called “man-splaining” (talking down) and banter are typical of interaction between men, at least in our culture. However, I am not sure that’s what causing the trouble from the female side, after all we don’t usually talk to women the same way we talk to guys. I think it might have more to do with men trying to demonstrate value to females. After all, overconfidence is attractive to many women, and cluelessness will be overlooked if she is into you.
@Anno You are right, the original meaning of mansplaining was actually interesting, and there was a certain merit to the idea I think. Or at least it was not a concept as amorphous like it is being throuwn around these days. I am familiar with the original article by Rebecca Solnit.
Quoting your linked article:
“Young women subsequently added the word “mansplaining” to the lexicon. Though I hasten to add that the essay makes it clear mansplaining is not a universal flaw of the gender, just the intersection between overconfidence and cluelessness where some portion of that gender gets stuck.”
That intersection is probably where cluelessness met anxiety disguised as confidence as the guy was trying to hit on you.
Thanks for bringing up the Dunning-Kruger effect, I knew it but I had completely forgotten how it was called. I would say in the
So, if a person’s work is not adequate, how are you supposed to address it? And if somebody is flat out wrong, most people with a modicum of social acuity can handle it without a hotline.