Mansplaining

[Allegro]

...Your thread is here. None of your posts have been scrubbed, but there seems to have been an odd situation in which your username was deleted and then re-entered which makes it impossible to search for your earlier posts by using the "author" search function. Jeff might be able to fix this, maybe drop him a line.

That particular thread ^ was locked Sat Oct 09, 2010 2:53 am.

Yesterday, curiously, the research showed Krysos joined, of record, Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:33 am. However, Krysos posted images beginning right about here, Sun Sep 19, 2010 3:08 am, and perhaps posted the last image here, Mon Oct 04, 2010 3:27 am. Several of those images are missing. Yes, I thought the dates of posts odd enough just to make note. FWIW.

---

Project Willow, my apologies for the off topic.
~ A.

[jlaw172364]

From following the course of this discussion, I get the very real feeling of the limitations of this kind of forum for having a discussion, or maybe I'm just not very good at it.

The original topic was "Mansplaining," from an article written by a woman relating some experiences, which to me, seemed much ado about nothing, compared to all the other stuff that's out there.

So, I will now focus my comments on dissecting that article, and not trying to argue about whether or not Patriarchy is the best description for the actual form of the octopus-like monster that oppresses the vast majority of the global population . . . .

"Here, let me just say that my life is well-sprinkled with lovely men, with a long succession of editors who have, since I was young, listened and encouraged and published me, with my infinitely generous younger brother, with splendid friends of whom it could be said -- like the Clerk in The Canterbury Tales I still remember from Mr. Pelen's class on Chaucer -- "gladly would he learn and gladly teach."

This sounds like something white supremacists write right before they start talking about black preponderance to commit crimes. "Sure, I know some good ones, some are even my friends." What's the point of this statement, rhetorically speaking? Is it not to piss off the male segment of her audience by allowing them to identify with the sprinkling, who are exceptions to the general rule of male boorishness? Is it to diminish the likelihood of accusations of misandry?

Notice, that all of these "lovely" men seemed to be defined by transactions: editors that published her work and encouraged her to write, a younger brother of infinite generosity, and people willing to learn and teach. They did stuff for her, and she benefited in some material way. This seems to suggest that you must do things for a woman to get her to like you, as opposed to merely co-existing with her. It also sounds like the men who complain about women who don't do certain things for them, and then praise the women that do. Hmmmm . . . . maybe this transactional approach to whether or not you praise or condemn someone is GENDER NEUTRAL?

And nobody addresses the possibility that there might have been alternate explanations for the rich old guy's boorish behavior.

I mean, the fact that the rich old guy doesn't listen is automatically attributed to his gender, and not say, his age and possible deteriorating physical and mental condition. I know old people who don't appear to listen very well, because their hearing aids don't work very well, and they'll ramble on, interrupt you, talk over you, and talk in a way indicates that they haven't listened, heard, or understood you.

I also know wealthy people who believe that their wealth gives them authority to hold court on any number of subjects, since they subscribe to the notion that since they're rich, they must also be smart and well-informed as well.

It also calls to mind something I read in Jacques Ellul's Propaganda: the need of the intellectual, or self-perceived intellectual to have an opinion on everything, when much of the intellectual's "facts" are drawn from mediated sources. So, wealthy people read a bunch of magazines and books, and then regurgitate what they read if they agree with it as if it were their own opinions.

"Yes, guys like this pick on other men's books too, and people of both genders pop up at events to hold forth on irrelevant things and conspiracy theories, but the out-and-out confrontational confidence of the totally ignorant is, in my experience, gendered. Men explain things to me, and other women, whether or not they know what they're talking about. Some men."

Disregarding the people who dare to hold forth on "conspiracy theories," the author states that "some men" explain things to her whether or not they know what they're talking about. Currently, I'm reading a book by Robert Anton Wilson called The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science, and he frequently repeats the point over and over and over again, ad nauseum, about how people filter out experiences that don't conform to their biases. If Solnit had an absolutely perfect memory, I bet she could look back over the course of her life and find plenty of examples of ladysplaining. But then, she might argue that these women had internalized a male authority-figure mindset, to which one could rebut with that if such a mind-set has to be internalized by men too, maybe it's not actually native to males, but is a social construct developed and honed over millenia, planted into males and females, or taking root there, depending on a number of circumstances, for the purposes of expediency of accomplishing certain objectives. The point I'm trying to make: the undesirable behavior may in fact be GENDER NEUTRAL . . . . like farting.

Also, kindly don't lump me in with Krysos, since I don't agree with a lot of things that he wrote.

Also, kindly don't assume that I've never studied anything pertaining to feminism. I have, and I found it useful and enlightening, as I have a lot of other subjects, but that doesn't mean that I will agree with everything a feminist writes, or that someone claiming to be a feminist writes, or something that someone claims is feminist. If the feminists are like any other group, and I'm sure they are, since they are humans first, they are prone to disagree with each other and advanced alternate opinions. People on here seem to now think that because I took issue with mansplaining, I don't think women have been the victims of oppression at the hands of males, even though I've said otherwise.

[Project Willow]

Take your inane perspective to a men's rights forum or start your own thread, you misguided individual. You don't even have the wherewithal to defend your own misguided statements, or apparently to even try to. You're disrupting the thread. Get lost, troll. Be gone.

It is rather classic trolling. Must be on a visit from fark or 4chan. We're just not used to threads being immediately trolled like they are in other forums.

There is a common theme lately however, that I find interesting. The idea that the simple act of speaking to one kind of abuse or injustice automatically invalidates some other form of abuse or injustice. It's highly irrational, and it's male posters who've been offering it, now on two different topics. Makes me wonder what is going on. But now I am off topic.

The OP reminded me of my readings, a long time ago, of studies of gender differences in communication styles. Your links up thread B., led to some newer research. More on that later, maybe after the holiday.

[nashvillebrook]

^^ it's "manjacking," wherein others' issues can't be brought up without the juvenile male crying, "no! what about *my* victimhood!"

[jlaw172364]

@Crikkett

But, I never get the sense that women every try to understand what it's like to be a man.

"I do."

Your avatar is a woman standing behind a man wearing what looks to be a dunce cap with what looks to be a frying pan in her hand, perhaps gearing up to club him, thus resulting in his injury, incapicitation, or death. Is she going to club him because he's stupid? Is clubbing a stupid person a solution to their stupidity? Is the person actually stupid, or was he dunced for being disobedient. Traditionally, dunce caps were awarded as a punishment for disobedience as much as anything else.

Presumably, you thought this was amusing or clever, or maybe you thought that it was accurate representation of your worldview? I don't have an avatar, nor have I ever bothered to make one, so I don't know much about the thought process behind making them. Maybe it's tongue and cheek. In any case, it kind of suggests that you might not understand them, or that you find their behavior so frustrating, that it makes you want to club them over the head. Maybe you even changed your avatar to that in time with your comment, I don't know because I haven't been paying that much attention.

[norton ash]

The OP reminded me of my readings, a long time ago, of studies of gender differences in communication styles.

And back to the OP, the mansplaining style from authoritarian males
--the greyback Abrahamic condescension of the academic, the judge, the laureate, the recovery guru, the AUTHORITY-- who behave as if every word is being recorded, or that every one of their dim questions is a pleasing paradox or a test-- yeah, fuck those guys. And while all the ones I've met were assholes to me, I can recall clearly, now that I'm thinking back, how much worse they were to women.

Destructive Don Juans in many cases, too. "If it moves then you fuck it, if it doesn't move you stab it." (E Costello)

[nashvillebrook]

Honestly, the complete disregard for all male suffering in this thread is systematic, disingenuous, and positively vicious. Of course this is the inherent problem with gender issues: neither side can understand the other, ultimately. Which makes it perfect for sowing dissension and despair.

^^ You see ladies, your need to discuss gender issues is a vicious personal attack because I'm neither able to understand, nor willing to learn about things that affect you. Moreover, your inability to recognize the illegitimacy of your point of view, by continuing to assert it, can only be taken as a malicious attack on the members of this board, nay the concept of all boards in general -- an insubordination, up with which we dare not put.

[Krysos]

Honestly, the complete disregard for all male suffering in this thread is systematic, disingenuous, and positively vicious. Of course this is the inherent problem with gender issues: neither side can understand the other, ultimately. Which makes it perfect for sowing dissension and despair.

^^ You see ladies, your need to discuss gender issues is a vicious personal attack because I'm neither able to understand, nor willing to learn about things that affect you. Moreover, your inability to recognize the illegitimacy of your point of view, by continuing to assert it, can only be taken as a malicious attack on the members of this board, nay the concept of all boards in general -- an insubordination, up with which we dare not put.

Could you please not mansplain words in my mouth? Thanks.

[crikkett]

@Crikkett

But, I never get the sense that women every try to understand what it's like to be a man.

"I do."

Your avatar is a woman standing behind a man wearing what looks to be a dunce cap with what looks to be a frying pan in her hand, perhaps gearing up to club him, thus resulting in his injury, incapicitation, or death. Is she going to club him because he's stupid? Is clubbing a stupid person a solution to their stupidity? Is the person actually stupid, or was he dunced for being disobedient. Traditionally, dunce caps were awarded as a punishment for disobedience as much as anything else.

Presumably, you thought this was amusing or clever, or maybe you thought that it was accurate representation of your worldview? I don't have an avatar, nor have I ever bothered to make one, so I don't know much about the thought process behind making them. Maybe it's tongue and cheek. In any case, it kind of suggests that you might not understand them, or that you find their behavior so frustrating, that it makes you want to club them over the head. Maybe you even changed your avatar to that in time with your comment, I don't know because I haven't been paying that much attention.

The avatar shows two characters from the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guard (the girl) and the Intellectual (the kneeling old man). The Red Guard's job is to punish and shame the Intellectual as an example to the citizenry. (on edit: I thought she was holding a bullhorn)

The Cultural Revolution was perhaps one of the more terrifying purges I've learned about, and the fact that all that misery, chaos and violence is memorialized in a lovely ceramic figurine, so that it can be placed on a doily next to a delicate lamp, well it just blows my mind.**

I chose it as an avatar a few days ago because it reflects the cognitive dissonance I feel about Western culture in general and especially American culture this election season. I haven't pondered the statement it might make about gender -- my bet is that the figurine wasn't designed by a woman, but it was sold to one.

**Thanks again, Compared2What?!

[jlaw172364]

@Crikkett

Thanks for the explanation about your avatar.

"But it was sold to one . . . . "

It might have been a gender-based appeal to a subset of the Chinese female population that felt especially oppressed by males, particularly older males. The CP needed recruits to carry out various party duties, and previously oppressed populations are always fertile recruiting grounds.

If it is a bullhorn, that's hilarious, because it looked like a frying pan to me, probably because I've seen the cliche of the angry housewife bashing her husband in the head with a rolling pin or a frying pan so many times in the Western mass media, like in the Lockhorns comic strip, and then projected it into your avatar, even though I wondered about the Chinese characters and the apparent age discrepancy. In any case, they would both serve the purpose of cowing the poor guy into submission.

Part of the popular appeal of the Communist regimes was that they allowed women to advance into roles in government and the military formerly occupied by men. In fact, various government agencies used to think the Scientologists were actually Communists, because it was known at the time that the Communist regimes employed female agents. Of course, women like Julia Child and Alice Sheldon also worked in Western intelligence agencies, but they came from aristocratic families, where different rules apply than had they come from prole families.

[IanEye]

The avatar shows two characters from the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guard (the girl) and the Intellectual (the kneeling old man). The Red Guard's job is to punish and shame the Intellectual as an example to the citizenry. (on edit: I thought she was holding a bullhorn)

it is a bullhorn.

[Jeff]

Krysos, I'm suspending your account for three days. During that time, please familiarize yourself with our policy re gender and sexism.

[compared2what?]

The avatar shows two characters from the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guard (the girl) and the Intellectual (the kneeling old man). The Red Guard's job is to punish and shame the Intellectual as an example to the citizenry. (on edit: I thought she was holding a bullhorn)

it is a bullhorn.

Indeed it is. Here's a better view:



His hat (just like the one I'm wearing, atm!) says "Down with the Foul Intellectual."

[8bitagent]

Bear in mind just some 5 to 10 years after that article I clipped, "Ladies Night" went into hyperdrive. "Ladies Night" before that was confined to Ladies' functions among themselves. Like tea and whatever bullshit with hats and shit. Then it became liquor sales central. Women could drink free and shit. Men, apparently flocked to this shit. It was before my time and also at a time I came of age to witness the whole cheeziness of it.

Still trying to get the angle on when indeed it happened and how it happened and people cognizant enough to know the ins and the outs other than the obvious marketing strategies -- but just more the bar scene. But there was a definite shift and I would love to know the stories of people who just existed back then rather than news stories. Sadly, most anybody I can find, I can't find. Because they're not there anymore.

Everything in society is controlled, programmed, processed. Thoughts, vernacular, reaction, interests. Predictive patterns. I'm someone who for a good two decades has aggressively pursued and worked hard in the capacity of graphic design, illustration, music, performance, comics, promoting, short film, animation, underground fashion design, etc and Im pretty much penniless and rarely if ever have girls interested in me as more than "a friend". It feels like now to meet a cool woman, you have to look like Ryan Gossling and or make good money and all this status with a very alpha male vibe. Even so called alternative culture women
seem to gravitate toward a version of that(usually the hipster douchebag every other girl pines for)
Im out at clubs/social gatherings/parties/functions/festivals/meetups/events/concerts/small gatherings/walking/exploring/traveling(when possible) fairly consistently and am always very fun, warm and engaging. After awhile I just feel like I'm in some sort of program, or matrix.

So I see, as a looking glass figure and as an observer, the gender and body politic of everything. How women and men approach eachother and the lifecycle of meet-court/coitus-end drama, and the endless blather that fills up people's every lunch meetup. I imagine if I'd do stand I'd make Oswalt, the late Hicks and Dennis Miller seem cheery. But even when I go to geographical areas said to be friendly to outcasts, artists, etc the same fucking social/gender politic bullshit I see with the meatheads, workforce, chatty cathy cocktailers, etc.
No wonder so many well known writers or artists just stick to themselves or are hermits.

I kind of wish I had a time machine to be in the late 60's in activist/hippy circles before people were totally programmed. Because from where I am coming from, even the so called "counter culture/liberal college youth" are just as programmed and full of it as the "mainstreamers". I think that's why I love Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris so much, as it's about a guy who hates his life and almost through sheer will finds himself in the 1920's.

[8bitagent]

I believe both men and women are programmed. The gender debate is pointless, because it's like debating which political side is better. Everyone's programmed.

"Let us be clear. Let us be fair. Certainly not all Republican women – or daughters – are thusly repressed and miserable. Certainly many consciously, even enthusiastically choose their path, and many believe the Republican platform is righteous and good, despite how it hates them and believes they are lesser, weaker, ill-suited to play in the Big Game, much less make their own decisions about their vaginas, their identities, their reproductive powers."

Or, more likely, they know that they are part of a hypocrisy that crams one set of rules down people's throats while following a completely different set of rules. Historically, women in wealthy and powerful families have had a lot less trouble getting abortions, so why should they care if their privilege is based on platform of oppression that denies women goods and services they can themselves can discreetly purchase, or get their families to purchase for them.

The Republican party is the party of the ultra-rich. The ultra-rich don't like birth control for the masses because it shrinks the labour pool. That's my opinion, anyway.

I don't know, I've met a lot of proud Democrat/hardcore Obamabot females who fit the descriptions of the above and all around I couldn't stand to be around. Coolest girls Ive met
are those who hate both parties and the whole system:)

The historical phenomena of middle-class, upper-middle-class, and wealthy women shaming their boyfriends onto one of the most pointless battlefields in all history where many of them got slaughtered is just one real historical example of SOME women abusing their power over SOME men.

Not just well to do. For the last decade Ive seen poor trailer trash women rooting for their man to go be a "real American" and go kill brown people for lie based wars...err, that is til
Timothy Jacob Smith comes back with missing hands or in a flag draped coffin.