# Feminists treat men badly. It’s bad for feminism. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 5, 2016, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149 "2016-07-05T18:38:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bruce\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/221 "2016-07-08T21:44:34Z")
> [@Barrett\_Bonden](#): > > Yes, but based on your response I’m starting to doubt that you did. Let’s review. The examples given in the column were > > [ol] > [li]collecting unflattering things that guys had texted on a blog called Straight White Boys Texting[/li][li]collecting unflattering things that guys had said and done in a column called “Dear Men: This Is Why Women Have Every Right To Be Disgusted With Us”[/li][li]adoption of the neologisms “mansplaining,” “manspreading,” and “manterrupting”[/li][li]failing to respect the “manosphere” while allowing author Laurie Penny to hurt male feelings[/li][li]reviling the concept of “friend zone”[/li][li]writing a misleading headline about a study and[/li][li]internet-mocking a guy who had a problem with female ghostbusters.[/li][/ol] > > So, despite the rather creative use of the term “straw man,” a reasonable person would conclude that items 1, 2, 5, and 7 can be avoided by not saying something stupid, 1 and 2 can also be avoided by not texting pictures of your genitalia to strangers, and 3 by not interrupting an expert in the field to voice your shallow understanding of her field of expertise. > > I cannot summon the will to care deeply about number 4. As for number 6, please hand me my smelling salts. I would bet serious money that use of the term mansplaining covers a hell of a lot more than interrupting an expert in her field. :rolleyes: [For example](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19442641&postcount=33) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/222 "2016-07-09T00:42:43Z")
> [@Bruce\_Wayne](#): > > I would bet serious money that use of the term mansplaining covers a hell of a lot more than interrupting an expert in her field. :rolleyes: [For example](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19442641&postcount=33) Umm…how do I put this. **ZPG Zealot** is a valued member of our community, but her take on MANY MANY things is…idiosyncratic. Her use of words, whether “mansplain” or “rape,” is not indicative of widespread usage. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/223 "2016-07-09T02:21:00Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Umm…how do I put this. **ZPG Zealot** is a valued member of our community, but her take on MANY MANY things is…idiosyncratic. Her use of words, whether “mansplain” or “rape,” is not indicative of widespread usage. That is a fine way to put it. Although, I have to agree that there are cases where the word mansplaining is used by other people where I think “you realize the word doesn’t mean ‘man explaining something to a woman because she doesn’t understand it?’” There has to be the “unnecessarily explaining” in it. ---
**Author:** ![Ibanez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a4c791/32.png) [@Ibanez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibanez)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/224 "2016-07-09T12:37:18Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Umm…how do I put this. **ZPG Zealot** is a valued member of our community, but her take on MANY MANY things is…idiosyncratic. Her use of words, whether “mansplain” or “rape,” is not indicative of widespread usage. [Australian Senate.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOXh5repOWI) ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/225 "2016-07-09T12:52:26Z")
> [@Ibanez](#): > > [Australian Senate.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOXh5repOWI) Damn. That backfired, didn’t it. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/226 "2016-07-09T13:29:01Z")
> [@Barrett Bonden](#): > > The examples given in the column aren’t examples of men being bashed for being men. They are examples of men being mocked for being stupid (or vulgar or whiney). > > 1. collecting unflattering things that guys had texted on a blog called Straight White Boys Texting > 2. collecting unflattering things that guys had said and done in a column called “Dear Men: This Is Why Women Have Every Right To Be Disgusted With Us” > 3. adoption of the neologisms “mansplaining,” “manspreading,” and “manterrupting” > 4. failing to respect the “manosphere” while allowing author Laurie Penny to hurt male feelings > 5. reviling the concept of “friend zone” > 6. writing a misleading headline about a study and > 7. internet-mocking a guy who had a problem with female ghostbusters. I agree with **lance strongarm** that these are oversimplifications of the articles objections. The reason the Straight White Boys Texting site is distasteful is that it associates the phenomenon of cyber harassment with a specific race, gender, and sexuality as though it is exclusive to that demographic. Literally everyone in the world knows that this isn’t true, and they’ve always known this isn’t true. So why does the blog exist? Why do they focus on straight white boys? The simplest answer is that whoever runs the blog thinks that straight white boys are an acceptable target. This is just hypocrisy, pure and simple. We all know (and yes, we _do_ all know, whether we want to admit it or not) that a blog called ‘Homophobic Muslim Tweets’ or ‘Videos of Black People Going Mental in Public’ would be universally condemned, and _rightly so_. They’d be condemned because homophobia isn’t exclusive to Muslims and street violence isn’t exclusive to black people. A website that pretended otherwise would be perpetuating bigotry. Straight White Boys Texting is an example of acceptable bigotry. Oh, and if you’re offended by Straight White Boys Texting, the site’s proprietor has a [very thoughtful response](http://straightwhiteboystexting.org/idontcare). As for “mansplaining”, as I said earlier in the thread: \*"I’ve met plenty of women who love nothing more than explaining to men how their own minds work. “Guys only think with their dicks”, “Men can only think about one thing at a time”, “Most men are emotional cripples” the list is endless. A friend of mine who happens to be rather indifferent to sport, upon telling his co-workers that his wife was expecting a baby boy, was asked by a woman in his office “How can you expect to raise a son if you don’t like football?” I mean, what the fuck is that?! Some men are condescending arseholes. Some aren’t. Some women are condescending arseholes. Some aren’t. We don’t need a deliberately gendered word to describe the phenomenon of condescension as if only one gender ever does it. People just need to stop being arseholes, end of."\* Same for “manterrupting”. This is something that men and women both do. So why pretend that only men do it? I work on a team with two other men and eight women. I almost never bother saying anything anymore because nine times out of ten one of the _women_ will cut me off. I actually put my hand up like I’m in a classroom. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t get a word in edgewise. What am I supposed to call that? Your other representations are similarly simplistic but I’ll leave those for other posters to pick apart. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/227 "2016-07-09T18:59:00Z")
> [@Tithonus](#): > > Same for “manterrupting”. This is something that men and women both do. So why pretend that only men do it? I work on a team with two other men and eight women. I almost never bother saying anything anymore because nine times out of ten one of the _women_ will cut me off. I actually put my hand up like I’m in a classroom. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t get a word in edgewise. What am I supposed to call that? Because study after study have shown that women get interrupted more than men. That men interrupt women more - although women also interrupt women more - although not as much as men. Yes, everyone does it, but the disparity between the frequency that women’s words are not respected is significant enough that it has career consequences for them as a population. It has political consequences as our voices are unheard because we are talked over. You know what’s GOOD for feminism, when people listen to women - you can’t do that when you are talking over them. You know whats good for individual women - when their voices are heard. I don’t think this is conscious on the part of many men - Eric Schmidt isn’t such an idiot to do so on a panel on gender diversity in tech on purpose: [http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/03/19/google-chief-blasted-for-repeatedly-interrupting-female-government-official/](http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/03/19/google-chief-blasted-for-repeatedly-interrupting-female-government-official/) ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/228 "2016-07-10T01:11:46Z")
A company I used to work for would promote unqualified men over any woman because the clients would believe anything that came out of the mouths of men vs nothing a woman said. My boss, a woman, told me this in disgust and kind of suggested I might be better off leaving because I was going nowhere due to a lack of balls. When they promoted a male person who could barely speak English and had been there less than 6 months quite a few highly qualified women who had been there for years (including me) jumped ship. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/229 "2016-07-10T02:51:02Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > The connection needs to be a little stronger than that: your grandfather took something from my grandfather, enabling the accumulation of wealth and power at the expense of my grandfather. That wealth and power has been passed down through generations to you. At this point, maybe you should give a bit of that wealth and power back to me. It’s not that I should have an advantage over you; rather, some of the unearned advantage you have as a result of your grandfather’s misdeeds should be given to me. You should, in other words, give up a bit of your unearned advantage over me Ok, so how do assess something like the fact that I may have been the child of recent white immigrants, who were poor Europeans from a long line of poor. How would I owe jack-shit to any local present decendants of previously disadvantaged people? None of my ancestors derived one red cent from the misdeeds of the previous centuries. Am I guilty by some twisted sense of guilt by association? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/230 "2016-07-10T03:21:22Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > The connection needs to be a little stronger than that: your grandfather took something from my grandfather, enabling the accumulation of wealth and power at the expense of my grandfather. That wealth and power has been passed down through generations to you. At this point, maybe you should give a bit of that wealth and power back to me. It’s not that I should have an advantage over you; rather, some of the unearned advantage you have as a result of your grandfather’s misdeeds should be given to me. You should, in other words, give up a bit of your unearned advantage over me This gets extremely complicated. There are 300 million+ people in America. Some benefited from others’ ancestors, some didn’t. A recent white immigrant from Sweden wouldn’t benefit from his ancestors oppressing native Americans - they didn’t (assuming the family was always in Sweden.) A recent white immigrant from Ukraine wouldn’t benefit from his ancestors owning black slaves in America - they didn’t (assuming the family was always in Ukraine.) How do we do these investigations? They would get impossibly complex. Which of 300 million people owe something to which of the other 300 million people? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/231 "2016-07-10T04:35:00Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > Am I guilty by some twisted sense of guilt by association? It has nothing to do with guilt. You _benefit_, in your new homeland, from “the misdeeds of the previous centuries.” By virtue of being white you have an inherent _advantage_ thanks to those centuries. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/232 "2016-07-10T14:47:04Z")
> [@andros](#): > > It has nothing to do with guilt. You _benefit_, in your new homeland, from “the misdeeds of the previous centuries.” By virtue of being white you have an inherent _advantage_ thanks to those centuries. Its bigger than being merely white. My husband has it - Mayflower decedent, white man, grandfather a West Point grad. He has two Presidents, a Confederate General and a WWII General in his family tree. My dad doesn’t - despite filling out census forms as a white male. None of his grandparents spoke English. He is not “white enough” - he has the dark olive skin of his Roma mother. His last name is Italian - and he is old enough where these things matters. I don’t - I’m white - I have the “vampire chic” skin tone of my German mother, I’m young enough that my Italian last name is just a name. But I come with breasts. And we haven’t get gotten rid of that being worth a demerit. But I get far more of a headstart than a black man, or a black woman. I’m straight, and culturally Christian. I’m still way privileged, I just don’t get to sit on the top rung of the privilege ladder. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/233 "2016-07-10T15:31:35Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Its bigger than being merely white. Of course. But **BwanaBob** brought up ethnicity specifically–well, skin color at least–so I figured I’d start there. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/234 "2016-07-10T16:44:45Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Of course. But **BwanaBob** brought up ethnicity specifically–well, skin color at least–so I figured I’d start there. 🙂 The trick in privileged is to acknowledge your own, and not resent others for theirs. As your mother taught you “life isn’t fair” And almost everyone has some sort of privilege that someone else doesn’t get. There are some privileges I get as a women than I don’t get as a man - i.e. if once in a while I go home “crampy” from work, most of the time its overlooked. I may have gotten a free pass on a speeding ticket or two when I was younger. But the scale does not balance in my favor against being a white man. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/235 "2016-07-10T17:28:19Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > It’s not that I should have an advantage over you; rather, some of the unearned advantage you have as a result of your grandfather’s misdeeds should be given to me. You should, in other words, give up a bit of your unearned advantage over me > [@BwanaBob](#): > > Ok, so how do assess something like the fact that I may have been the child of recent white immigrants, who were poor Europeans from a long line of poor. How would I owe jack-shit to any local present decendants of previously disadvantaged people? None of my ancestors derived one red cent from the misdeeds of the previous centuries. Am I guilty by some twisted sense of guilt by association? > [@Velocity](#): > > A recent white immigrant from Sweden wouldn’t benefit from his ancestors oppressing native Americans - they didn’t (assuming the family was always in Sweden.) > [@andros](#): > > It has nothing to do with guilt. You _benefit_, in your new homeland, from “the misdeeds of the previous centuries.” By virtue of being white you have an inherent _advantage_ thanks to those centuries. My first sentence above is being taken too literally; look at the second sentence. It doesn’t have to be your grandfather specifically; was that unclear, did you think I was literally talking about your particular grandfather? The point is about unearned advantage in general, when that unearned advantage is due to previous misdeeds, even if those misdeeds weren’t yours, and even if they weren’t your ancestor’s. Andros is right that it has nothing to do with guilt. If I inherit my granddad’s–excuse me, my second cousin’s twice removed on my mother’s side, carry the five–painting that was stolen from a Jewish family during the Holocaust, or even if I buy it at a flea market two weeks after immigrating to the United States from Sweden, and if the dude who originally owned it wants it back, **I’m not guilty of theft**. But I still oughtta give it back to him. Is it complicated? Sure. And that’s a good point, the United States sucks at doing complicated things, we can’t figure out how to do anything complicated, so we should throw up our hands and give up before investigating how to do it. Or, you know, [not](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr40). (I know this is pretty far afield from the OP. I’m good with that.) ---
**Author:** ![Barrett\_Bonden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5e9695/32.png) [@Barrett\_Bonden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barrett_Bonden)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/236 "2016-07-10T23:28:25Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > It seems to me that the problem with some of those cases is the same problem people have with the title of the article. If “feminists treat men badly” should make it clear that it’s only about some feminists[sup]1[/sup], then shouldn’t an article about why women have every right to be disgusted with men make it clear that it’s only about some men? And no, I can’t avoid it by “not saying something stupid”. I’m tarred by that brush whether I’ve said anything or not. > > 1. I did not see if you, **Barrett** , specifically made that objection, but it has been asserted in this thread. I see your point. In the list I had made, I assumed that things being objected to were content rather than titles, and the OP and column do seem to take that stance. But as far as headlines go, the “Dear Men” title in particular seems pretty objectionable. I’m still pondering the Straight White Boys Texting title, because IMO it’s pretty clear that it’s intended to be #NotAllStraightWhiteBoys. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/237 "2016-07-10T23:52:51Z")
> [@Ibanez](#): > > [Australian Senate.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOXh5repOWI) So rather than addressing her actual comments wrt his patronizing behaviour, or in fact modifying said behaviour one iota, he decided to pitch a fit over the vernacular to make it look like she was the wronging party and he the wronged, and keeps interrupting her and shouting her down in the process. Have I got this right ? ---
**Author:** ![Barrett\_Bonden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5e9695/32.png) [@Barrett\_Bonden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barrett_Bonden)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/238 "2016-07-11T00:00:19Z")
> [@Tithonus](#): > > The reason the Straight White Boys Texting site is distasteful is that it associates the phenomenon of cyber harassment with a specific race, gender, and sexuality as though it is exclusive to that demographic. Literally everyone in the world knows that this isn’t true, and they’ve always known this isn’t true. So why does the blog exist? Why do they focus on straight white boys? The simplest answer is that whoever runs the blog thinks that straight white boys are an acceptable target. In the interest of research, I visited the tumblr “Straight White Boys Texting” for the first time. I was genuinely curious how white the texting boys are. Unfortunately, I can’t tell how white they are based on their texts. However, their gender and sexual preferences are clearly (if inelegantly) expressed. Why does the blog exist? you ask. It exists because some guys were being rude and some women were tired of this particular form of rudeness and decided to give the rude guys and their idiocy a wider forum. This whole argument, though, seems to be a rehashing of #NotAllGuys. When #NotAllGuys comes up, the person raising generally wants to deflect attention from the original issue being discussed and instead make himself the injured party. Most people don’t title their websites as if they were a chapter in a Victorian serial. The viewer will have to discern that “Girls Gone Wild” is not every girl or even a plurality of them, “Hamilton the Musical” also has some talking in it, and “Bad Astronomy” actually contains good astronomy. It is a little tricky, but I think many folks can figure it out. ---
**Author:** ![Barrett\_Bonden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5e9695/32.png) [@Barrett\_Bonden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barrett_Bonden)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/239 "2016-07-11T00:03:13Z")
> [@Ibanez](#): > > [Australian Senate.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOXh5repOWI) > [@Kobal2](#): > > So rather than addressing her actual comments wrt his patronizing behaviour, or in fact modifying said behaviour one iota, he decided to pitch a fit over the vernacular to make it look like she was the wronging party and he the wronged, and keeps interrupting her and shouting her down in the process. > > Have I got this right ? Bingo. I would only add that she appeared to be initially annoyed because he wasn’t answering her questions, and by grandstanding with his hurt feelings, he managed to continue avoiding answering her questions. He seems like quite a grand politician. ---
**Author:** ![Barrett\_Bonden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5e9695/32.png) [@Barrett\_Bonden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barrett_Bonden)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149/240 "2016-07-11T00:20:14Z")
> [@Tithonus](#): > > As for “mansplaining”, as I said earlier in the thread: > > \*"I’ve met plenty of women who love nothing more than explaining to men how their own minds work. “Guys only think with their dicks”, “Men can only think about one thing at a time”, “Most men are emotional cripples” the list is endless. A friend of mine who happens to be rather indifferent to sport, upon telling his co-workers that his wife was expecting a baby boy, was asked by a woman in his office “How can you expect to raise a son if you don’t like football?” I mean, what the fuck is that?! > > Some men are condescending arseholes. Some aren’t. Some women are condescending arseholes. Some aren’t. We don’t need a deliberately gendered word to describe the phenomenon of condescension as if only one gender ever does it. People just need to stop being arseholes, end of."\* IMO, when the term “mansplaining” was first coined, it was a useful and somewhat biting description for a gendered phenomenon that deserved a gendered description. It has occurred and continues to occur that _ **some** _ men consider themselves to be more of an authority on a given topic than a woman because “men naturally know more than women.” I’m sure it isn’t that baldly stated in their minds; however, their pattern of behavior tends to reveal it. Again #NotAllMen. If you want to discuss the phenomenon or are skeptical of it, we can start another thread where people can contribute studies and their own experiences. My point here is that the condition exists, is sadly non-negligible, and “mansplaining” is an appropriate term for it, because the irrational assumption of superior knowledge was influenced by the gender of the speaker and the gender of the listener. That said, now it’s just being used as an equivalent for “men explaining condescendingly to women,” which is not the same thing. So, if you think it’s overused and no longer a useful term, I agree. > [@Tithonus](#): > > Same for “manterrupting”. This is something that men and women both do. So why pretend that only men do it? I work on a team with two other men and eight women. I almost never bother saying anything anymore because nine times out of ten one of the _women_ will cut me off. I actually put my hand up like I’m in a classroom. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t get a word in edgewise. What am I supposed to call that? Most of the other “man”-whatever terms, yes, I agree. Not accurate, not useful, not clever. Now, because I can’t resist, you realize that you are complaining because nine times out of ten you are interrupted by a woman in a group in which eighty percent of the potential interrupters are women? What are the odds? 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feminists-treat-men-badly-it-s-bad-for-feminism/759149.md?page=13)