FWIW, there are contexts in which I’ve seen this criticized.
Usually, the context is that someone has started a discussion about some situation in which men or boys have caused suffering or otherwise behaved badly, and someone else has responded by expressing empathy towards the men or boys in question, and the person who started the discussion has criticized the attempt to switch the conversation focus from empathy towards the objects of the behavior, to empathy for the agents of it. (The jargon term for this is “derailing” in many contexts.)
Of course, this is only a subset of the general category of expressing empathy towards men and boys, but it’s one that gets a lot of attention.
This is hardly unique to situations involving gender.
For instance, sometimes this sort of thing happens —
Person A makes a decision or takes an action that hurts Person B — perhaps accidentally; perhaps out of negligence or bias.
Person B makes a demand — such as restitution for the harm done; or that the situation be corrected so that people like A won’t hurt people any more.
A or A’s supporters ignore or deflect B’s demand, saying things such as that A’s decision-making role is difficult; that A’s guilt over hurting B is unpleasant to A; or that continuing to discuss A’s mistake (and not “moving on”) is a sign of malice, unfairness, or mental imbalance on B’s part.
That’s derailing: Person A changing the subject from “A hurt B, and B wants it fixed” to “A’s life is so hard and people are being so harsh to A” in order to avoid talking about fixing the situation for B, the injured party.
That’s derailing: Person A changing the subject from “A hurt B, and B wants it fixed” to “A’s life is so hard and people are being so harsh to A” in order to avoid talking about fixing the situation for B, the injured party.
Let’s pick an example to make things more concrete. Person B owns a field, and Person A runs trains on a nearby railroad that throw dangerous sparks onto the field. Person B demands that Person A either stop the trains from passing near his property, or else fit them with a mechanism that will prevent sparks. Now Person A complains that the trains are used by low-income commuters who will be forced to pay unreasonably high prices in order to cover these additional costs. Is Person A “derailing the conversation”, or is this a valid point? Extra credit: What might influence your answer to this question?
“Derailing” is a very broad term actually, as is the synonimous term “manscaping”. It just means “I-DIDN’T-HEAR-THAT’ and you can use it in all sorts of contexts.
Yes, like many terms it has a lot of meanings in different contexts. But I’m operating here within the context that Viliam_Bur and chaosmage established.
FWIW, there are contexts in which I’ve seen this criticized.
Usually, the context is that someone has started a discussion about some situation in which men or boys have caused suffering or otherwise behaved badly, and someone else has responded by expressing empathy towards the men or boys in question, and the person who started the discussion has criticized the attempt to switch the conversation focus from empathy towards the objects of the behavior, to empathy for the agents of it. (The jargon term for this is “derailing” in many contexts.)
Of course, this is only a subset of the general category of expressing empathy towards men and boys, but it’s one that gets a lot of attention.
This is hardly unique to situations involving gender.
For instance, sometimes this sort of thing happens —
Person A makes a decision or takes an action that hurts Person B — perhaps accidentally; perhaps out of negligence or bias.
Person B makes a demand — such as restitution for the harm done; or that the situation be corrected so that people like A won’t hurt people any more.
A or A’s supporters ignore or deflect B’s demand, saying things such as that A’s decision-making role is difficult; that A’s guilt over hurting B is unpleasant to A; or that continuing to discuss A’s mistake (and not “moving on”) is a sign of malice, unfairness, or mental imbalance on B’s part.
That’s derailing: Person A changing the subject from “A hurt B, and B wants it fixed” to “A’s life is so hard and people are being so harsh to A” in order to avoid talking about fixing the situation for B, the injured party.
Yes, I agree that it’s not unique to situations involving gender.
Let’s pick an example to make things more concrete. Person B owns a field, and Person A runs trains on a nearby railroad that throw dangerous sparks onto the field. Person B demands that Person A either stop the trains from passing near his property, or else fit them with a mechanism that will prevent sparks. Now Person A complains that the trains are used by low-income commuters who will be forced to pay unreasonably high prices in order to cover these additional costs. Is Person A “derailing the conversation”, or is this a valid point? Extra credit: What might influence your answer to this question?
“Derailing” is a very broad term actually, as is the synonimous term “manscaping”. It just means “I-DIDN’T-HEAR-THAT’ and you can use it in all sorts of contexts.
I think you mean “mansplaining”. “Manscaping” means, er, something different.
Whoops, you’re right. This stuff gets quite confusing!
Yes, like many terms it has a lot of meanings in different contexts. But I’m operating here within the context that Viliam_Bur and chaosmage established.