I assume you believe that your belief in the significance of that context is rational. What evidence could I present that your understanding of the context is incorrect?
Because absent that, I don’t see this argument as being fruitful. Your essential argument comes down to the point that I lack sufficient perspective pretty much on the basis that my perspective doesn’t match yours.
(I will confess that my own perspective probably won’t change. There was some fucked up shit in my childhood which I won’t get into that is going to permanently color my attitudes; suffice to say I have little sympathy for people who insist misandry can’t happen or is somehow different or less significant because context. Those are my experiences you’re trivializing there.)
What evidence could I present that your understanding of the context is incorrect?
For example, evidence that women were a dominant group during the period when “hysteria” came into use. Then I would agree that “hysteria” is largely equivalent to “mansplaining.”
Your essential argument comes down to the point that I lack sufficient perspective pretty much on the basis that my perspective doesn’t match yours.
I find that I’m confused. I thought we were talking about whether or not social and political forces were relevant (in a “carving reality at the joints” sense) to interpreting a certain kind of behavior.
suffice to say I have little sympathy for people who insist misandry can’t happen or is somehow different or less significant because context. Those are my experiences you’re trivializing there.
Excuse me, but I’ve not said anything about your experiences, and I do in fact believe that misandry exists and is significant.
I just don’t know how to talk about either “women being told things they already know by ignorant men” or “men being told things they already know by ignorant women” without actually distinguishing the two as subclasses of the class of actions I’ve called elsewhere “being an ass.”
I find that I’m confused. I thought we were talking about whether or not social and political forces were relevant (in a “carving reality at the joints” sense) to interpreting a certain kind of behavior.
Excerpting something you’ve written in another comment: “If you refuse to see the politics, then of course it all looks the same.” Am I mistaken in taking your position on the matter as that all gender relations should be viewed through historical context?
Excuse me, but I’ve not said anything about your experiences, and I do in fact believe that misandry exists and is significant.
You are, however, insisting that it’s different/less significant. My statement was addressing a broad class of gender relations contexts that I cannot accept. My childhood self had neither input into nor knowledge of that context, and your position reads to me as requiring that historical context makes my experiences less significant than an analogous experience by a girl. I refuse to accept a worldview which dehumanizes me.
I just don’t know how to talk about either “women being told things they already know by ignorant men” or “men being told things they already know by ignorant women” without actually distinguishing the two as subclasses of the class of actions I’ve called elsewhere “being an ass.”
Why do you insist on carving reality at those particular joints, however? Why are woman-man and man-woman the appropriate places to carve reality? You’re coming into the discussion -assuming- those joints are appropriate places to carve.
“Mansplaining” is offensive, and it’s used by precisely that group of people who believe man-woman and woman-man are appropriate places to carve reality. I can only take it as a -deliberate attack on my gender-. People using the word “hysteria” aren’t generally aware of its original meaning or intent. The words are no longer the same. “Hysteria” is no longer reasonably offensive, because it is used by people who do not know that it could be; it takes education to even know that it is something you could take offense at. “Mansplaining” on the other hand is used almost exclusively by people who know exactly what they’re doing, and it is almost exclusively directed at people who know exactly what it means when they’re doing it.
You are, however, insisting that it’s different/less significant.
Different? Yes, of course it’s different; it’s a different activity with different characteristics that occurs in substantially different ways. Less significant? No.
Why do you insist on carving reality at those particular joints, however?
Because that’s where we started when we started talking about mansplaining. (In fact, I also made a gay-straight distinction that is also not completely true.) It’s not the only place, but it is a place, and I’ve tried to argue here that treating both classes of interaction (or, more broadly, the whole continuum of interaction) as a single class is not helpful.
I’m done being accused of misandry when all I’ve said generalizes to a broad variety of classes of interaction and kinds of power struggles within many different groups.
EDIT: Perhaps I should have explicitly said I was tapping out. Suffice it to say I agree with very little of OrphanWilde’s interpretation of the views I’ve presented in this thread.
I haven’t accused you of misandry. (Seriously, this should be an “I am confused” moment. Please stop trying to fit what I am saying into a predefined narrative.)
What I’ve accused you of, effectively, is supporting a dominance hierarchy that dehumanizes me, that makes my experiences less significant. More than one guy has said in this post that he finds the term “mansplaining” to be offensive, and a strong signal that his gender will be held against him, and anything he says will be ignored. Why do you persist in defending it? Because you insist on a dominance hierarchy that makes their experiences matter less than… what exactly? The ability of feminists to be offensive? Because you think being in a dominant class confers an immunity against hurt?
The dominance hierarchy didn’t protect me from an emotionally abusive misandrist. It didn’t protect me from the college professor who routinely flunked or kicked out every male student who ever made the mistake of taking a class with her without asking around about her reputation first. It doesn’t protect me from rape or violence. It does not, in fact, confer any protections at all. Instead, it strips them away, and then I get thrown to the bottom of the pile and told “We’ll get to you when we’re satisfied everybody else’s problems are solved first”.
And hell, I don’t even demand anybody fix the problems; I’m not a crusader, nor do I want to be, because the pay is shit and everybody hates people who stand up for men, if only because they think it’s distracting attention from the “real” problems. All I want is for the people who claim to be fixing these problems in general to stop heaping shit on top of me, actively working to make things worse. I really don’t think it’s all that unreasonable, nor do I think it’s unreasonable to call out the people who -are- actively making things worse.
I assume you believe that your belief in the significance of that context is rational. What evidence could I present that your understanding of the context is incorrect?
Because absent that, I don’t see this argument as being fruitful. Your essential argument comes down to the point that I lack sufficient perspective pretty much on the basis that my perspective doesn’t match yours.
(I will confess that my own perspective probably won’t change. There was some fucked up shit in my childhood which I won’t get into that is going to permanently color my attitudes; suffice to say I have little sympathy for people who insist misandry can’t happen or is somehow different or less significant because context. Those are my experiences you’re trivializing there.)
For example, evidence that women were a dominant group during the period when “hysteria” came into use. Then I would agree that “hysteria” is largely equivalent to “mansplaining.”
I find that I’m confused. I thought we were talking about whether or not social and political forces were relevant (in a “carving reality at the joints” sense) to interpreting a certain kind of behavior.
Excuse me, but I’ve not said anything about your experiences, and I do in fact believe that misandry exists and is significant.
I just don’t know how to talk about either “women being told things they already know by ignorant men” or “men being told things they already know by ignorant women” without actually distinguishing the two as subclasses of the class of actions I’ve called elsewhere “being an ass.”
Excerpting something you’ve written in another comment: “If you refuse to see the politics, then of course it all looks the same.” Am I mistaken in taking your position on the matter as that all gender relations should be viewed through historical context?
You are, however, insisting that it’s different/less significant. My statement was addressing a broad class of gender relations contexts that I cannot accept. My childhood self had neither input into nor knowledge of that context, and your position reads to me as requiring that historical context makes my experiences less significant than an analogous experience by a girl. I refuse to accept a worldview which dehumanizes me.
Why do you insist on carving reality at those particular joints, however? Why are woman-man and man-woman the appropriate places to carve reality? You’re coming into the discussion -assuming- those joints are appropriate places to carve.
“Mansplaining” is offensive, and it’s used by precisely that group of people who believe man-woman and woman-man are appropriate places to carve reality. I can only take it as a -deliberate attack on my gender-. People using the word “hysteria” aren’t generally aware of its original meaning or intent. The words are no longer the same. “Hysteria” is no longer reasonably offensive, because it is used by people who do not know that it could be; it takes education to even know that it is something you could take offense at. “Mansplaining” on the other hand is used almost exclusively by people who know exactly what they’re doing, and it is almost exclusively directed at people who know exactly what it means when they’re doing it.
Different? Yes, of course it’s different; it’s a different activity with different characteristics that occurs in substantially different ways. Less significant? No.
Because that’s where we started when we started talking about mansplaining. (In fact, I also made a gay-straight distinction that is also not completely true.) It’s not the only place, but it is a place, and I’ve tried to argue here that treating both classes of interaction (or, more broadly, the whole continuum of interaction) as a single class is not helpful.
I’m done being accused of misandry when all I’ve said generalizes to a broad variety of classes of interaction and kinds of power struggles within many different groups.
EDIT: Perhaps I should have explicitly said I was tapping out. Suffice it to say I agree with very little of OrphanWilde’s interpretation of the views I’ve presented in this thread.
I haven’t accused you of misandry. (Seriously, this should be an “I am confused” moment. Please stop trying to fit what I am saying into a predefined narrative.)
What I’ve accused you of, effectively, is supporting a dominance hierarchy that dehumanizes me, that makes my experiences less significant. More than one guy has said in this post that he finds the term “mansplaining” to be offensive, and a strong signal that his gender will be held against him, and anything he says will be ignored. Why do you persist in defending it? Because you insist on a dominance hierarchy that makes their experiences matter less than… what exactly? The ability of feminists to be offensive? Because you think being in a dominant class confers an immunity against hurt?
The dominance hierarchy didn’t protect me from an emotionally abusive misandrist. It didn’t protect me from the college professor who routinely flunked or kicked out every male student who ever made the mistake of taking a class with her without asking around about her reputation first. It doesn’t protect me from rape or violence. It does not, in fact, confer any protections at all. Instead, it strips them away, and then I get thrown to the bottom of the pile and told “We’ll get to you when we’re satisfied everybody else’s problems are solved first”.
And hell, I don’t even demand anybody fix the problems; I’m not a crusader, nor do I want to be, because the pay is shit and everybody hates people who stand up for men, if only because they think it’s distracting attention from the “real” problems. All I want is for the people who claim to be fixing these problems in general to stop heaping shit on top of me, actively working to make things worse. I really don’t think it’s all that unreasonable, nor do I think it’s unreasonable to call out the people who -are- actively making things worse.