Why Mansplaining isn’t always always what we think, and why it’s so divisive.

I regard myself as a feminist. I define that as someone who cares about and tries to ensure that we all respect each other equally, and want us to achieve equal rights. For all. I don’t care what genitals someone has or what stereotypes other people want to use to define other individuals or groups en mass. I don’t do that.

I know some might say that I’m disqualified from being a feminist as I am male but I reserve my right to self definition, and yours.

Secondly, and just for the record I don’t think that I personally have previously ever been accused of Mansplaining. * I expect this to change now I figure, for daring to write an opinion piece about equality*

I also realise that I might be walking into insults and in my view misplaced anger as I’ve seen how some people like to band together and insult other people based on their sexuality, gender, age, race or anything else that helps some feel they are gaining ground in their own peer group by sharing in the denigration of others. I don’t do that either.

I’ve seen it all my life (and been a victim of it sometimes) and I believe we all need to work together to overcome it. The furtherance of the gender divide, and in short the continuation of patriarchy and inequality is partly fuelled and continued by the language we use to describe each other and when we use it in public for others to see and be influenced by it.

Some people are sexist and seem determined to remain so. Mr Trump is especially topical right now and is the absolute embodiment of sexism, denigration of women and a totem to the entitled so called maleness that finally we hope is beginning it’s death throes, though to watch the US election and to see all the voters who are happy to agree with him we obviously have a long long way to go. That saddens me.

I condemn and call out sexism wherever I think I see it. I’ve done it for years at work or in social situations in RL and on line. I’m not some crusader for the feminist cause though. I have a life and things to do. I’m not the person at a party that just wants to talk about that. I think I’m a fairly normal person with a critical and open mind that is wired against prejudice, inequality and unfairness whenever I see it. In short I just want everyone to learn and evolve to get along.

Some hope.

Anyway, where was I?

Mansplaining, or any word that implies or denigrates any or either gender is divisive and in my opinion actually damaging to the cause we all should be working toward in real gender equality.

It’s not the same as Manspreading. That’s obviously to me a sign of a lack of self awareness, empathy and consideration to others. It’s plain rude to wave your genitals at someone and take up more space than you need. Didn’t anyone tell you that?!

I’m also not just picking on mansplaining. This applies to any gender related insult that one group uses to denigrate the other, or own just by one gender group or another. You call someone weak because they are a woman, so implying all women are by nature weak? Then just transpose weak for mansplaining. Other words are available. It’s the principle, but I need a specific word to illustrate what I’m saying.

Mansplaining

I’m writing this post as over the past couple of years I see it used more and more and often in contexts that aren’t clear, or when someone seems to have just decided that they don’t like someone’s view or narrow interaction on social media. Typically I see people then spreading the message asking for justification or agreement with them. Then the inevitable happens and a load of people agree and before you know it you have a thread where a mob mentality is in agreement.

Any questioners or dissenters are politely dissuaded if women or laughed at or also accused of being a mansplainer if men.

I don’t care what genitals anyone has or personally get much riled by it but I do care about the creation and furtherance of division for divisions sake or sometimes the enhancement of status by putting others down.

I’m not writing about any individual case, person or event. I’m writing about the wider problem of banding together based on gender and using gender specific terms which insult a whole gender but worse fuel the fire and continue the division by influencing others to do the same. In addition the issuance of a gender based slur shuts down most debate because most reasonable people won’t then say what they might really think on either side.

Because that’s what it does.

By implying that a whole half of the human race can’t understand or agree with you over something, or has ‘advised you’ of something without you requesting that from them or has different motives to you simply because of their chromosome is backward and partly why we all are in this struggle in the first place.

If a man were to post a gender specific insult framed in the context of an individual woman that would be disgusting to most of us and rightly condemned. That’s why most of us have such outrage at the behavior of Mr Trump and most of us who watched Michelle Obama’s speech were moved emotionally by her clear focus, strength and anger toward it and on behalf of women and our future world in general

There is a broader context around this which some might feel is relevant and that is that it seems to be common consensus that a majority of boys are bought up and encouraged to offer opinion or to interrupt or be forceful, and that a majority of girls are bought up being told to not have opinions, or be quiet and unchallenging with both of these approaches so obviously being wrong and unhelpful. But if you’ve been indoctrinated all your life to feel that it’s helpful to share your opinion then it’s seems unrealistic to expect that to just stop. It seems to me sensible to have discussion and it seems to me that anything anyone shares in an open public forum should be (and is) open to comment, challenge or outright disagreement irrespective of their genders.

As I wrote earlier though there are unpleasant, bigoted and sexist people and some will hide or try to gaslight around that. There are many men and women like that but I’m not writing about them. I’m writing about how our language use contributes to the creation of more of them and the way we use words has more power than most of us realise.

We are in challenging times but we also have the ability for us all to project our thoughts and opinions on the world. The language we use to do that is important. Our words influence actions, behaviors and attitudes.

Men or women tribilising and using gender loaded insults isn’t progression, it’s entrenching the problem we already have. We should all play by the right rules. Call it out!