Talk:Mansplaining

	This Language related article has been awarded BRONZE status for quality. It's getting there, but could be better with improvement. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

Archives for this talk page:

<1>

, (new)

Rational vs Mansplaining

I Don't think this term should be here at all. It belongs on an urban dictionary type sight. It doesn't seem to be a real word just something someone made up to insult others. Nothing Rational about it. But I'm a man so I'm sure I'm just mansplaining. ^{— Unsigned, by: 172.56.40.157 / talk / contribs} 20:33, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you. CowHouse (talk) 03:33, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

What is this page talking about? (part 1)

I think that this page has several problems. Consequently, I have made many changes. Let me know your opinion, particularly if you think that I am wrong. Here I explains what are the problems:

It begins by defining mansplaining as "the act of men 'teaching women' — often about things directly related to women's experience (like sexism, or abortion) without any recognition of (or interest in) the woman's actual knowledge of the topic." I think that this definition is correct.

But then it comes the section "Examples"... an the pages starts talking about things that are mostly NOT mansplaining, according to the given definition.

We have the subsection "Congressional Birth Control Panel", which recall that a panel of ethics experts to discuss birth control was entirely composed of male religious leaders. Bad, but this has nothing to do to mansplaining, it seems more a problem of women representation in politics. Hence, I have removed that section.

Then we have the subsection "Abortion". It says that pregnant women are often missing from philosophical discussions about abortion, which are more concerned about the fetus and the nature of life. First, I believe that such an idea is plainly false: many philosophical discussions on abortion very deal with the rights of the mother Vs the rights of the fetus/future child. Second, again, this is not mansplaining, according to the given definition. Hence, I have removed that subsection.

The subsubsection "American Atheists’ Southeast Regional Atheist Meet" finally gives an example of mansplaining, which happened at an atheist conference where atheist women were "mansplained" that their issue are trivialities... OK. The only problem is that this is just what blogger Sharron Moss tell us it happened, no other sources are given (I hoped that the youtube video was from the conference, but it is a sketch from the West Wing series). I have removed the subsubsection. It should be reformulated as an accusation of Sharron Moss, or independent sources should be added.

Well, for now I stop here. McLaghing (talk) 20:51, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Against free speech, authoritarism, and contradictions

I have deleted the following paragraphs because they are essentially against free speech ideology, appeals to authority, and not surprising, they are self-contradictory. RationalWiki should not encourage such kind of "thinking".

Nothing about mansplaining (or its derivatives) should suggest that someone who isn't part of a subclass/minority class should not have an opinion about a topic specific to that group;

Good to known...

it's to say that one should consider where his or her authority stems from,

Well, actually that's not how rational dialogs work: authority does not matter, arguments are judged by their correctness, not by who says them.

and when actual real voices from that class are speaking, you should stop and listen.

Listening is surely a good thing, the problem is with the "you should stop".

There is no single voice for the range of people in feminist, transgender, black, and other, communities. Views are and should be a plurality,

True.

but we should be careful not to silence that plurality by imposing a single voice, especially when that "voice" claims to speak for a group they aren't even part of.

So, one should not silence the plurality by being silent and by not contributing to the plurality? Enough with this BS... McLaghing (talk) 15:55, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen anyone as lost as you. You know you shouldn't go around deleting large swaths of content without consulting others first. Especially when you're deliberately twisting the thing to make it look ridiculous. James Earl Cash (talk) 04:45, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Can a woman mansplain?

For example if they repeat something Mike Pence has said to a woman? --Annanoon (talk) 12:51, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Mansplaining is typically understood to be about condescension based on gender. It's exacerbated by being wrong, but merely regurgitating sexist ideology is insufficient to be mansplaining.

Being from the south, there's a certain kind of middle-aged church-going has-it-all-figured-out stereotype who will condescendingly explain things to other women on subjects like "proper" behavior, but wouldn't dare address a man like that. That might be a candidate for mansplaining as done by a woman. Maybe. I don't think much is gained by exploring that linguistic boundary. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 13:15, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Female suffrage

There is a possibly relevant convoluted pun in the Isle of Man as the first 'geographical entity' (being a Crown Dependency) to give some women the Parliamentary/Isle of Keys franchise (and thereby hangs a tail, or not). Anna Livia (talk) 18:48, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Parallel terms

Are there equivalent terms for other 'self-assumed superior knowledge with relation to [assumed lack of knowledge specifically because of membership of a particular group]'? (Rather than some variant of 'I am a bit of a geek/nerd/expert on this topic... [long enough pause for recipient to indicate they wish to respond and state their knowledge or lack of interest beyond the basics] ...') This could include bible-basher-splaining etc. Anna Livia (talk) 13:21, 20 October 2023 (UTC)