The mansplaining thing in this context is more about an unfounded assumption of ignorance in the other party. Usually one would assume an astronaut to know basic thermodynamics, but the tweet's phrasing implies the other other person doesn't. It's less "you're wrong" and more "why do you think she doesn't know that."
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theneverfox@pawb.social 1 day ago
I hate the mansplaining accusation, especially in this context
Fucking let ideas compete. Call him out for being pedantic. If you have to bring gender into nearly any conversation about science, you’ve already lost
Just shame them with better science
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 1 day ago
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 hours ago
In this case, though, he’s literally wrong. “Spontaneous” has a precise scientific definition and the astronaut is using it correctly.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
A lot more people than that astronaut are going to see the post reply, though. A lot of them probably haven’t taken a thermodynamics lesson.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 19 hours ago
A lot of them probably haven't taken a thermodynamics lesson.
Sure, but in that case the replier could've phrased their response as such. As it stands they're addressing the poster, not other people seeing the exchange.
Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 17 hours ago
Sure, but in that case the replier could’ve phrased their response as such.
But like if we’re being super duper real for a sec, who gives a shit? It’s such a waste of energy and won’t change anything to pick meaningless social media posts apart. He made a fair point, I choose not to interpret it beyond that.
plyth@feddit.org 22 hours ago
unfounded assumption of ignorance in the other party
That’s the joke. Haha, stupid astronaut, you are supposed to know.
It’s obviously too early to make that joke with an astronautess.
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 21 hours ago
If it were, it wouldn’t be a good joke, because this exactly conforms to the thermodynamic definition of spontaneity. Saying it is spontaneous is, quite exactly, simple thermo.
yarr@feddit.nl 14 hours ago
Did you just mansplain mansplaining!?
When will men learn to stop trying to share information?!
firewyre@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
This!!!
giantripdrop@piefed.social 1 day ago
I just saw a person in a suit, the. read the "mansplaining" comment, the. went back and saw the posters name.
It feels so forced or I am just oblivious. I thought the response was an asshole being an "acktuallllllly" response.
yermaw@sh.itjust.works 16 hours ago
Is there a better term for it?
I feel like mansplaining as a word is similar to feminism as a word. It has assumption of gender rooted into it but its gone past that at this point.
Nelots@lemmy.zip 14 hours ago
I doubt people would like the word feminism being used if it inherently painted women as sexist.
yermaw@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
Lots of people going for the downvote button but still no better word for the concept has come up.
Which is a shame. I was hoping to find a word where you could use the meaning without the topic suddenly changing to sexism.
theneverfox@pawb.social 9 minutes ago
There genuinely isn’t a word, beyond maybe being patronizing
At least not in common English
Baked86@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
He’s just trying to combat misinformation, the gall to accuse someone of sexism after being wrong is staggering.
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
She wasn’t wrong though. It does happen spontaneously in that it is happening without apparent external cause. There is an external cause, the change in pressure, but it is not apparent. And most people are aware that water boils at low pressures at room temps. He even said it was “basic thermo”, so of course a NASA astronaut would know about this basic scientific phenomenon, as would most people.
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
Do you honestly believe that the astronaut doesn’t understand how boiling water works?
ftbd@feddit.org 11 hours ago
He’s not being pedantic, he’s just obviously not familiar with the vocabulary used in chemistry (although he pretends to be).
theneverfox@pawb.social 2 hours ago
No he’s making a specific type of joke, but if he were wrong then say that instead
And if you want more of that type of joke, look up not ken m
Gladaed@feddit.org 21 hours ago
It’s Kev M.
theneverfox@pawb.social 4 minutes ago
What happened to Ken M?
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 18 hours ago
Ken M has smooth skin
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
The term “mansplaining” is not just about a man being pedantic. It is a man being pedantic or overexplaining to a woman either about something she is likely more knowledgeable on than he is or about something that is such common knowledge it should be assumed that she knows these facts as well as he does. It is a demonstration of misogyny through the assumption that you, a man, knows better than her, a woman, despite all liklihood to the contrary and yet you condescend to her anyway. It’s the arrogance and gender bias that is the problem, not the pedantry itself.
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
The thing I don’t like about the mansplaining accusation is it makes lots of men out to be sexist/misogynistic when they are really just pedantic twits that very well could have commented the same stupid thing to a man. But because it was to a woman someone has to accuse them of being sexist too.
Don’t get me wrong there are a lot of sexist assholes, but just assuming it to be the case off a single comment irks me.
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
Yes, but men experience this at a slightly lower rate.
So if an astronaut man were to get, say, 10 of these comments, while an astronaut woman gets 15 of these comments, it’s fair to infer that about 5 out of the 15 comments wouldn’t have been made to a man. Problem is that you can’t exactly tell which 5 they are. But you know it’s happening.
Of course, if the ratio is actually closer to 50 versus 10 comments like this, then you’ve got a pretty good sense that 80% of the pedantic overexplainers-to-an-expert are doing it because the original poster is a woman.
And one thing you find for these types of examples with a woman who has clear, unmistakable, objective indicators of expertise (literal astronaut) in the topic at hand is that the ratio is much higher for women than men, in a way that might not have been obvious for lesser credentials (like a high school science teacher). But yet, it still happens.
It’s a name for a phenomenon that has existed for a long time. It’s a concise way to describe that phenomenon, and I still think it’s a good word to have in the vocabulary.
ozymandias@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
pssssh, sounds like typical Womanplaining….
that’s where a woman complains too much….
you see, in a typical post by a Man, they will get on average 15 complaints by women, but in a post by a woman, only five complaints by women… now you can’t tell which posts are Womanplaining and which ones are genuine complaints, but i think inventing new terms with “woman” and “man” attached to the front are the perfect way to achieve harmony between the sexes and don’t just reinforce sexism.
/s
all satire.
but, “mansplain” is hate speech and it needs to stop.
sexist condescending speech of men towards women is hateful and needs to stop as well….
inventing new slurs is counterproductive.
Karjalan@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I think the problem a lot of people here are having is that they’re assuming the accusation is active sexism. Like it’s a cognitive decision to go “phht, what would she know, she’s a woman”.
I suspect the vast majority of mansplaning scenarios are subconscious. They probably don’t even know that’s what they’re doing abs would never see themselves as being sexist. I think that’s because everyone sees the word “sexist” and associates it with clichéd extreme sexism, like cat calling, not wanting a Female pilot, ignoring their ideas in meetings etc.
The thing about subtle unconscious bias is that you’re almost never aware you’re doing it, but it still has similar effects on the affected group.
The healthy thing to do is to listen to the person it’s affecting, analyse the scenario, and reflect on if it’s something that you, or people you know, might have been doing without realising.
theneverfox@pawb.social 12 minutes ago
Counterpoint - explaining things the other party knows is how you get on the same page.
I don’t give a shit about your degree or your gender, it tells me nothing about where you’re at. Most people are fucking idiots who have no idea how anything works, and that includes doctors and probably astronauts
And I say this as someone constantly underestimated. Yeah, it’s annoying to hear things you already know at a basic level. I ask people if they know about things and take them at their word
But this is just normal communication. I don’t know what you know, you don’t know what I know. I probably understand how your mind and body work better than you do, because most people don’t know how their mind and body work beyond a 4th grade level
Explaining things the other person knows is undesirable. It’s also how most people reach the starting line for a dialogue
Soup@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
(New person here)
The big issue is that we don’t see men being pedantic towards other men at nearly the same rate. Absolutely it happens, but there is definitely a problem with men not respecting women specifically.
Part of it, I think, comes from social conditioning and it’s more of a reaction than anything on purpose when it comes to a large subset of the people doing it. Even still, it’s important to gender it at least sometimes to highlight why we might be doing it and to give us the correct thing to reflect on. I’ve done it before where I could say it to a man but I realized that I what I was saying or doing was fueled, at least in part, by some internalized misogyny. Knowing that has helped me get to it before I do something stupid.
pahlimur@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Men are the most pedantic assholes to other men.
Treating women like they are soft little creatures is insanely sexist. Treat them as equals and they will treat you the same. I don’t understand why it’s so hard for other men to understand this.
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Sure, but being an arrogant prick that thinks they’re smarter than anyone else, regardless of gender, is already a thing that should be derided. Having only a single instance of this behavior being aimed at a woman as an example of his arrogance may mistakenly lead one to attribute that to misogyny instead of a general prickishness behavior, sure. But that’s a perfectly understandable assumption to make in that situation and the mistake of calling them the wrong kind of asshole, i feel, is less of a concern than him, indeed, being an asshole.
NotANumber@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
You can do that without calling someone sexist.
ozymandias@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
everyone knows that.
you just explained very common knowledge to people that certainly know it.
the problem is the terminology…
men and women condescendingly explain shit to people all the time. If you attach the word “man” to it then you’re being sexist.
when a man is condescending to a woman because she’s a woman, then that man is being sexist.
if you assume every time a man is being condescending to a woman they’re being sexist, then you’re sexist.
every time ANYONE makes a factual claim on the internet and it gets enough traction, someone will chime in and condescendingly explain why they’re wrong. gender is not the only factor.
….
it’s certainly terrible how men are sexist and condescending towards women so often… making a new sexist term doesn’t help that problem.
also, i’m not assuming your gender and you don’t know mine, i am merely disagreeing with you.
theneverfox@pawb.social 2 hours ago
That’s a great way to put it.