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And there’s the issue with it being treated as a criticism of an entire group, and not as a comment on a single person’s behavior. There are obviously exceptions and any interaction between humans is going to be uniquely contextual. But presenting it as anti-intellectual, or some kind of attack on the ability for an enthusiastic person to explain something they are passionate about, fundamentally mischaracterizes the concept.

To explain something needlessly, pedantically or condescendingly and to someone (usually female) that is already versed or even an authority on the topic are the traits of ‘mansplaining’. What is happening in the OP, where someone is condescendingly and needlessly correcting a woman (who can be assumed to be aware of 3rd-grade level science like phase transitions) on her use of a term (that was already a correct explanation) is the issue that makes it mansplaining.

You can be enthusiastic about a topic and share that knowledge all you want, nobody is saying “no don’t explain things to girls”. They’re saying “don’t be rude to other people while explaining things”.

(This always comes up in this discussion: being autistic is not an excuse for being rude. It’s an explanation for non-typical behavior, and does merit and nearly always garner forgiveness for infractions of social norms, but you can still be a rude jerk even if you are autistic. You can also be a great person if you are autistic. Autistic people are, fundamentally, people. People are a diverse group.)

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ronigami@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
It wasn’t rude at all, it was one of the most neutral ways of “correcting” someone (in quotes because yes the correction was wrong) but it was basically “I think it’s actually X” which is about as non-aggressive as it can get.

The issue I take with it is not at all about group dynamics. Even if it’s one guy saying this to another, if someone is going to call that “mansplaining” I have an issue with it because it’s just explaining. Incorrectly, and maybe very slightly patronizingly (but only because the person being spoken to is a scientist and not because of the way it’s said), but still at its core simply explaining something they think is true. That is the core of scientific discourse and I don’t care what the genders are, giving it a stupid name and using that as an insult is antithetical to the open and curious exchange of information.

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- Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  You seem to have a preconceived idea of what ‘mansplaining’ is and, in an effort to examine that, could you tell me why you think the term has achieved such widespread cultural use?
  
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  - ronigami@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Why widespread? Well because it’s “punching up” and catchy and plays in to the traditional feminist narrative that women are oppressed in $WESTERN_COUNTRY particular in science even though women regularly outperform their male counterparts in terms of college grading and admissions. You’re basically asking why feminism is popular.
    
    Wouldn’t it be natural that having existed as an idea for over 10 years I would have a preconceived notion of it?
    
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    stevedice@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Aaaaaand… there it is. Careful, your incel is showing.
    
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    Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    I’m circumspectly asking what you believe are the driving forces behind feminism’s popularity, absolutely. To carry your allusion, the first step in understanding any software is to check it’s dependencies; as natural languages just really messy formal languages, and by the transitive property of “I just made this up but it sounds good”, it holds that the first step to understanding someone’s statements is to examine the fundamental concepts they used to construct that statement.
    
    To that end then, lets look at you holding some contempt for the idea of “punching up”. I doubt you intended that to be the takeaway, but it’s presented as the justification for an idea you have expressed strong disagreement to. If you held it was totally valid, there wouldn’t be much a conflict. So: why is it wrong to do in this case?
    
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    Electricd@lemmybefree.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    I was defending you then but I can’t anymore. No, it’s not because feminism boosts it, it’s because radical or extreme feminism and misandry loves to abuse this word
    
    Feminism is good, but generalizing men or accusing of sexism without evidence is dumb sexism
    
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squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
My biggest pet peeve with terms like “mansplaining” is that it does contain a real issue with some actual definition, but then it uses such a blunt and crude word that’s just plain besides the point of what it actually means.

If this was a term against women, feminists would be up in arms because the stupid terminology almost guarantees that it will be understood and used wrong.

Because fundamentally, the word itself is man+explaining, and it’s used just like that: Whenever a man explains something a woman doesn’t want to hear, it’s mansplaining. No matter who is the expert in the field.

In a prior job I was head of software development. I built the team, I built all the software, I worked on all the hardware we sold.

We hired a new marketing person. She had no prior experience, it was her first job in the field after returning from a long maternity break and before that she worked in an unrelated field. She put stuff into marketing material that was plain wrong. She listed features that we not only didn’t have, but that didn’t actually apply to the whole product category. When I pointed that out, she tried to shut it down with “Don’t mansplain”.

The concept behind “mansplaining” is real and it is a problem in some circumstances. But the term is toxic and needs to go.

(Similar story with the term “toxic masculinity”, which is often understood as “all masculinity is toxic”, not as “machismo”. This one really annoys me, since we already had a really good term, “machismo”.)

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- Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  I agree - the term has reached a point where at this point it’s become an alt-right dogwhistle. The phenomenon is real, and really extremely common, and a new term should absolutely be introduced so that discussion of the concept isn’t derailed by people constantly going “ugh it’s such an oppressive thing”.
  
  Side note:
  (I wouldn’t normally point this out, but it’s beside the point. That you’re making a (literal, not dismissing you) semantic argument and the first sentence has a semantic error was too amusing not to point out.)
  
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  - squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    You are right that any term can be destroyed by the alt-right, that’s totally true (I mean they got the term “walkable city” to mean something like “apocalyptic ghetto” in their sphere), but I think that “mansplaining” (and to a slightly lesser degree “toxic masculinity”) were already dead on arrival.
    
    Mansplaining is such a bad term, that it already doesn’t work without the alt-right touching it.
    
    At least in German speaking counties (can’t speak for the rest of the world), feminism is known for being really particular with words used for/against women, because they know that words shape understanding. For the last 20 or so years we have had (and still have) a quite heated discussion about gender-correct language¹. But instead of applying the same scrutiny to terms used for men, these terms are just adopted without question.
    
    I just want the same scrutiny to be applied for all terms. “Hysteria” is rightfully a word that dropped out of use, and so should “mansplaining” be.
    
    Why not just use a gender-neutral word like “overexplaining” or just describe what’s the problem instead of using a fighting term that only causes pushback instead of actually helping people understand problematic behaviour?
    
    ¹ German is a gendered language, meaning almost every term has distinct male and female versions, and gender-correct language means that you use constructs that mention both genders. The reasoning is that using the generic masculinum (aka, use the male version if you don’t care about the gender) leads to people not considering women, so e.g. when you hear “Arzt” ( (male) doctor) it makes women working in that job invisible and shapes who wants to become a doctor. Similar with female-first terms like “Schwester” (which means “nurse” or “sister”).
    
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    Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    
    Why not just use a gender-neutral word
    
    Because it’s not a gender-neutral problem. In a non-gendered language, an explicitly gendered term is generally used for strong emphasis. I’m sorry, I just don’t know why insights about semantics in a gendered language are relevant in a discussion of a non-gendered language. It’s not that it’s not interesting I just don’t know how to address this. Does german have the word “mansplaining” too…?
    
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