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RIP “Mansplaining"
Last edited Thu Oct 23, 2014, 08:11 AM - Edit history (1)
Good article. It's not the only word on the internet that deserves criticism, but I agree with the notion that it can trivialize serious issues as the writer pointed out with Ray Rice.
How the Internet Killed One of Our Most Useful Words:
Benjamin Hart
In April, Melissa Harris-Perry accused Jay Carney, in his response to a question from Ed Henry of Fox News, of “mansplaining” why women earn less than men at the White House. But Carney was merely giving a fairly straightforward answer to a badly premised question from a right-wing outlet. Yes, he was a man explaining something. But “delivering an unsatisfactory response to a question involving gender inequality” does not a mansplain make.
Then there are the instances when the “mansplain” label actually diminishes a bigger problem. This summer, ESPN shouter Stephen A. Smith made some terribly stupid comments about the Ray Rice assault, implying that women should shoulder some of the blame for their own abuse. After fellow anchor Michelle Beadle responded with appropriate disgust, Smith dug himself into an even deeper hole with a series of rambling tweets that attempted to justify his comments. New York magazine labeled this “mansplaining.” But Smith’s response wasn’t so much an example of smug, petty condescension; it was more a matter of flat-out ignorance about the scourge of domestic violence.
Perhaps the word’s goofy clunkiness is part of the problem. “Mansplain” is not the most graceful coinage — Alexandra Petri at the Washington Post recently called it a “horrible chimera with the head of a goat and the tail of a serpent and wings” — and the ridiculousness of its construction makes it into a kind of insta-punch line, something people want to say just for the sake of saying it.
Benjamin Hart
And the word “mansplain” — a useful neologism with a proud history, whose definition was once clear as a window pane — has increasingly come to mean “men saying things to, or about, women.”
But along the way, mansplaining has morphed from a useful descriptor of a real problem in contemporary gender dynamics to an increasingly vague catchall expression that seems to be inflaming the Internet gender wars more than clarifying them.
In April, Melissa Harris-Perry accused Jay Carney, in his response to a question from Ed Henry of Fox News, of “mansplaining” why women earn less than men at the White House. But Carney was merely giving a fairly straightforward answer to a badly premised question from a right-wing outlet. Yes, he was a man explaining something. But “delivering an unsatisfactory response to a question involving gender inequality” does not a mansplain make.
Then there are the instances when the “mansplain” label actually diminishes a bigger problem. This summer, ESPN shouter Stephen A. Smith made some terribly stupid comments about the Ray Rice assault, implying that women should shoulder some of the blame for their own abuse. After fellow anchor Michelle Beadle responded with appropriate disgust, Smith dug himself into an even deeper hole with a series of rambling tweets that attempted to justify his comments. New York magazine labeled this “mansplaining.” But Smith’s response wasn’t so much an example of smug, petty condescension; it was more a matter of flat-out ignorance about the scourge of domestic violence.
Perhaps the word’s goofy clunkiness is part of the problem. “Mansplain” is not the most graceful coinage — Alexandra Petri at the Washington Post recently called it a “horrible chimera with the head of a goat and the tail of a serpent and wings” — and the ridiculousness of its construction makes it into a kind of insta-punch line, something people want to say just for the sake of saying it.
http://www.salon.com/2014/10/20/rip_mansplaining_how_the_internet_killed_one_of_our_most_useful_words/
13 replies
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Last week someone posted about 'a blonde bimbo-type' on the news and I thought, well thats's kind of insulting but let it go. I did call someone out once on another post but it turns out I was wrong...they were pointing out the fact that they were all white, not blonde. 
Why do MEN, specifically, get to have this shit attached to them?
Anyway, yes, again, another ham-fisted phrase which came out of a recognition of a real phenomenon, but was then beaten into the ground to the point of a fairly predictable backlash, again proving that probably the least qualified people on the internet to wage wars for social justice are self-appointed internet social justice warriors.
See the etymology of the phrase "politically correct" which was, once upon a time, used with breathy earnestness on college campuses in the 80s, until it became a joke of itself and finally a RW talking point.
...Shit, I did it again!