20131116.1113

One of my excellent co-workers brought to my attention the blog Academic Men Explain Things to Me.  As I at least try to fair and even-handed in my dealings with people, to accord them the respect their actions merit rather than imposing my own...nuanced...worldview upon them, I found myself aghast at what other people in academia still perpetrate upon one another for no better reason than the perceptions of genital equipment.  (I note, though, that it would seem to give the lie to the notion that universities are full of nothing but "liberal pc bullshit.")

As I thought on the matter, though, I found myself sticking at the term "mansplaining."  As I talked with that most excellent co-worker about the issue, I voiced the opinion that the gendered descriptor is itself a sexist term, citing both the de-gendering of many other terms (typically professional) and the fact that I have been presented with similar situations.  I have, for example, been told by a lesbian (I believe a gold star, but I do not know enough about the person to be certain--and I am not sure I want to) how my penis really works.  (Had the person in question been a medical practitioner, I might have been willing to accept the dictum, but this was not the case.  And I do not think that medical recommendations are what the term "mansplaining" typically refers to in any event--although I am sure there are examples.)

The co-worker and I did not agree on the point; she asserted that the nature of the phenomenon is gender-specific (although I would point out to her that it assumes a uniformity among men that may not be the case; gay men may or may not commit acts of mansplanation, but I have not seen any attested on Academic Men Explain Things to Me), and, as in other cases where gender is a bona fide issue, the gendered descriptor is warranted.  She did, however, point out that similar phenomena deserve to be given their own terms of approbation; it is a workable resolution to the disagreement (and I sincerely love to have such discussions; no sarcasm is present in this), albeit one I still do not find optimal.

I did not stop thinking about the issue, though, and in my morning readings yesterday, I came across a piece that seems to me to be relevant to that issue: Winston Rowntree's "5 Responses to Sexism That Just Make Everything Worse" on Cracked.com.  Rowntree points out, I think usefully, that while there is pressure placed on men to be and act certain ways (and I have commented to that effect, such as here), there is more, and frequently more destructive, pressure on women to conform to narrowly prescribed standards of appearance and conduct.  Working from the reminder of that idea (I am sure that I had encountered it previously; I am a pointy-headed liberal elitist, after all, since I am part of the liberal arts professoriate), I arrived at the notion that even though it is true that the term "mansplaining" is sexist, and it needs to be...amended...therefore, its sexism is very little against that of the phenomenon it purports to describe, and eliminating the big problem needs to take priority.