I'm curious, now that Mastodon is better at loading missing replies, have you noticed a decrease in mansplaining?

@wendinoakland Well, I definitely appreciate your, and other marginalized people's resilience and patience!

@stefan I hear you about the patience, I can imagine it must be exhausting.

But I'm stuck on this. If we're fighting gender assumptions, why name the problem after a gender? That shifts who gets assumed about.

Maybe I'm missing something. But judging by gender instead of behavior seems like what we're trying to stop, not redirect.

@watchfulcitizen Because it is a uniquely male problem.

Yes, of course, not all men, and all that, but I'm personally not offended, I know it doesn't apply to me (or at least I hope so!) and it is a reminder that it is up to us men to hold each other responsible and call out bad behavior.

Best way to get rid of the term is to help eradicate the behavior.

@stefan I agree, mostly a male pattern and we should call it out and fix it.

But generalizing by gender pushes us who don't do it into defensiveness. Humans dig in when grouped with behavior they don't do.

Expecting men to correct sexist behavior by being sexist towards them seems backwards.

I just think the term itself is what bothers me

@watchfulcitizen Well, I see that I won't be able to change your mind, so as the last thing I'll add, I'll just reiterate, almost nobody thinks that literally all men are mansplainers, all of the time, so trying to argue that point is kind of a waste of time.

The term has already caught on, and while there might be more gender-neutral alternatives, I don't know, I mean you're free to try to use them, see if they catch on. You never know!

@stefan it *definitely* decreases the amount of replies saying (basically) the same thing. i would not call previous instances of that mansplaining, though, because the repliers could do everything in their power to check that they weren’t duplicating someone else’s reply and still wind up doing so. i’m not sure whether you mean to include this phenomenon in your poll.

@stefan ironically, i am only belatedly realizing that others have already replied to you with more or less the same confusion

@chrisamaphone I was specifically thinking about mansplaining when I posted this, I think it would be good to do a proper study on the full impact of this feature. Looking at the results and the replies, I'm guessing it helps reduce the amount of duplicate replies, but people who are dead set on having their voice heard just don't care all that much.

(The poll was boosted by a few Mastodon folks, so maybe this will at least get the conversation started!)

Good discussion. @watchfulcitizen, a couple of thoughts ... online communications are hard and so it's easy for something to come across as mansplaining even if it isn't intended that way. I'm prone to it myself! So I've made a point to notice what in my style comes across that way, and tried to modify my style. I'm still far from perfect but there does seem to be noticeable improvement. In your case it sounds like you've noticed that it's often linked to overexplaining ... so, doing less of that could be helpful.

In terms of the term "pushing you into defensiveness", it's really more that you are reacting defensively. So don't! It's on you, not on the people using the term.

And the goal of labeling something as mansplaining isn't to fight gender assumptions. It's two-fold: to get guys to be aware of the issue and do less of it (or intervene when they see others doing it), and to reassure women who are the targets of mansplaining know that it's not just them -- it's a common enough phenomenon that it even has a name.

@stefan

@jdp23 @stefan valid points! Its not that I personaly feel attacked. I try to overexplain less to avoid "mansplaining". The thing I want to dispute isnt really that mansplaining is bad. It is. I want a society that is kind and understanding no matter the gender.

The reason I started the discussion was because I myself can feel the urge to just not voice my opinions when its a woman. Because if the risk of being called mansplaining. And that to me feels like a step towards the wrong direction.

I don't know if its my autism causing me to overexplain or having a strong sence of justice for the double standard. I think we all should just work to make everyone feel included.

Discussions are complex as it is. I'm sure there is tons of perspectives I'm missing and I'll love to hear them. I'm even sure that my POV in this thread will be misunderstood.

@watchfulcitizen Maybe @jdp23 can share a different perspective, but the way I look at this, alright, maybe there is an element of "unfairness", if you want to call it that, in that some men kind of ruined things for the rest of us, who now have to be more aware of how we may be perceived.

So, it kind of is what it is. We live in a patriarchal society, dominated by white supremacism. We all know it's not all men or all white people, but how do you know which is which, as a marginalized person?

Personally, I just don't feel like I need to respond to everything I read online, or correct every minor technical error, unless it's an actual question or request for help.

That's pretty much how I see it too (although I don't really see it as an element of "unfairness"). It's certainly an added complexity, and sometimes there are situations where I feel that I won't be able to make a point that I know is valid without coming across as mansplainy. Oh well, such is life, unless it's a really critical situation (and very few online discussions are) I will just let it go.

I too would like to be in a society that's kind and understanding no matter the gender (or race, etc). Alas that's not the society we live in. I don't really see it as a double standard to take the dimensions of power in society, and the frequency of condescending communications from men towards women, into account.

And since so many people aren't kind and understanding I need to take that into account. All that's really in my control is how I behave myself, and that includes staying out of situations where my words are likely to come across as unkind or misunderstanding.

@stefan @watchfulcitizen

@jdp23 @stefan You both have given me some interesting viewpoints which I really appreciate.

As previously stated, I could definitely be better at picking my battles and that's something I'm working on.

I enjoy discussing tough topics, not for the sake of arguing but for understanding the world. I might not change my viewpoint instantly, but over time it helps me either shift my understanding or understand the world better.

What I appreciate about this thread is that you've both engaged with my actual points instead of dismissing them based on assumptions. That's exactly what I'm advocating for, judging the discussion on its merits rather than who's involved.

As a father to a little daughter, I want the best for her. Part of that means working through these complex topics so I can understand the world she's growing up in.