Another HUGE VICTORY for Men’s Rights! Some guy on the internet told a woman that the term “mansplaining” is mean to men! And then he used the “c-word” a couple of times!
At first glance, this might not be seen as the HUGE VICTORY that it truly is, men’s rights-wise, but get this! The guy in question is the guy who made Minecraft! A VIDEO GAME that LOTS OF PEOPLE LIKE. Which makes his opinion on this subject really really super important, for some reason.
Naturally, the fellas who hang out in the Men’s Rights subreddit understand what a TRIUMPH this is for men’s rights. There are currently three posts on this WORLD HISTORIC EVENT in the subreddit’s top ten.
Over in KotakuInAction,the main GamerGate hangout on Reddit, the regulars are if anything even more AWAKE to this monumental achievement for all mankind. They’ve got FOUR posts on it in their top ten.
So let’s check out the Minecraft dude’s carefully reasoned argument, which he Tweeted out yesterday.
You can tell he’s totally right about this, and also quite BRAVE, because he got 3700 likes and retweets for it.
Persson went on to explain his PERFECT MANLOGIC in more detail.
Ha ha! Because this explainy thing that men do to women constantly but that women do to men pretty rarely is equivalent to calling car crashes “womendriving” because, ha ha, women can’t drive and are responsible for 90% of all car crashes no wait, that’s not even remotely true; the demographic group that is responsible for far more than their share of accidents is teenagers.
When one Twitterer suggested it might perhaps behoove him to listen to women on this issue, Persson quickly saw through this MISANDRIST OPPRESSION of men who want to talk pretty much constantly.
Actually, Mr. Persson, as I have learned from years of doing this blog, there is no possible way to shut up men who want to inform you at great length of their opinions about feminism and what women are doing wrong. You can ban them from your comments, sure, but some of them will keep trying to post comments for months if not years afterwards.
And certainly Mr. Persson felt no need to shut up. Instead, he kicked his MANLOGICAL STEM LOGIC up a notch by unleashing the ultimate tool in the MANLOGICAL STEM LOGICKING toolkit. I refer, of course, to the c-word.
Here he applied the MANLOGIC STEM LOGICKING directly:
But don’t worry, gals! He’s totally got your back! He’s an EQUALITYIST who’s all for equality between the genders and not for sexism at all!
Huh. Apparently being into “equal rights and against sexism” requires one to go around calling women the c-word, which is TOTALLY NOT SEXIST because sometimes men get called “dick” which is TOTALLY the equivalent of the c-word., I mean it’s not like the c-word is widely considered the worst possible insult in the English language or anything.
Luckily, we have a KotakiInAction commenter called DaedLizrad to Gatersplain to us why it’s totally ok to refer to women with that special word.
Why is calling a man dick acceptable but dropping the c-bomb(seriously your too cowardly to use the word outside a quote?) is so reprehensible?
Its likely to be because of gynocentrism, even if you feminists refuse to accept(or even entertain the possibility) that society cares more about women than men you cannot convince me that feminists, both female and male, don’t clearly value women more than men, that is why treatment of a woman in the same exact way as a man is considered more abusive, because you don’t care about men as much as women.
You sit there and defend a sexist word designed to shame men for speaking to women about any topic, it is only used to tell men to shut up, like it was being used to there against Notch.
You sit there using and excusing gendered slurs against men while clutching your pearls screaming “think of the women” to the same treatment aimed at women, you feminists are all gynocentric and you c*nts can f*ck right off with your double standards.
Meanwhile, fellow KiAer Saddex took a moment of his time to let us in on what “mainsplaining” ACTUALLY is:
The thing with mansplaining is that, just with religion, it’s an unfalsefiable hypothesis. There is really no way to prove that it’s actually a real thing. Sure, might be a couple of assholes out there, but isn’t that same with women as well? Are you sure that if a man, or woman talks condescending to you, that it must be because of your gender? What about your personality, or the actual context? Did you say something just before that would be considered stupid by other people?…
I am going to treat people who tries to convince me that mansplaining actually is real thing like I treat people who try to convince me that god is real. You can believe if you wish but I rely on proof, and the burden of proof lies on the believer. It’s so satisfying to know that these people act just like religious extremists, should be compared to those and that you can use very similar argumentation to debunk what they’re saying.
Yes, what better way to debunk those ladies who get mansplained constantly than telling them they’re irrational fanatics who are seeing things that aren’t there, and that they probably brought this totally imaginary thing on themselves anyway by being such, well, the c-word thing.
All in all, an outstanding victory for the forces of Men’s Rightness and Ethics in Guys Who Make Video Games Calling Women the C-word.
Dammit, I really love Minecraft.
@Scildfreja,
I read an article a while back about how miserable and lonely Persson is, because with all those millions his life has no meaning now. He bought the big house with all the toys and had the big party, and now he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
I found that sad and also seriously pathetic. Has he no imagination? The least he could do is fund a program to give grants to young game developers.
That he’s a budding MRA comes as no surprise. He clearly lacks any generosity of heart.
The term ‘mansplain’ is one I avoid using because it’s such a loaded term it risks derailing a debate, I’m currently sticking with ‘condescending’ and ‘patronizing’. I have met a lot of women who go in for it too, assuming they know more and talking over and down to me. Though thus far it does seem to be exclusively men who will explain at length upon subjects I know more about, and who don’t hear me when I try to contribute.
it was for the best that he stepped out of his role at mojang.
I never liked Minecraft anyway.
Thank god he doesn’t actually have anything to do with Minecraft any more. I can still play it without very slightly ashamed!
I once had a man who didn’t speak Spanish correct my Spanish pronunciation. The same man once lectured me on the political atmosphere in Newcastle upon Tyne during the 1980s miners’ strike on the basis of reading an article in The Economist, while knowing perfectly well that I’d been living in Newcastle upon Tyne for the last 5 years. I’m just waiting for the day when he mansplains mansplaining to me.
I prefer to capitalize Mansplain because it’s not unique to men, it’s using a position of authority to explain someone’s own situation to them because they are living in a situation that lacks authority. It’s not just about men, it’s about The Man.
Honestly, saying that it’s something only men can do is kinda cringeworthy to me because white anyone can mansplain what racism does to anyone of color, and so forth. Sure, the sexist form of it is common, and I’m sure that’s how it got coined, but I do honestly see people using it for things like a professor explaining a student’s learning experience to the student, missing the fact that the student is male too.
Also, I am deeply sad that Notch has turned into such an asshole, I used to view him as one of the success stories of indy gaming.
@Iseult
Good old standby, patronizing. Forgot all about it. I think I prefer it, actually. Thx
@Olive
Dontchaknow? Unfalsifiable means, ‘I don’t wanna talk about it’. Also, why do these guys think that people saying it happens to them isn’t proof? It definitely is. Or is it only proof if it’s comes out of a beaker. Social SCIENCE, Saddex, it’s right there in the name
Re: Notch’s shit
The funny thing is he coulda come up with ‘miss-lead’ and saved himself. She’s missleading, see? It’s still patronizing as fuck, but it woulda kept the focus on the alleged sexism inherent to the term and provided a counterpoint of some dignity. Then again, the typa person who gets into Twitter shit about the word mansplaining in the first place is the exact typa person who jumps to gendered slurs at a moment’s notice
And another thing! Anyone who says they’re for ‘equal rights’ needs to leave. Earth, if possible. Guess what, Marky Markus? This isn’t 1972, and equal rights ain’t really the frontier anymore, bruh. Oh, but I’m sure women everywhere are glad to know that you’re for their rights. And only decades after they already basically won all of them. ‘Tell me what right men have that women don’t’, bros ask with a turgid smugness worn exclusively by those who, clearly to everyone but themselves, are completely oblivious to the conversation happening at the adults’ table
Double the fun considering he doesn’t know what it means, but will go head and explain at length anyway.
@Bryy
I just… wow. Props to you for handling that nonsense for a whole hour.
Okay, so the big obvious thing here is that being afraid of getting rebuked/mocked is nothing even close to being afraid of getting physically violated.
But leaving aside the wildly inappropriate comparison there, fear of being labeled a mansplainer is not paralysis. It’s basic common courtesy. Just like I’m “afraid” that if I go around calling people stupid poopfaces who should go jump in a lake, I will be labeled a jerk. Antisocial behavior has negative social connotations; go figure. Mansplaining (or any privileged ‘splaining) will put people off because it’s frikkin’ rude, and you should feel bad if you do it to people.
In terms of intersectional oppression, I sit pretty darn high on the privileged end of things. When I talk to my friends who are POC, if they start talking about racism and how it affects them, I am not scared that they will label me a whitesplainer–I’m scared that I will be a whitesplainer. If they label me as such, there is a near 100% chance that they’re correct. Them’s the breaks when you’re a privileged person trying to weigh in on a social phenomenon that your privilege by definition shields you from.
I, as someone who has never been on the receiving side of institutional racism, do not have meaningful expertise to lend to the people who have spent their entire lives dealing with it. It doesn’t mean that I’m never right about what I think and say; it doesn’t mean I never have anything of value to contribute to a discussion; but it means that I should not presume to lecture as if from a place of superior understanding. I don’t recognize racism at work better than POC do. I don’t understand the root causes of it better than they do. I don’t have a devil’s advocate position that they’ve never heard of or thought of before. And I certainly can’t assume to have greater knowledge/experience on any given subject (racism-related or not) just because of our respective skin colors. Whether I mean to or not, if I am constantly swooping in with “Well, actually” to POC, but never or almost never to white people, then I’m whitesplaining.
If fear of “whitesplaining” keeps me from speaking up, then good–my job is firstly and foremostly to listen and learn. That’s not paralysis. That’s decent-human-being-who-doesn’t-earn-a-cookie-ness.
“Mansplaining” doesn’t mean that men don’t get an opinion on stuff. It doesn’t mean that men are always wrong and women are never wrong. It means that if you’re a man trying to explain sexism to women, or if you’re trying to explain EVERYTHING to women in a way you don’t do to other men, you’re being a jerk to women, and need to knock it off. Being expected to not be a jerk is not the same as being silenced.
You’d think a billionaire would have more to do with his time than act like an asshole on twitter.
@Kootiepatra
I think this is the fundamental difference. Guys who complain about being called mansplainers don’t see mansplaining as a behavior that they need to change. They see it as an insult. If someone calls them a mansplainer, it’s because that person is trying to be mean to them. They don’t see it in a larger context where the person calling them out probably deals with similar situations all the time. They don’t see that they made a mistake and have the opportunity to change. All they see is “someone called me a name that I don’t like” and their response is to get defensive.
These stupid dicks realise that Dick is a name, right? Like cock is a male bird and prick is also a verb? Show me a euphemism for penis that’s on the same level as the c-word. One that isn’t a diminutive of a guy’s name or a cutesy made-up word.
@Kootiepatra:
http://media3.giphy.com/media/Jw7RxU9BaSCMU/200_s.gif
You’ve probably all seen this already.
snork maiden:
If that’s true, and not, say, wishful thinking by people who resent his success (because Infiniminer), that shows a huge failure of imagination.
At the weekend, I signed up to N. K. Jemisin’s Patreon appeal, so that she can give up the day job and write full time. She smashed her target (yay!), but amongst all the squee I’ll bet she has fears: what if it doesn’t work out? Notch’s great wealth means freedom from that kind of fear. He could spend the rest of his life making cool stuff, and if it didn’t sell well, he could still sleep soundly on a massive bed made of money.
I have been mansplained to all my life by females and males. Their advice was very annoying and and almost always bad to take.
Just puttin’ their ideology onto ya. Uffg them!
So tired of judgemental egotistical people…
A “respected” person in any field should be able to explain his/her concerns with certain words/labels in a respectful and civilized manner.
The fact that he has to become rude and use the c-word in a twitter conversation just proves his lack of manners and lack of social skills. People that have manners and care about their education and reputation simply don’t behave like this. The fact that he resorts to such insults is a reflection of his own misery. He seems to be miserable and pathetic.
All these millions he made, instead of enjoying life, he insults people on twitter. Even I with my average income have better things to do in my life. I guess that money can’t buy everything.
I just have to add that you don’t have to have an education/reputation to not be rude and disrespectful in conversations, just a decent human being.
*It is also funny how a word can make a stemlogik-man, so angry, raged and emotional.
*I am glad that I never played minecraft
Of course, people can use whatever terms they want, but I totally disagree that patronizing or condescending work just as well as mansplaining. The former isn’t gendered. The word mansplaining is very a much a gendered phenomenon. Women can be condescending. Men can have people condescend to them. Only men mansplain to women.
That some men get upset when they hear the term just means that it’s a necessary term to use. They wouldn’t get so angry if they didn’t know they were doing it. They aren’t pissed because it’s made up SJW lingo. They’re made because we’ve noticed men do this and don’t like it. They’re made because they don’t like being expected to modify their behavior in order to not be considered an asshole. Good. Let them be mad. Personally, I’m not going to stop talking about misogyny to protect delicate man feels.
How does making a block game make you an authority on anything, except maybe your block game?
I think the Robot Hugs comic someone posted last page explains very well why mansplaining is gendered. I don’t care if people want to avoid the term, but I’m not cool with people using it to describe things that aren’t mansplaining. No, men can’t be mansplained to. No, women can’t mansplain. It’s not a synonym for condescending, people. Acting like it is diminishes the very real misogyny we experience. It’s not about individuals being condescending jerks, it’s about women as a group being assumed to have inferior knowledge and skills by men as a group.
‘Patronise’ has an interesting history. Originally it just mean the head of the family (pater familias) dishing out the family finances. Then it became anyone who gave out money and largesse to people (where we get ‘patron’ from).
An association developed with wealthy art patrons interfering with the works of their beneficiaries, even when they knew fuck all about art, and that’s where we get the other modern meaning from.
So I wrote an article about this and I was waiting for @notch to introduce it by declaring his dicktatorship.
MANSPLAINING AND PC CULTURE
Hidden in this article is the declaration that mansplaining is a sexist term. I hid it really well because I like to know who can read and who can get really really really angry at stop words (our current discourse level).
Of course we are talking about someone who has influence over 3.7M people who are the minecraft-playing demographic. So if he does declare women cunts, then we women are cunts. We have attained peak cult personality society. People seem to be programmed by their key opinion leaders and very few have the cognitive abilities to focus on a text that is more than 1 paragraph.
WWTH – I wholeheartedly agree.
Men can be condecending. Women can be too. But…
Men can mansplain and women can too.
I have seen this. Althoufh let’s be honest. Men mansplain so much more than women do.
Men can be condecending. Women can be too. But…
Men can mansplain and women can too.
I have seen this. Although let’s be honest. Men mansplain so much more than women do.