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.
@ pol
I don’t see how anyone other than a man can mansplain either in strict dictionary definition terms or as the word was envisaged by its original creator (which seems to be slightly different).
The ‘by a man’ bit seems to be integral otherwise we could just use existing words like patronise or condescend; that’s what differentiates it.
So all mansplaining might be condescension but not all condescension is necessarily mansplaining if you get my drift.
Yeah, I corrected my althoughing… But I don’t need two posts to expose my bad spelling though now, do I David!
And I’m not a nerd either. Goddammit.
EDIT button’s gone AWOL so just to add:
“By a man, to a woman”
There is such a thing as womansplaining. Generally, it’s women not believing a man is capable of doing a task that is considered traditionally feminine, like child care. There is, of course, whitesplaining, as mentioned above. Also, straightsplaining and cis-splaining. There’s no need to use the word mansplaining for things that aren’t mansplaining.
One of my fave nerdy examples of a word that has an integral qualification is that you can only “orient” something (as in “line it up in a certain direction”) if you point it facing East.
It’s from when maps had East at the top rather than North.
(Pointing that out whilst in a blizzard on Dartmoor will get you scowled at)
I’m always nervous in a work situation, scared of losing my job. But I have to admit that one time I snapped. I worked with a guy who condescended to me a lot just on general principles ’cause I wasn’t the geek he was. I never had to interact with him on a work basis, so I just ignored the implicit insults, but one day I needed him to explain some geek-type thing to me. His tone dripped condescension as he started to explain.
I hissed, “Don’t condescend to me.”
He stopped.
He picked up with his condescension the next time I saw him, but at least I didn’t have to pay attention to him.
Then there was this one particular boyfriend, who told me that he’d do my thinking for me. I ignored that strange comment. (I shouldn’t have!) He said it again a few months later and I ignored it again. (I really shouldn’t have!)
I left him not too long after that — very, very abruptly. The one before me had left abruptly too.
Oh hi Alan,
I get your drift. But, well… just gimmie a momemts…
@Alan Robertshaw
Because my husband and I are complete nerds (and easily amused) we’ll occasionally substitute “australate” or “occident” for “orient” when we’re hiking. ^.^
@ naira
You are so my kind of people! 🙂
Pol,
How can a woman mansplain? I don’t think you know what the word means.
I just want to say that – and whatever follows of course – that gender is an illusion. And so there is no such thing as “male” and “female”. So there, hummph
…
But. If it quacks and walks and dips it’s bill like a duck, then well, it’s a duck.
And I am sick of ducks.
A lot of recent GG related articles basically boil down too:
“Insignificant Internet Thing Happens, GamerGaters declare Thing a sign of Supreme Victory over Misandric Oppressors.”
Hopefully this is a sign of desperation and this “movement” is losing steam. But I’m also afraid that they have a never ending supply of BS to keep it fueled until the end of time!
Hi weirwood,
I am aware of the word. But I am looking at the effect and not at the person that makes the comment.
Gender is a social construct. A powerful social construct, at the moment.
When my linguistics prof (male) did the sociolinguistics lecture and revisited the evidence that yes indeed, man explain things to women, as evidenced by scientific research, he was pretty happy when I told him that the term mansplaining exists. He loved it: A portmanteau word aptly describing a sociolinguistic phenomenon
@ pol
I see where you’re coming from; but just because something may be a social construct doesn’t mean there aren’t real world effects based on how people relate to those constructs.
‘Race’ is a pretty silly concept, but that doesn’t make the burning crosses on your lawn go away.
Similarly, if people perceive women (or people who present as women, see cartoon upthread) in a particular way and as a consequence treat them in a different way then it doesn’t matter that some may think gender is irrelevant if lots of people think it is and their actions are inflicted by that belief.
As for ducks….
http://www.snopes.com/photos/advertisements/graphics/duckthief.jpg
…what? So the phenomenon of men assuming they know more than women who are experts in the thing they’re “explaining” can’t really be happening because gender isn’t real? Am I understanding you correctly?
@calmdown:
At this point #GGers are like Bitcoiners or people who believe that South Africa can win the rugby. They’ve got lots of signs of their eventual victory, but are rather short on immediate victories.
The thing I’m finding frustrating is that a lot of #GGers are beginning to pretend that they never associated with that movement at all, due to the abject PR disaster that it’s become. They’re still holding the same opinions but pretending that they hold them without having anything to do with that abortive movement.
Sorry, not movement. Consumer revolt, or whatever term the John Bain / Milo Yiannopoulos fan club feels like using today.
Yes Alan, “just because something may be a social construct doesn’t mean there aren’t real world effects based on how people relate to those constructs.”
Yes, we agree. You know that you’re preaching to the choir here mate?
This argument has been a big thing for me for some time now. 🙂
I was only surprised when I saw this all go down the other day because I remember seeing a pic Anita Sarkeesian tweeted out of her at, IIRC, Persson’s house. At the time I figured, “Okay, he must not be a total shithead.” But I didn’t really look into it, and really knew nothing about him other than, of course, that he created Minecraft.
Re: Scrolls –
I’m pretty sure Scrolls (and Cobalt, which might have been the “sci-fi game” someone mentioned) have nothing to do with Persson. They’re just being published by Mojang which, of course, he has nothing to do with now. The Wikipedia article for Scrolls mentions his name, in addition to someone else’s, as having “conceived” it, whatever the hell that means (came up with the idea for, over beers?), but I believe Cobalt was being designed and developed by people completely unconnected to them and when they decided Mojang should start publishing other things, they made a deal with them. I haven’t played either of them myself, though Cobalt looks kind of fun.
In retrospect, it’s not surprising that Notch went all MRA on twitter. He dresses like an casting call for an MRA. I mean facial hair, check. Fedora check. Heavy set guy check. Neckbeard check and double check
@Pol
There are several types of splaining that absolutely everyone can, and most likely has engaged in at one or more points. I just think you’re using the wrong term.
@Alan
I just love that picture.
You and I kupo appear to have a little bit of a misunderstanding. Just gimmie a couple mins to collect my thoughts though and I may clear this up.
BTW, I like your comments in general kupo.
And no maktoth, I am using the right term. For so many mother huffging years now. So many years… 🙁
@Pol
One of the effects of mansplaining is that it reinforces the notion that women cannot ever be as competent or knowledgeable as the average man, even if they have specific training and expertise in the area under discussion. If you can point to an instance of “mansplaining” by women that has this same effect, I’ll be willing to listen to you.
@Eva Vavoom:
That was an awesome essay. I am now reading the rest of your blog, which is also awesome.