Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

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>women to engage in the behaviour since they aren't "men" how can they be "mansplaining",

Stuff like this is really bothersome. Another example is when a woman is clearly being a misogynist, but thinks that's impossible because she's a woman too. The worst and most sexist things I've ever heard were from white professional women who think the rules don't apply to them, epsecially if they are discussing younger more attractive women or poorer, less educated women. And in the workplace no less!

I think we live in an absurd level of PC pressure and I think that partly explains why guys like Trump are doing so well in the polls. People are just sick of navigating this stuff and its all fairly arbitrary. Ignoring this isn't doing anyone any good, especially the Democrats who keep losing elections. Not sure what the solution here is, but I hope the pendulum is beginning to swing the other way. The fact that 'mansplaining' is in the iphone dictionary is especially odious. Its a straight up slur. Being a tonedeaf know-it-all knows no gender.

> Another example is when a woman is clearly being a misogynist, but thinks that's impossible because she's a woman too.

Do you mean misandrist, perhaps?

Misogyny is literally about hating women. A woman can be a misogynist, but only by hating women. A woman (or a man) that hates men is a misandrist.

Somebody who hates people regardless of gender is a misanthrope.

> The fact that 'mansplaining' is in the iphone dictionary is especially odious. Its a straight up slur. Being a tone-deaf know-it-all knows no gender.

Of course mansplaining is a slure. Misogynist is a slur as well. That is the point of that sort of word.

Well... they did go on to talk about women talking trash about other women... so I would think they actually did mean misogynist.

In my defence, that wasn't what the comment said when I replied to it. :) (What I quoted was the entire paragraph at the time.)

But, is a woman who criticises other women necessarily a misogynist? It's no more necessarily true of a woman than of a man who criticizes women. If a man criticizes other men, we don't immediately accuse him of misandry: of criticizing those men because they are men.

If a woman criticizes other women for, e.g., using their looks - and possibly more - to get ahead, is she really displaying hatred towards "women", or just those women?

I am, to be clearer than I really should have to be, not saying that women can't be misogynists, or that the only thing women criticize other women for is using their sexuality to get ahead. But women criticizing women isn't automatically misogyny: it may simply be criticism.

> But women criticizing women isn't automatically misogyny: it may simply be criticism.

If only men were given so much benefit of the doubt.

I can only speak for my experience...

In my work life, I see men criticizing women (and vice versa) all the time. There is never a hint of anyone thinking that man-to-woman criticism is being only given, or is only as pointed as it is, because of the sexes of the people involved. Maybe I'm just lucky that my co-workers are professionals. (It's about a 30/70 female/male split in my workplace, FYI.)

In my personal life, I really don't see much of people criticising anyone, except each other. Maybe I don't hang with the right people.

With one recurring exception, I cannot recall an instance from my "real life" in the past decade, say, where I've seen a woman criticised for something where a man wouldn't have been criticized in the same way. The exception being the automatic assumption many (but of course not all) drivers have that any bad driver must be a woman: whilst a man will still be criticized for bad driving, he is a bad driver because he is a bad driver, whilst a bad woman driver is a bad driver because she is a woman.

Online, I see (presumed) men criticising (presumed) women all the time. Naturally, said criticism is not necessarily very constructive. Perhaps it is just my bias, but criticism of women seems to far more often focus on her gender and sexuality than criticism of men does.

tl;dr In my experience, men are.

I think he actually did mean misogynist - women that dislike even other women and try to keep them from positions of power and authority absolutely do exist. Female competition exists, after all, and oftentimes social minorities that climb into positions of authority adopt the cultural biases of those that held power before them (see: accusations within disadvantaged communities for "acting white" or acting "like you're better than everyone else").

It can be difficult to determine if a leader is adopting a cultural meme or if there's something intrinsic to the person. There's a bit of a disturbing trend in the military where even female commanding officers will shy away from acknowledging cases of sexual assault against female personnel. Furthermore, there's evidence for private sector that women that get promoted oftentimes try to act more "like a man" in aggression and even bias against female subordinates, sometimes even to the point where they're more exclusionary than their male counterparts ever were. I can't provide citations right now for them but the first can be Googled quickly I presume.

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