Mansplaining

I really liked reading about ecofeminism.  I found the combination of feminist and ecological thinking to be very interesting.  I think having a connection to nature is very important and I can definitely see the parallels between the two thoughts.  I wonder if the combination of the two movements is detrimental to each individually...

While doing some extra reading on Postcolonial Feminism, I came across this quote.  "While a politics of inclusion is driven by an ambition for universal representation (of all women's interests), a politics of partiality does away with that ambition and accepts the principle that feminism can never ever be an encompassing political home for all women, not just because different groups of women have different and sometimes conflicting interests, but, more radically, because for many groups of 'other' women other interests, other identifications are sometimes more important and politically pressing than, or even incompatible with, those related to their being women." - Ien Ang

I think these last 3 chapters were particularly thought provoking and less black and white than the previous chapters.  

I came across a blog discussing the issue of mansplaining.  According to Karen Healey, cited on this blog, "Mansplaining isn’t just the act of explaining while male, of course; many men manage to explain things every day without in the least insulting their listeners.  Mansplaining is when a dude tells you, a woman, how to do something you already know how to do, or how you are wrong about something you are actually right about, or miscellaneous and inaccurate “facts” about something you know a hell of a lot more about than he does."

I found this to be both humorous and true and experience this all the time, but wasn't aware enough to actually label it.  But something else on this blog entry (it's very long) really hit home.  Read below.


"Like most women, I currently live in a society where violence, harassment and scary shit can break out at any moment, just because I told some random asshole “no” without bothering to be nice about it. Doing that is so dangerous that most women don’t dare; after a few scary incidents, they learn to make up excuses, to smile, to be sweet and welcoming, to act as if every single random asshole on the street is a precious new friend that they would just LOVE to stand outside of the Chipotle and chat with FOR HOURS, if only cruel fate had not intervened. That’s what it’s actually like, being a woman: Playing nice with every random asshole, because this random asshole might be the one who hurts you. And then, if he hurts you anyway, they’ll tell you that you led him on."
http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/08/29/chronicles-of-mansplaining-professor-feminism-and-the-deleted-comments-of-doom/

The rest of the blog is worth reading and I highly recommend it.  I don't know about you but I have experienced this.  And I always feel the pressure to be nice about it, while I have one hand on my pepper spray.  It's always enlightening when someone is able to put a common  and shared experience into language that enables us to see the absurdities of the situation and for what it really is.