Re girls only

cuntinued

Lady, Love Your Cont.

a friend of mine:
http://www.kveller.com/blog/parenting/the-c-word/

Alright, I've never heard that Essentially, the point of that book was that the word “cunt” used to be an honorific term for the female ruler of a country before and if true, it's awesome, but also kinda sad. Because it can just join the long list of terms (see Dale Spender) of female-specific words that started off neutral (or part of a pair like master/mistress or courtier/courtesan) but they got turned into sexual slurs basically.

I think in that case it's a very fortunate thread title.

the future of the word actress maybe? O:)

I would be interested in seeing documentation of that outside of that guys blog or reblogs of that guys blog.

(just because I searched that book for relevant terms and various permutations in Google books and didn't turn anything up).

page 5 of that book:

"Cunt" is related to words from India, China, Ireland, Rome and Egypt. Such words were either titles of respect for women, priestesses and witches, or derivatives of the names of various goddesses

and then it cites Barbara Walker's The Women's Encylopedia of Myths and Secrets p. 97

The word "actress" has pretty much already been through that kind of degradation in the previous 400 years or so. It's not really until the 20th Century (and I suspect that the Cinema had a lot to do with this) that the word actress *stopped* being a synonym for whore. It p much was for most of the 17th, 18th, 19th Centuries.

There are still a lot of usages where it retains a problematic or unsalubrious connotation ("AMW" or "actress/model/whatever" springs to mind) so it's hardly as if it's just an innocent little word.

How many of the "actress" negative connotations were rooted in the past theatre where men played all roles?

To an earlier point: I think that men who present in some way that is perceived as "feminine" are definitely more attacked than men who fit a traditional masculine role, but those roles are so defined by place, time, and social group that it's easy to be insulted in a way that questions your gender or sexual preference by crossing boundaries.

I mean, woman-on-woman insinuation of homosexuality as a slur isn't unheard of, but it's kind of the go-to insult for man-on-man challenges. It might just be that women are more clever and socially schooled in the "pushing out the social outlier" language and actions, but braindead men will be yelling "faggot" forever.

Well the reason that only men played all the roles was because it was considered shameful or disgusting for women to go onstage at all - so, again, misogyny. The term "actress" meaning woman going onstage only really dates from the 17th century. Actors in general were never considered salubrious but of course only the female of the word pair took on the negative sexual connotation.

There is tons of documentation on this stuff - that Dale Spender book I keep recommending for a start.

I don't even want to get into why slurs involving sexuality are so gendered. As someone who was repeatedly called "lesbian!" (usually by boys not by girls, before any of us were even old enough to have a sexuality) for "inappropriate" gender presentation - that phrase certainly is in the insult repertoire though nowhere near as common. I suspect, again, that the implication is that "being *like* a woman" (I.e. a "fag") is far more shameful to the heteronormative masculine mindset than is *loving* women (even though loving something as shameful and disgusting as women in a misogynist society is still considered pretty vile.)

I'm not sure that homophobia and misogyny can really can really be teased apart in heteronormativity - they are v different things but both come from the same original prejudice and value set. They are usually fellow travellers (tho obv they can appear separately and differently)

(I constantly feel like I'm mansplaining in this thread bcuz I feel like this is such basic entry level feminist discourse - I deeply apologise if I ever come off that way, or appear patronising. I have no formal education in any of this stuff so I constantly worry that ppl w advanced gender studies degrees are totes eyerolling at me.)

I was trying to make a similar point (about the link between homophobia + misogyny) during a discussion on old-ilx about the etymology of the word 'faggot' (in the Louis CK thread re that particular episode). A character on his show had made the claim that the word came from the bundles of sticks used to burn gay men. It seems like the etymology actually comes from a derogatory term for old women (who were imagined to be hunched over carrying bundles of sticks around) which was then transmuted to become a slur for homosexuality. The point being that there is this very strong association between misogyny + homophobia, and often its the former being repossessed for the latter.

forgive my ignorance but what is "mansplaining"

let me google that for you

http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/2010/01/you_may_be_a_mansplainer_if.php

got it

Ha ha ha <3 Mordy.

And yes, as noted on the girl thread proper, yes it's kind of a misandrist term bcuz 1) not all men are mansplainers and 2) it's not just men that mansplain, also White ppl mansplain to PoC and straight ppl mansplain to queer ppl etc. etc. but no one's come up with a better term for it -it's not just explaining, it's not just explaining RONG but it's explaining RONG across that unique disproportionate gradient of Privilege where the Splainer is convinced they are innately better qualified on account of their engrained, unacknowledged assumption of automatic superiority despite a lack of relevant experience.

(Which is why, when a man calls me a "womansplainer" in a discussion of sexism, I laugh my head off at how badly he is missing the point, and also proving mine at the same time)

Anyway sorry I've been meaning to say something about that for some time coz I just started using the word without ever explaining it.

Also v v good point on "faggot" as insult.

I understand and accept the underlying concept - men are often patronizing toward women - but as with so many neologisms it's reductive and fuzzy. by simply attaching "man" to the neutral verb "explain" the term too easily implies that all men are condescending by nature. or maybe that's the point?

misandrist, ok i googled this one. learning stuff today, which IS the point.

I feel like the blogger's example comment for definition #1 was very on-the-money, actually. Probably doesn't fit within the definition of "mansplaining".

Also, it's a very annoying construction for a word.

men are often patronizing toward women

This is a little reductive, though tbf it is how the term is often used on the internet. Rebecca Solnit's essay "Men Who Explain Things" gets into the problem deeper and more broadly: http://articles.latimes.com/print/2008/apr/13/opinion/op-solnit13.

No no, the point isn't that *all* men are condescending, not at all. The point is that it's a certain kind of condescending which is deeply attached to male privilege.

Like, if one says that "prostate cancer is a male disease" it doesn't mean that all males have it! It means that it's a disease that 99% affects Cis men because of the structure of male anatomy?

(Cis meaning not Trans or intersex, biologically male and gendered male - sorry if this is more terminology bug just in case)

Misandrist = derogatory towards or showing hatred of men as a group. It's what a lot of ppl might call "reverse sexism" except the problem with that is that the term "Sexism" implies not just hatred of women (misogyny) but also a systematic and structural inequality that goes beyond individual prejudice. I know, it's complicated. Learning is good! :)

^^ That was a very clear explanation, FT, full of fine-grained distinctions which most people lack proper terminology to distinguish among. I am a bit unclear on one minor distinction, though. Would it be correct to say that the difference between 'mansplaining' and 'explaining' is that the first is an unsought and the second a requested explanation -- or does the difference lie elsewhere?

I don't think it's the difference between unsought/requested, it's the privilege gradient and assumption of automatic authority on the part of the 'Splainer that's problematic. It's that assumption in the mind of the Splainer, that the man always knows what they are talking about, and the woman doesn't, even and *especially* if what they talking about is something that the woman actually knows a heck of a lot more about, such as, for example, the fundamental differences of women's experiences from what men typically expect.

And funnily enough, while you were typing that question, I wrote out this big whole long post about what I mean by "privilege" which I shall now submit.

"Male Privilege" and indeed "Privilege" in this sense itself, is another term that could probably do with some explanation and clarification - I know of a fantastic resource on it, but unfortunately it's at work and (fortunately) I am not right now.

Because it's often incorrectly interpreted as being about an individual thing, and so people who are the beneficiary of Privilege will complain "but *I* don't get that! I have had individual experiences where that didn't apply!" when it's something that's structurally applied to a whole class or type or people (and against another whole class or category.) This is what raises a prejudice to an actual -ism like Sexism or Racism - the structural aspect.

And the thing is, people who have been the beneficiary of Privilege for their entire lives often interpret the *removal* of that Privilege as being "OMG reverse prejudice!" (which is another reason that I don't like using terms like "reverse sexism" and prefer misandry)

Privilege operates like... you want to go to a gig, but the venue has a policy that anyone wearing a suit automatically goes to the front of the queue and gets let in first, no matter how many other people are queuing. If you're not wearing a suit, you're out of luck, you have to go to the back of the really long-ass annoying queue and wait for so long that by the time you get in, all of the good seats are taken and you end up standing way at the back behind a column. You've got so used the idea that ppl in suits go straight to the front that you no longer even see the queue, you just think of it as deserved, because hey, it's always been this way, and if those other people really wanted to get in first, they should just bootstrap themselves into suits.

Now imagine that one time, you turn up and you're not wearing a suit. And the bouncer says "nope, go to the back of the queue." And you kick up a stink going "don't you know who I am!?!" And you scream and howl and complain because you don't get to go in first, and what's more, people in actual ~blue jeans~ are being let into the club ahead of you. So you insist "Hey! I am being discriminated against!"

When what has happened is that no, you are not being discriminated against, you're just being made to get in the queue with everyone else, and experience the same treatment that most people who are not in your category *always* experience, as a matter of course.

Now imagine that "the suit" is something you can't actually take off or put on - such as your gender, or your race, or your sexuality, or your class, etc. etc. And "the cool club" is actually "decent jobs, university, media representation, seats on yr government, even dumb shit like 'being Excelsiored on ILX' etc. etc." And that bouncer is the whole package of engrained Racism, Sexism, structural privilege, etc.

I'm sure that most progressive type people already kinda grok this, so again, apologies if I'm SPLAINING stuff you all already know, but I'm just realising now how much I chuck these words around without ever clarifying what I mean by them.

But that assumption - that one automatically gets to go to the front of the "expert" and "taken seriously" queue because one is male, even when talking about the very *different* experiences of females - is what gives SPLAINING its teeth and raises it from just annoying to actually A Problem.

i love the word "mansplaining"; it's hilarious and i hear it in my head a lot since i encountered it and i always know exactly what it means. men are encouraged to be authorities and a lot of men get their egos groomed thusly and many times the most non-threatening way to perform this is in front of a kind-hearted pretty woman; if she complies (feigned or not), automatic ego stroke. when it isn't insidious it's merely pathetic, like a dog chasing a frisbee. i think a lot of women play with this to their advantage, which whatever, some men never learn.

me and my partner have a good friend and over time i've come to see just how much i do this! she's very funny and sort of forgiving about it in the end, but i try not to do it anymore because it's condescending and gross but it's also dishonest and disrespectful to myself as well. i'd rather be always learning -- by myself and with others -- than declaring myself an authority on something.

xpost

one rule of thumb for me personally is that if i'm explaining/explicating/talking about something with somebody, it has to be of benefit to me first before it can be of benefit to the person i'm having the conversation with. i'm explaining myself, i'm not explaining something to somebody. it allows me to focus on the topic at hand and the other person talking about it and helps keep my ego out of the picture.

haha i didn't explain that very well