If you have been called out for mansplaining or microaggressions, if you resist calling people by their preferred pronouns, do you respond by calling people “fragile,” “snowflake” “crazy” or “oversensitive?” These terms are almost universally used to dismiss the experience of people outside the traditional power structure.
Usually this happens when people stand up for themselves. A person says “your behavior is hurtful/disrespectful” and the response is to accuse them of being “too sensitive.” This is also a common tactic of abuse/control/manipulation - to tell people that their experiences are not valid.
As a man in society, if someone refers to you by a nickname you don’t use, do you feel uncomfortable in correcting them? If someone called my ex “Jim” he could politely say “it’s James” and that was the end of it. It definitely doesn’t need to be said twice. If someone calls me “Jenny” I can politely tell them it’s Jennifer. But I often get just a hint of sigh or eye roll, a verbal or non-verbal indication that I am being demanding, making a big deal of “nothing.” And occasionally my polite request is disregarded. Let me clarify that this is done ONLY by men. Certainly, it shouldn’t be a big deal TO YOU to call me by my preferred name. But to me, the “minor” disrespect of being called a name I have asked you not to use matters - it is a small but definite indication that I don’t have the right to name myself.
The same is true of people who can’t be bothered to try to correctly pronounce a name that sounds foreign to them.
And it is also the case with gender pronouns. People sigh about “snowflakes” who want to be identified as he, she or they according to THEIR identity and while it makes very little difference to you it is monumental to them.
One of the first times I heard the term “snowflake” was around the last presidential election. The target was a transgendered child asking an adult to refer to them by their preferred name/pronoun. This is both an eminently reasonable request and an intimidating situation for a child to politely correct an authority figure. It certainly took a lot of courage to say “please call me ...” but child was called a “snowflake.”
Call me by my name.
It’s really a matter of common courtesy.
But the further we get from the position of privilege, the greater the resistance to respecting a person’s basic right to define themselves.
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27 comments (26 - 27)
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Excellent post.
Those with privilege are fighting back because their privilege is being challenged. But bullies don't like being called out. It shames them.
There is a new term I just heard - 'Broflake'. This might be quite useful.
That said. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, because culture is very powerful. We can all internalise bigotry, which is why some women are misogynists.
I try to give people a chance to reflect and change. No one likes a mirror being held to them.
Ellatynemouth
Level 8
June 23, 2018
0
Instead of sending me links that are not related to this original post, why don't you vent your issues with the OP?
Edit. Misandry is a real thing.
I would be happy to read a post about misandry that you write.
@Ellatynemouth I feel like these things are related. Holding people up on pedestals because they are "unique", goes hand in hand with putting others down because they are "normal". That's what I take away from all of these identity politics. The short hand of it is something like; "If you're special, everyone must recognize how special you are and change everything on your whim. If you're not "special" then everything wrong in the world is your fault and you've had everything handed to you. You really owe all of your accomplishments to other people who gave you everything undeservingly." That's a lot of what I hear in these microaggression issues.
Can you give me an example of putting someone down because they are normal.
@Ellatynemouth If "Normal" people are not allowed to express there opinions or be full participants in the conversation, that would be putting them down. For example, when Feminists tell men that they "are not allowed to have an opinion about this" or when there is literally a "hotline" for when "normal people or normies" express an opinion. Sounds ridiculous right? Well, its real.
Everyone gets talked over. Everyone works with jerks, but "mansplaining" attributes those negative behaviors specifically to men. For example, how would you feel about the term if it were "Blacksplaining"? Sounds just as good that way? No? Possibly because its totally acceptable to bash heterosexual men about everything from "mansplaining, manspreading, bropropriating, manterrupting?
The article I posted earlier shows the idea perfectly, that I, (A heterosexual male) am responsible for every other male heterosexual's actions against women and people of color, from Harvey Weinstein to Christopher Columbus.
That way of thinking would not be acceptable about any other group of people. I acknowledge that historically the deck is stacked against women and people of color, but that doesn't mean that I have had the world handed to me.
Also, when men's issues are suggested as real concerns that should be taken seriously like;
mail suicides,
[statista.com]
(Note suacides among men are more than triple that of women, but NPR is upset about the female rate? I can only assume because men's lives don't matter as much?)
male representation in university,
[washingtonpost.com]
boys falling behind in school,
[cbsnews.com]
child custody issues
[dadsdivorce.com]
gender bias against boys and men in grading.
[mitili.mit.edu]
We are scoffed at by feminists who say that we have "crocodile tears".
Sorry this is so long. I just included the links because I wanted to be sure that you knew I was not just trying to BS you.
I totally agree that men are repressed. I do not hate men.
@Ellatynemouth Thank you for that.
I genuinely want equality for everyone. I support candidates who promote equality.
I won't stand for being vilified for who and what I am though.
As I said originally, I would address someone the way the present themselves.
I work with a transgendered woman and I address her by her new name and preferred pronouns. I will not, however, stand for microaggressions being blown up to giant issues.
Jennifer, people who use offensive speech and such are not responsible for the vulnerability of those affected. So you are, as a necessary conclusion, unjustly putting the bulk of the blame on the perpetrator in an appeal to normative thinking, rather than descriptive thinking which is necessarily true.
In social situations, trying to impose controls on others is insulting because their body and mind make to go in one direction, so to speak, but the person seeking to manage the behavior of the other person makes to go in another.
DZhukovin
Level 7
June 22, 2018
0
“In social situations, trying to impose controls on others is insulting...” agreed. But asking another person to treat you with respect is not inherently controlling. and refusing to acknowledge the validity of another person’s experience and feelings because they make you uncomfortable IS controlling.
Yes it is inherently controlling, but my view on respect is that if someone is taken the wrong way and they cause offense, they should not be punished for it because that person is not responsible for the undue sensitivity of the offended.
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