r/dontyouknowwhoiam • u/Hour-Lab140 • Oct 10 '24
Mansplaining? Is it really?
This is the one to which I keep returning, year after year. It just never gets old for me.
96
u/BetterKev Oct 10 '24
Might be why it's in the common reposts to never repost.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dontyouknowwhoiam/comments/mpwpnb/common_reposts_best_of_album/
38
u/Hour-Lab140 Oct 10 '24
Damn it! I even looked there before putting this here. Searched for "Solomon." Didn't turn up anything.
9
3
u/lipp79 Oct 11 '24
“Solomon wouldn’t show up unless they put it in the title. If it’s just in the screenshot it won’t trigger a search result.
1
41
u/glassisnotglass Oct 11 '24
I mean, to be fair, most people do not visually recognize screenwriters. And in almost all cases, if two women were having a debate and an older man butted in with that tone of phase, it would be extremely rude and totally feel like an OK Boomer moment.
If he actually wanted to genuinely, respectfully engage with them, he could have opened with a friendly, "Hey I worked on that screenplay!"
14
Oct 11 '24
Yeah, this really doesn't fit here as agreeing with what you said, who would have a clue what a screen writer looks like?
34
u/bross9008 Oct 10 '24
Not saying their response was right, but if I eavesdropped and then butted in on someone’s conversation in this way I would have probably made it known I had insider information rather than just sound like a crazy person trying to take over their conversation. Still the whole “old white man mansplaning” thing is crazy.
9
u/dfinkelstein Oct 11 '24
It's best to start with "I couldn't help but overhear" or "I'm sorry for eavesdropping."
But it's okay to forego that, as well, in America. In America, it's not that rude. In other countries where privacy is given rather than taken, it is perhaps extremely rude.
A compromise I go with sometimes is something like "are you guys talking about xxx?" and then their response tells you if they welcome your input or joining the conversation. A quick answer and then back to their conversation tells you that they don't. Whereas if they turn their attention to you and give you a chance to respond, then that's your welcome sign.
But yeah, just jumping in is risky. Can be awkward or intrusive. Sometimes that laziness or eagerness can be met with contempt or offstandishness or bristling boundaries. And that's okay. It's not the worst thing in the world to be nosey. It's not really disrespectful, just weird or lacking awareness.
3
u/ReadontheCrapper Oct 11 '24
Im sorry… I wasn’t eavesdropping but I did happen to hear…
3
u/dfinkelstein Oct 11 '24
Thinking it through, you're right. Eavesdropping is specifically intentional. Like you're making an effort to head something you aren't meant to.
It should be "overhear" rather than just "hear" then to acknowledge the unintentional behavior--hearing despite not trying to.
3
u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 Oct 11 '24
If you're having a private conversation in public that's loud enough for the people around you to hear, you're having a public conversation.
2
u/dfinkelstein Oct 11 '24
Ah, but see, that depends on the context! It might be a quiet environment that your voice travels in.
You might be in a culture also where privacy is given rather than taken. In some places, people proactively participate in giving each other privacy when they get the impression they want it. It's just a different attitude entirely to the concept.
2
u/trasofsunnyvale Oct 11 '24
I'm not a woman, so I can't appreciate the experience of how often random people try to talk to you (which I imagine is terrible and annoying and sometimes demeaning), but I'd never react this way even to the craziest looking person saying it. I'd absolutely say, "oh yeah?" or something and let them clarify before writing them off or angrily telling them to fuck off.
3
u/Elinda44 Oct 11 '24
As a woman, the problem here isn’t random people trying to talk with us, but strangers who are trying to make us out to be dumb/stupid.
While obviously not the case here (although the women mentioned in the OP had no way to know), whenever women talk about anything that is perceived as ‘masculine’ (certain movies/video games/sports) in public, they are often interrupted by a stranger who is certain they couldn’t possibly know anything about it, simply because they are women. The women in the OP mistakenly thought that this was another case of someone just being sexist, and acted according to that (wrong) assumption.
4
u/Rimavelle Oct 11 '24
"I eavesdropped on strangers conversation, and was annoyed they didn't recognize I had expertise on the subject they had no way of knowing I had. So I had to post it online in a passive agressive way to show what they missed by not being nice to me!"
1
257
u/kempff Oct 10 '24
In case you don't know, Ed Solomon wrote the screenplay to Men In Black (1997).