The hilarious part about your comment is you’re the one over-explaining to me here. I’m super familiar with about every way a man can be characteristically shitty, happen to have witnessed most of it first hand over the years, committed some of the milder stuff before I grew up and learned how to behave, but here you are kindly helping me understand things about men. Interestingly, of all the things I have witnessed, what I don’t really see often is “mansplaining”. What I do see sometimes is a dude earnestly doing his best to offer help and someone else being totally uncharitable about that, like it’s some affront. And never to the dude oddly enough, only in a mocking, condescending way to others behind his back. The reason I see those ugly hidden reactions, incidentally, is because my behavior makes it clear I’m a solid ally of the people making those comments, and they trust me.
So I dunno. Way I see it, there’s a catalog of valid complaints about stereotypical dude behavior. But being super critical about sincere (if clumsy) attempts to support or help someone just always strikes me as deliberately nasty, for fun. But you do you.
Don’t bother with the TV sitcoms, please. “Bumbling idiot father who fucks up even the most trivial things constantly and is roundly shit on by everyone including his own children” is a core, continuous joke behind so many shows. And fuck it, often it’s hilarious, I’m not gonna get bent outta shape about it. Your “see, look how toxic, it’s been on TV forever” feels pretty weak.
The hilarious part about your comment is you’re the one over-explaining to me here. I’m super familiar with about every way a man can be characteristically shitty, happen to have witnessed most of it first hand over the years, committed some of the milder stuff before I grew up and learned how to behave, but here you are kindly helping me understand things about men. Interestingly, of all the things I have witnessed, what I don’t really see often is “mansplaining”. What I do see sometimes is a dude earnestly doing his best to offer help and someone else being totally uncharitable about that, like it’s some affront. And never to the dude oddly enough, only in a mocking, condescending way to others behind his back. The reason I see those ugly hidden reactions, incidentally, is because my behavior makes it clear I’m a solid ally of the people making those comments, and they trust me.
So I dunno. Way I see it, there’s a catalog of valid complaints about stereotypical dude behavior. But being super critical about sincere (if clumsy) attempts to support or help someone just always strikes me as deliberately nasty, for fun. But you do you.
Don’t bother with the TV sitcoms, please. “Bumbling idiot father who fucks up even the most trivial things constantly and is roundly shit on by everyone including his own children” is a core, continuous joke behind so many shows. And fuck it, often it’s hilarious, I’m not gonna get bent outta shape about it. Your “see, look how toxic, it’s been on TV forever” feels pretty weak.