If I had to do a āthe difference between men and womenā type of standup set, I think I would focus on the phenomenon of mansplaining, which to me is significantly (but not completely!) an eg of big misunderstanding + language/communication breakdown
The first thing to appreciate about mansplaining is that to some degree itās the way that lots of men talk, period. Itās the way they talk to each other, & themselves. Itās the way they go through the world. Itās the way they talk to birds on the Internet
That said, it isnāt entirely innocuous. Iāve spent years observing, querying, listening, etc and I think itās definitely true that women get mansplained to more than men. And men seldom realize that this is the case (and will often find a way to deny it if you suggest that it is)
Explaining why that is would probably take like a dozen really careful, surgically-nuanced tweets and I havenāt had any coffee yet so Iām gonna skip that for now
But my point is that there is a ādifferent languages / communication stylesā mismatch here going on.
A female writer friend was asking for suggestions on how to write a group of jocks discussing a girl, and I came up with this, which I think is both accurate and revealing.
- itās a two-way communication mismatch
- that said, itās not as simple as āboth sides are equally to blameā because of a long laundry list of things that disadvantage women
- even if it WERE equal blame (it isnāt), the rewards for men who make the effort are so outsized
Loosely I think of mansplaining as a sort of adversarial horseplay – it can be fun between consenting peers with a shared understanding of the norms, and it can also be a way to maliciously knock someoneās teeth out with the pretext of ājust playingā
Some men question womenās credentials because they think itās fun flirty horseplay
Some men question everybody theyāre interested in, and donāt consciously realise theyāre extra interested in women ābecause girlā
Some men just hate women & want to cause them pain and distress
In my experience, adversarial horseplay with strangers is generally a bad idea. Hereās an example I think about a lot, where an interesting conversation ended because two dudes needed to insult each other
Donāt wanna single out this particular person, but this would probably be considered an example of mansplaining if the OP was a woman:
Like, you think Neil doesnāt know that itās good? Heās a published author.
And then you restate his point in a lengthier way.
This is just bad reply game.
Here’s a hilarious example of an argument on bodybuilding.com where two guys can’t see eye-to-eye on how many days there are in a week.