first fig

cross posted at the exponent

we had a little interchange here at exponent this week. it’s a fairly common one for us and a lot of female-run blogs. commenters of the male persuasion will swoop in and inform us of our general ignorance/misunderstanding of the gospel or secular issues and then attempt to explain to us “how things really are.” in the feminist blogosphere, this phenomenon is called “mansplaining”. Here’s a definition:

Mansplaining isn’t just the act of explaining while male, of course; many men manage to explain things every day without in the least insulting their listeners.

Mansplaining is when a dude tells you, a woman, how to do something you already know how to do, or how you are wrong about something you are actually right about, or miscellaneous and inaccurate “facts” about something you know a hell of a lot more about than he does.

Bonus points if he is explaining how you are wrong about something being sexist!

Think about the men you know. Do any of them display that delightful mixture of privilege and ignorance that leads to condescending, inaccurate explanations, delivered with the rock-solid conviction of rightness and that slimy certainty that of course he is right, because he is the man in this conversation?

That dude is a mansplainer. Read the rest of this entry »

cross posted at the exponent

several months ago, Salon published an article by an atheist woman obsessed with reading mormon mommy blogs. this article got a lot of attention but seemed to strike a chord with many mormon women i know. my facebook page was overrun with links to this particular article with friends commenting that although the author didn’t know it, it was really the truthfulness of the gospel that attracted her to these blogs. i personally found the article patronizing and infuriating in its reduction of mormon women to one particular genre but at the same time, oddly validating. you see, i’m a little obsessed with mormon housewife blogs myself.

i’ve analyzed this particular obsession of mine and arrived at the conclusion that i am attracted to the image of control that these women present to the world. they have the perfect family, home, clothes; they seemingly live a life full of simplicity and beauty that is intoxicating.  i can’t help but compare my hectic and chaotic existence with those pictures of domestic tranquility. whether that is what’s really going on behind the scenes is beside the point, their lives look more beautiful than mine. Read the rest of this entry »