Episode 122: The Dangers Of Mansplianing

spk_1:   0:00
So I cleaned your Glock for you this morning. I fucked it after shooting it. It was necessary to clean it. Because if you don't clean a gun on a normal basis, it can get Really? It's hard on the gun. Where's the parts Can cause jamming and stuff like that. No, blacks don't normally, Jim, but if you let them go long enough them, you know well, it will eventually have problems. So I cleaned your gun for you. And, you know, one of the things you need to know is that when you go to clean a clock, you have to pull the trigger on it. So you have to really make sure that your gun is empty. Really? Really.

spk_0:   0:49
Can we stop now before my blood pressure gets too high? Stuff what? Why salty before How long have I been shooting that clock?

spk_1:   1:00
Well, yeah, you You've had it for a while.

spk_0:   1:03
And how many times have I cleaned that Glock after shooting it?

spk_1:   1:09
Uh, several.

spk_0:   1:12
Almost all. Sometimes you very generously clean it for me. I'm not saying you don't, but the rest of the time I clean it myself.

spk_1:   1:20
So what are you saying to me

spk_0:   1:23
mansplaining alert

spk_1:   1:26
E Yeah, Mansplaining. Actually, this is the fun part about this. Like we had to discuss beforehand because I really struggle it, man splitting. I'm not very good at it.

spk_0:   1:37
Not only does it rarely, and when he is doing it, he doesn't recognize he's doing it.

spk_1:   1:42
Yes, so I like. I don't know what I'm doing. It mansplaining. This is something that the brothers out here are You guys, I want you to listen to this one because we're going to talk about one of the single most counterproductive things that you can do to getting the female people in your life onboard with you during prepping. And that's called mansplaining. Females do not like to be man Splain to they really, really don't.

spk_0:   2:15
It doesn't matter how much practice we get getting manse planed to and

spk_1:   2:20
many people get a

spk_0:   2:21
Ladies and gentlemen, we've gotten We all get a lot of practice being man Splain to, no matter how capable we are. And it really annoys us, and it turns us off, and it makes us not want to have any similar conversations with the man in question.

spk_1:   2:39
Okay, let's take just a look. T understand what Mansplaining is. Go ahead and give a brief definition and we're gonna take a look and examine where we just came from.

spk_0:   2:47
You've got at least one man in at least 11 woman. In conversation, the man decides he's going to start explaining something to the woman. He doesn't really consider that she might know the topic as well as or better than he does. He doesn't consider what she really thinks about the topic or even might want to know about the topic. He's just explaining it because he wants to explain it and he knows about it. And he's the guy

spk_1:   3:20
and it makes him fuel guy ish. Yeah, I am the silverback. It's a silverback thing.

spk_0:   3:28
It's a power thing. Power

spk_1:   3:30
things. I am the mail and I am in. Come on, I

spk_0:   3:33
know this, and I'm going to take control of the situation and explain it to her, and she go and get it right.

spk_1:   3:40
That's right. And if I don't she won't be able to succeed on her own without me, because I am the man and she is tacitly inferior. That's what Mansplaining is in an Internet show. So let's take

spk_0:   4:00
the guy went so far as to consider if the woman actually needed to know it or not. Right? I know how to clean a Glock. I clean a Glock a lot. I realize its importance. And I would have done it right after shooting. If you Hey, I'll just which was generous of you. Appreciate that

spk_1:   4:19
deal. I was you know, we went out shooting. And, you know, once you're done shooting, what do you do? You clean your guns. So I was like, You know, I've got a clean line Anyway, I'm gonna I will put the gloves on. Was sitting at the table where you laid out in front of us. Um, why have two people do that? She could go do something else. It's no big her Glock is nothing to clean a poppet

spk_0:   4:40
apart. Take another reading

spk_1:   4:42
clean. It's There's nothing to it. I mean, so I'm like, I'm cleaning a revolver with multiple barrels. Took me what, 10 minutes total for both guns? Probably. Maybe. So I did actually do that, but I just did it because hey, I was doing in any way no big deal, right? Yeah, that was I did just do it, so I thought she couldn't do it. In fact, I often will have her, um um gun in clean him just because after guns have sat there for a while, you know, they just need oiled and maintain and no big deal. Nothing about it. She'll do the same for mine. Um, last time I wore was clean. She she did it, you know?

spk_0:   5:31
Now, right after I clean mind.

spk_1:   5:33
Yeah. So she showed me how to do it. So this is how it works. Now, I have probably cleaned your clock five times, right?

spk_0:   5:45
Oh, yeah.

spk_1:   5:45
And you cleaned it dozens and dozens of times. Yeah. So, me explaining something to you about how to do it is vehicles. Now, we'll be explained What isn't mansplaining. She wears her her Glock out of the place. And you know, if she gets hot and sweaty and stuff like that and one of the things she wasn't doing and this has been a couple years ago is we put a, uh, a set of night sights on it, and I noticed there is just getting to be a little bit of surface rust on the back of the night. sight and I pointed that out to her and said, Hey, you know, you're starting to get a little bit of surface once again, Is that knocked off and maintain that and keep that oiled And she's like, Oh, I thought that was I thought that was polymer. Okay, that's not mansplaining providing pointing out information,

spk_0:   6:42
new and useful information that the person has actually shown an interest in in knowing is not mansplaining Ah, being the explainer. When you have more experience and the person you're explaining to has a reason to care about learning is not mansplaining

spk_1:   7:00
in cleaning a gun. Let's say I come out with abortion. I've used for snakes before. She probably I don't think you have. Have you used to

spk_0:   7:09
have, but not since I met you. My brother showed me how when I was

spk_1:   7:13
never used to be a lot more popular. One of the things one of the reasons there are a lot more popular is because I tend to buy and I buy all the guns. That's true. I d'oh,

spk_0:   7:24
he buys most of this stuff we buy. He's a better shopper.

spk_1:   7:28
Um, I buy guns that are generally easier. Fieldscripts So you need a bored kid. You just stripped a gun the right way. But we have a few like are are Henry's that air, liver action guns that boar snakes are a good idea. Yeah, some shot gives that are paying the tail to take apart for snake, sir. Good idea. So, you know, if I were to show her the right way to use a book bore snake, that would not be mansplaining because she doesn't know or has not. Nearly the experience of doing it than I do.

spk_0:   8:01
You might be a man, splinter, if you're providing the explanation to one somebody who's you're a female in your mail Because, frankly, women get this a lot more from guys than they get it from other women. And after a while, you start to notice, integrates. So that's why there's a special term for it, because it happens so very often you might be a man splinter if she doesn't hasn't expressed any interest in learning about the topic you're explaining about or she actually knows as much or more about it. Then you do, or you come across his condescending when doing the explaining all of those things are are red alerts, and the real problem is it just makes us annoyed and turns us away from whatever it is you're trying to convey. It actually cost a guy a good job here about a month ago, because I was interviewing for a position and he decided to man Splain to me about something I had just told him I used to do for a living. And then he took 10 minutes to explain how it really worked to me. And I'm like, Thank you very much. No way on Earth. I am going to recommend hiring you. So yeah,

spk_1:   9:28
and this was Let me just stay here. This was on otherwise eminently qualified guy.

spk_0:   9:37
It's not that he didn't know what he was talking about,

spk_1:   9:39
but you don't want to try. If you don't need that, that's not the kind of person you need to have around you.

spk_0:   9:47
No, someone just displaying. It's It comes from an innate sense of superiority, honestly, is partly where it comes from. But guys, we're all also socialized to step up and take that dominant position, so even guys who aren't jerks will tend to do it a lot more than women tend to explain things. People who don't need the explanation just because it's part of the acculturation of guys. But if you want the woman to be cooperative and learn from you, it is a bad tactic.

spk_1:   10:27
Let me let me explain why this came up. Today. We are, I'm in the process, not we. I'm in the process of making some career adjustments and one of the things I'm going to be doing in my next career I am a writer tell you that right now is I plan to be riding some propping fiction, some tea at walkie type fiction or some certainly the end of the world. As it happens today. It may not be the end of the world. Everybody dies, but you know, So I've been listening to I listen to audio books. I've been listening to a lot of audio books in the prepper fiction genre, and even though I like some of the scenarios that they've come up with, I like some of the some of the ideas they have. The absolute overwhelming misogyny of the genre is driving me nuts. It's pencil team full to listen to what am I talking about what is misogyny and what am I talking about? She could probably explain it better than I am. I don't want a man Splain besides, so you go right ahead.

spk_0:   11:50
Well, he's a smart guy. You know some things about it, too. But when I see it, it's the heroes are all male or mostly male,

spk_1:   11:59
pretty much all male.

spk_0:   12:01
They are usually partially leading, partially coercing and partially sneaking around the females in their life to get them to cooperate with the propping or to work around them where they won't cooperate with the prepping. Ah, if there is a female who is succeeding, it is almost universally because she's doing exactly what the guy previously told her. And the writer will even be so thoughtful as to explain her thought process to us and have her remembering how this masterful man in her life explained to her to handle this situation.

spk_1:   12:45
If she does it in any way different than the way the man Splain it,

spk_0:   12:52
it doesn't work. It doesn't want to fail.

spk_1:   12:53
It's a total defeat, tries every other option. It's the way or it's a failure. That's a load, a cruddy, and it's just hard to listen to. Come on. Get now. I realise proper fiction readers are 95% man. I get that. And I even like stupid male fiction. I do. There's a series of books that I used to read back in the day. Just cause it I enjoyed it. Your I'm gonna narc you out here. You really get knocked out.

spk_0:   13:25
All right, All right.

spk_1:   13:26
On the rare occasion that she doesn't want anybody to know she doesn't, she likes to read the occasional woman's world magazine.

spk_0:   13:36
I do the guilty pleasure. It is a very occasional one. That's not a nice here.

spk_1:   13:44
I always just a look when I buy it And I'm like us for my mom. My mom reads Oh, yeah, you do that for your mom. That's nice of you. My body's been passed for many years, but I'm sure she'd read it if she if she around, she did. Um, it's actually where women in those books in that in those magazines and so not spices.

spk_0:   14:14
Yeah, yeah. They're not metal.

spk_1:   14:18
Um, no. One of the things that you know, like they were reading these books I'm reading is Well, she is too because I'm listening to it and we're in the living room. She's hearing it.

spk_0:   14:32
We're in the car, Not

spk_1:   14:33
we're not podcast, which is rare. But right now we're in the car and we're podcasting. This is the three B Y podcast. Welcome to show a big show. The most long winded show Gordon our vehicle. So anyway, long story short, you know, the overwhelming male misogyny in these books is just staggering. And to me, though, what I see as a writer is an opportunity.

spk_0:   15:04
The readership would not be so predominantly male if it wasn't so unpleasant for women to read,

spk_1:   15:11
and it does have done about it. It is unpleasant. For most,

spk_0:   15:15
it's sending the message. When women they're hearing it, it's sending the message. We think you're stupid. We think you're incapable. We think you are vino and superficial. And ah, we think you can't accomplish anything unless you're following our wise advice,

spk_1:   15:34
right? We've actually there was actually one book I couldn't get through it. I am normally not the kind of person who, if I buy something, I pay my actual cash money for it. I'm gonna try and struggle through that thing even if I hate it because I want to get my money's worth. But there is this one, but I don't remember what it was. It was theoretically the book about women.

spk_0:   15:55
It's supposed to have female protagonists,

spk_1:   15:57
female female leaves and, uh, and when I say, supposed toe have female protagonists. I mean, it was billed as having female leads, but as it turned out,

spk_0:   16:13
they were puppets.

spk_1:   16:14
It was There were female leads. They were you explain. You actually finished. I couldn't get through. There

spk_0:   16:21
were There were several females that were featured in the book, and to the extent they did exactly what their proper husband or proper father had told them to do. They had success and the females in the book or the who, either through the whole book or for parts of it. If at any time they didn't do as the Teppo Male figure had suggested and trained them to do, they failed and bad things happen to them, and that was all they got to do for the whole book. Nobody likes to feel or as if they are incapable, stupid, helpless, shallow. And people especially don't like other people trying to make them feel those ways. So if you come across is having that attitude, you will a turn potential female preppers away. You'll get them to do anything, but they will see it as not only not their thing, but they'll see it as just some kind of ridiculous macho power trip.

spk_1:   17:42
And that's the really important and almost view. People probably aren't going to be riding prepper fiction. I get that. That's not really what this is about. I was just using an example What I'm talking about. This you've got Joe. If you're like a functional human being, there are both men and women in your life. Friends, family, relatives. They're just Everybody has people of both ah sexes in their life. And the kicker of the deal is how you treat them when it comes to things like Mansplaining. Prepping stuff is how they're going to relate prepping they if you treat somebody like Rod like their to do stupid to know this stuff on their own,

spk_0:   18:48
prep on their own.

spk_1:   18:50
Yeah, that's not gonna work. You're going to have a very, very, very, very unhappy prepping experience. So we we touched on this when we do our you've got to stop taking pictures touched

spk_0:   19:03
on it when we talked about our women and guns and reluctant spouse episodes. We've got two of each of those things and that this topic came up a lot there because it was also quite relevant there

spk_1:   19:19
now, Yeah, because that's one of the reason. A lot, I think we think, did a lot of people have reluctant spouses is because, frankly, this plasters are tired of getting Lance playing, too.

spk_0:   19:31
They're not treated as if they are valuable partners who have good ideas of their own to contribute. And when you're not treated that way, you just don't have nearly as much interest in being part.

spk_1:   19:49
Why would you? I mean, imagine yourself if somebody was splaining thio all the time stuff that you knew stuff that you, you know, understood or stuff that was not difficult for you to understand if you just have points of reference. But he kept doing it. I mean, how would you react to it? It wouldn't go well,

spk_0:   20:15
No. So you are a lot of people's window into the prepping world because most people aren't preppers, so you're their window into it. If you want them to be prepped and I think and salty things. That's one of our course starting beliefs here. Everybody is better off if more people are prepped

spk_1:   20:36
right now. No, let's back it back a bit. I don't wanna see. Here's all you guys are jerks that it's not

spk_0:   20:42
about being jerks. A lot of people, a lot of men do it who aren't jerks, and you don't realize they're doing it. It's part of that acculturation thing. But if you kind of pay attention to it and make sure you don't do it, that you just get better results from the woman you're interacting with

spk_1:   21:03
right now, here's here's we as preppers. I am having trouble explaining what I'm trying to say. I know what I'm trying to say. It's not coming out very well. Um, were enthusiastic about our property. Does that make sense? Were enthusiastic about prepping and being what, well, what it is we're doing here and we, as preppers are tend to be, um, proactive in what we're doing. We're we're we believe what we believe we understand. We see of the problem and it's just it's hard for us when other people don't see what we see. So we have this idea that's not being seen or ignored or patently ridiculed as it often is. We have this enthusiasm that we have for we think we're right. We're on a plan. We're being proactive and we have this energy and we bundle that all together and that gives us a drive. Okay, would you? It gives us a drive, a passion,

spk_0:   22:22
want to share our ideas and have our ideas accepted by others.

spk_1:   22:26
And so that's normal. That's actually good. There's nothing wrong with that.

spk_0:   22:31
But you can't turn off your sensitivity to the other person's signals and think about what the other person already knows and might want to know. Now, when you do the sharing,

spk_1:   22:42
So what we're saying instead of mansplaining, we're gonna give you a tool here so that you don't man Spain propping or anything else I am. This will give you a tool, and it'll stop mansplaining and start communicating, which is what we need to dio. Basically, I were to let's just go back to, um, the cleaning of the gun, for example, assuming I don't know how much she knows about gun cleaning, I would say Okay, let's talk about cleaning your weapon for a moment. Tell me what you do. Tell me where you're at right now. Let me know instead of me coming out and just start blab, I blah blah. I ask her, What does she know? What is the information she has? What is her point of view? Where is her frame of reference? What he you know? And then you list of that. And you have to understand that where she is, she thinks is a position of value. Whether you think it is or not, she thinks that is a position. She has value there because that's what she that's where she's coming from. And so what you could do is like, Okay, now, here's something that I have found through my personal experiences. I wonder if this wouldn't be something you might consider? So what we're trying to do is just about know you're doing this completely wrong. You need is okay. You might consider what I think on this particular subject as information that you can use to make a decision as to whether this makes sense in your life.

spk_0:   24:52
Yeah, And you don't even it's nice it, actually, if you are that overt about it. But even if you are not that overt about it, salty will usually do a good job of starting to offer the information and then do some kind of check in with his conversation partner.

spk_1:   25:10
Stop me if you know,

spk_0:   25:11
to see if yeah, to see if this information is desire. If it's of no interest, you're not gonna get anywhere with it. You're just going to annoy people. If it is of interest you're stopping, and checking in with them will both reinforce the interest and make the person. I feel like a real part of the conversation and less likely to tune out. And you can check in where the person already is that way, if you happen to catch on to somebody, you started Thio. Explain the three different gun competition courses to someone you gave a brief one or two sentence description of that, and you checked in with your constant conversational partner, and it turns out she's done it or she already knows a lot about it. Then you look like a heck of a lot less like a jerk who didn't mansplaining er and you've got somebody to talk to you who may have a different point of view and other experiences, and it's just a more rewarding conversation all around.

spk_1:   26:17
It actually may learn something. Or if you don't, you could at least connect with her in a different way. Like Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah, You did. You did, Pacer. I've always wanted to go there. What was it like? What did they value? What was you know, what was it time? I don't early in the three gods. Seems like we talk about it, But you know what I'm saying, That sort of thing. Um, now, there are times when it's strictly instructional, Okay? But you in a situation where it's strictly instructional, you have to develop a teacher student relationship with the person you're talking to, whether it's a man or a woman, so that both of you are the same page of Okay, I know a lot about this stuff. You're a newbie on this. So let me give you the information that I know and not have it re mansplaining. For example, I have been a photographer for 35 years. She helps me out by shooting, and she's got a good eye, but I know all the technical stuff. She does not. She knows the basics. But you know, if a problem occurs, I know how to fix it. I know how to change the settings to make the lighting work,

spk_0:   27:41
but he has the sense to check in with me. Is he's doing the explanation to make sure I'm still with them. I'm following him, See if I've got any questions. It's not a sage on the stage thing. It's a teaching from one human being to another human being, which has an entirely different feel to it right and a much more welcoming feel. And it causes much better retention on the part of the student.

spk_1:   28:07
And it's not just a random thing. We're doing this because, hey, we've got a photo shoot. We're both working it right. This is a random thing, and I happen to be the senior person. But just because I'm the male does not mean I am the senior person. I've seen your person on this thing because this is this is what I know. This is what I do, You know, if we were doing a

spk_0:   28:32
planting trees planting trees, I'd be taken up

spk_1:   28:35
entries. She would be The person is not a lot, a lot more than I have. I actually don't know somewhere that I have, you know, gardening and planting. She takes the lead. It's our thing, anything biological. She takes the lead, even though I have some pretty good knowledge on a lot of that stuff. She takes the lead. This is what she does. Okay, one more situation that sometimes pops up. We have situation earlier, when I was re casing my micro 4/3 camera equipment this morning put you in a better case and most of stuff is fairly newly acquired. I asked her to come over and sit down so I could show her what we have, and I showed her each of the lives. Isn't she understands the LUDS is enough to know we've got multiple camera kids and multiple multiple sizes and mounts for multiple reasons. I mean, there's a reason that we have each of these

spk_0:   29:30
four cameras and guns, and that's going somewhere.

spk_1:   29:33
But so I'm explaining to her and I'm showing, and it's kind of like Well, you know, I like to have this and you know, I like that. I always have one of these, no matter what your kid I have and stuff like that. And I wasn't doing that to man Splain it to her one. Those were bought with her money, and I want her to know what they are. Two those were bought with her money for a reason and a purpose that I have. And I wanted her to understand what that purpose Waas. Why? I just didn't wanna go out by an all new camera system just because it's cool, because I wanted

spk_0:   30:14
I didn't You didn't. I did. It wasn't the right system.

spk_1:   30:19
It wasn't, um but, you know, so that I was giving her information about why I was doing what I was doing. But I wasn't mansplaining

spk_0:   30:32
right, And I ended up with no resentment it all over having spent a chunk of money on stuff that I personally have no inherent interest in using. I may end up using it as his fee shooter, but it's not my groove. But they work to me. I wouldn't about it, but I had enough pain and resentment because I don't see why we why was value.

spk_1:   30:55
I bought it and how in the future is gonna pay for itself. Because this is stuff that's gonna that I'm going to use for commercial purposes. This isn't just you know Well, we hope you enjoyed your mansplaining. No

spk_0:   31:09
one enjoys mansplaining on the receiving end. No one enjoys

spk_1:   31:14
it. And trust us, we will not man Splain to you ever. Unless we do, I won't. We'll see you next time.