Y'all remember when I talked about mansplaining and then followed up with why I thought mansplaining was in fact an appropriate word to describe a particular action based in gendered privilege instead of a gender-neutral version?

To recap! Mansplaining: when dudes explain to women subjects that the women in question know more about, but assume that they know better by virtue of being the man in the conversation. Bonus points if the man is explaining to you, little lady, how something you think is sexist is not really sexist. I mean, hey, he might not share your lived experience as a woman in patriarchy and may actually be telling you what your experience is, which might seem kind of dumb. But don't worry! He knows what he's talking about! Because he's a man.

I didn't come up with the term (and still don't know who did, although Rebecca Solnit's fantastic article, "Men Who Explain Things", is the most likely antecedent) but my definition has turned up on a couple of neat threads on mansplaining lately at Thus Spake Zuska and Shakesville, and then my friend Justine brought it up at her blog.

Naturally all of these threads were deluged with dudes explaining at great length that mansplaining doesn't exist, is not sexist, and anyway women do it too and men do it to each other, therefore, all the experiences many women were sharing about their lives were totally irrelevant. They know what they're talking about, ladies! They're men!

This shit cracks me up.

Several of these dudes went back to my first posts and started commenting in this kind, whereupon I promptly screened comments, on account of I do not allow for sexist shenanigans on this blog unless I think it will be funny to laugh at them.

But y'all gotta see a thread on this post, which veers totally off-topic to focus on a brief throwaway comment I made on the excuse people frequently make for the racism in Tolkien's work (now screened to prevent derailment by other commenters, so you'll have to trust I copypasted directly).

DUDE (I assume): "Tolkien was writing in a different era!"

I don't get this; is this supposedly an invalid thing to say? Has it been decreed now by the Righteous Council Against White Male Patriarchy that Tolkien was a racist, misogynist homophobe since Frodo and Sam weren't black lesbians or something?

ME: No, people try to claim "Tolkien was writing in a different era, therefore all the darkskinned people in his epic being bad guys isn't racist!" and then the Righteous Council Against White Male Patriarchy say "Really? Really?" and laugh at them, as I am now laughing at you.

DUDE: Oh wow. I've read just about every work Tolkien ever put out, most of them multiple times, and this is the first time I've ever even heard anything like "all the darkskinned people in his epic are bad guys" (let alone ever noticing something like it myself). You can laugh at me; I instead pity anyone who can't read his books without seeing everything through such a lens.

ME: Aw, don't feel bad about being so unobservant and critically unaware that you totally missed a very simple criticism during your multiple readings! We all have our blind spots.

DUDE: But I see the light now and am committed to redemption! Indeed, I shall from now on endeavour to read any work of fiction with a scoreboard and tally each and every reference (or better yet, lack thereof) to any demographic to make sure they're properly represented. Oh, I can hardly wait to get to bash them all.

Or, in summary, dude is attempting to demonstrate to a professional fantasy novelist, pop culture critic, and doctoral candidate in English and Cultural Studies that she doesn't know how to read.

Beautiful.

Comments screened. And dude? You are to stay out of this space. Turn up again and your comments will be deleted, unseen, and without response.