#motoodic
Jenus' cartoon
In post-lock-down Italy, we have witnessed on social media a reactionary wave towards feminist struggles that is partly related to the phenomenon of the MRA and which finds its synthesis in a cartoon by a cartoonist whom many of us also admired, and in part to that on the “polite feminism”.
Suddenly, friends we value and consider allies share this content on social media, making it impossible for us not to resort to a gastro-protector.
What is good feminism and bad feminism, how bad feminism harms us all, what causes are worth fighting for, how and with what tone, how to talk about abortion when the governor of Umbria wipes out forty years of struggle by cancelling the regional resolution that allowed pharmacological abortion with the Ru486 without hospitalisation.
Men explain that yes abortion is a woman's sacrosanct right, but that men should also have their say in the matter, as the foetus in question is also theirs.
What drives certain men to be so obviously anachronistic? It is not the lack of a sense of ridicule but the need to be protagonists in all human affairs, including uterine ones, the fact that they find it unbearable to be excluded from something and centuries and centuries of internalised mansplaining.
On the other hand, it is the same atavistic fear of loss of privilege that drives those who, when faced with Black Lives Matter, must point out that All lives matter.
Used to being the protagonists of history, white westerners do not want to be relegated to the role of extras even for five minutes.
The term Mansplaining was coined by Rebecca Solnit, journalist, writer and activist in 2008, thanks to a post on her blog, published following one of her article for the Los Angeles Times.
This event gave rise to a long reflection that led Rebecca Solnit to write and collect seven short essays on the phenomenon of mansplaning in the book Men explain things to me.
“Men explain things to me, and to other women, even when they do not know what they are talking about. Some men. Women know what I am referring to. To that presumption that sometimes gets us into trouble, that prevents us from expressing ourselves and being heard, that condemns younger women to silence by teaching them, as street harassment does, that this is not their world. And which accustoms us to doubt ourselves, to self-limit ourselves, and at the same time reinforces in men an unjustified arrogance”.
There are different ways for patriarchal culture to manifest itself. Abuse does not only come through physical violence, humiliation, economic dependence, but also through simpler mechanisms, more subtle and socially accepted behaviour.
Violence against women also starts with a conversation where women are silenced, whether it is conversations on fundamental issues, business meetings or small things, the mechanism is always the same.
A very interesting testimony on the phenomenon of mansplaining is that of Paula Stone[1], a transgender woman, who gave several TED Talks on her experience of transitioning from being a “privileged white man” to being a woman subjected to constant mansplaining.
Here we publish an excerpt subtitled in Italian.
Enjoy it
