Spike McLarty
Aug 24, 2017 · 2 min read

Where ARE you? I absolutely cannot imagine any place where I’ve worked, (as a software engineer for the last 40 years, large & small companies, both coasts of the US) a woman being called ‘mum’ except as an ironic (not necessarily hostile) way of saying “please stop treating me like a child.”

If I heard somebody ‘mum’ you at work, I’d expect to hear you say something like (firmly) “I’m not your mother, the only people I want to hear that from are my children.”

If it persisted, I’d expect you to start a conversation about whether there’s something you’re doing that people are trying to hint is too much or inappropriate. Since you’re NOT THEIR MOTHER.

I know it can be uncomfortable to insist on changing something that people are trying hard to pretend is fine the way it is — but a lot of people (guys…), when you say “knock it off” with no force or sting in it, they just hear “blah blah blah” and it flies right by. Or to borrow a metaphor from chemistry — to initiate social change, you need activation energy.

Watch some guys when they’re sorting out between them what’s OK and what’s not. The modern communicators will first try “I’d prefer that you (stop doing X)” or “It bothers me when you (do X)”. When that doesn’t work, they add a look, or a tone, or words, that at bottom are the linguistic equivalent of forming your hand into a fist. The ancient gesture for “do I need to slug you?”

Well, now I’ve mansplained haven’t I. Great. Good place to stop.

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