Yes, that is what I said: men repeat stuff to me
Why do you feel the need to regurgitate what I said back at me?
“That’s not how genetics works,” I say, exasperated. “There are a whole range of epigenetic, cultural, educational, biological, ecological and nutritional factors that you are completely excluding from your study. Not to mention bottlenecks and variation. If you are going to insist humans have vast ‘racial’ differences then you have to acknowledge a vast array of those are circumstantial or conjunctive with other vectors.”
A pause. “Actually I think you’ll find that the environment can impact on evolution, but genes are a factor too.”
My turn to pause. “Yes. That is what I said.”
“They work in conjunction, I think you will find.”
I thin my lips. “Yes, that is what I said.”
“I’m just explaining so I know you understand how it works.”
Recently, I have noticed that whatever I say is immediately parroted back to me by a small -but ever present- number of men. If I write an article on sexual selection, genetics, human behaviour or ethics, I will always get a man in the comments explaining GCSE level science to me. Not even disagreeing with me. Just rewriting what I have said as if I am a child who hasn’t bothered to study or research this at degree level.
I would write this off as a one off idiot for whom there are a thousand female counterparts but this happens all. the. goddamned. time.
No where was this more obvious than on my recent article about ‘Nice Guys’. Colloquially, almost any woman will be able to tell you what a Nice Guy™ is. Just to be sure no one thought I was talking about pleasant males, I mentioned in the first paragraph that I knew lots of genuinely lovely men and that I was ‘nicesexual’. I simply had an issue with men who expected sex or romance as a ‘reward’ for being nice. Anyway, not a single woman disagreed in the comments. But this is what the men put:
These men felt- on an article where I said in the first paragraph that I wasn’t talking about kind men- that they needed to explain to me that manipulating a woman into sex through kind actions wasn’t actually nice. After reading a whole article where I clearly stated that.
Wow.
Seriously, wow.
I think this says a lot about how some men see women. They naturally assume they are smarter than us, and that anything that infringes on their version of events in which women are either mislead or less intelligent, has to be responded to by belittling our ability through explaining. If they can’t disagree with us, they simply repeat our point back to us to hold onto their position as superior educator. They knew all the facts. They didn’t need to read our article because they already knew it all. How nice we tried. Now back off to the kitchen.
I think a lot of this is subconcious. When I question a man about why he felt the need to parrot back to me what I just said, or explain what I actually meant, he always gets super defensive. I honestly don’t think it has occured to them just how patronising or dismissive they are. That’s the extent of their subconscious sexism.
To all the kind, wonderful, smart and loving guys in the world- to whom I owe many friendships, interests and successes- please call guys out who do this. I know you understand how infuriating it is to be spoken down to. Challenge the twats who pull this.
