Writing tip: Adding “man-” turns your complaint into a take

Women manspreading.

Yesterday, Twitter user and self-described strategic analyst Eric Garland posted a long, threaded rant about the condition of contemporary politics. It began with this tweet:

As you can see, it’s pretty popular. I came across it when it was shared by Clara Jeffery, editor of Mother Jones, who likened it to the Federalist Papers. She’s clearly the expert, but I disagree with her assessment. Garland doesn’t advance a point so much as vent his frustration. You can read the whole million-tweet thread on this Google doc, thoughtfully assembled by Libby Watson. It digresses. A wag might summarize his argument as “What is game theory?” But over at Gizmodo, Alana Hope Levinson takes issue with the <THREAD> part. Men, she admonishes, Please Stop Manthreading:

There is this thing that people (mostly men) love to do on Twitter, something other than harass women and send DMs of their half chubs. It’s called threading, and it’s one of the many things ruining my Twitter experience.

That last sentence is great, and I bet she meant it as a joke. Still, maybe it’s just because my gender requires me to think about few other problems, but I don’t like what Levinson is doing, here. You can attach “man” to any complaint about annoying public behavior and turn it into a take. Every writer knows this. But we have sworn in the darkened chambers of our society never to abuse it, the same way Masons promise not to kill anyone with a trowel.

Continue reading

Fredrik deBoer on “critique drift”

Mansplaining

Yesterday, Fredrik deBoer posted this long and thoughtful essay on a phenomenon he calls “critique drift.” I assume the internet hates him now. You should read the whole piece, but deBoer nicely summarizes his own argument in this passage:

Critique drift is the phenomenon in which a particular critical political lens that correctly identifies a problem gets generalized and used less and less specifically over time. This in turn blunts the force of the critique and ultimately fuels a backlash against it. Critique drift is a way that good political arguments go bad.

DeBoer cites three concepts from the rhetoric of social justice/intersectionality that reflect critique drift: mansplainingtone policing, and gaslighting. Note that he does not say these phenomena aren’t real—only that the lefty internet increasingly uses them in contexts where they don’t apply.

Continue reading