Ten Ways Men Oppress Women with Their Everyday Behavior

By Katherine Timpf January 19, 2015 11:58 AM NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE

By now, you may have heard of “manspreading” — when a guy sits with his legs apart on the subway to assert his dominance — and “manslamming” — when a man doesn’t get out of the way of a woman on the street and they run into each other.

While these are definitely very important women’s issues, there are still so many more we need to be talking about. Here are ten words for even more ways men are constantly oppressing women:

1. Broplimenting

This is when a guy says something nice to you without asking for your consent first. Men should always ask “Do you consent to me complimenting you?” before saying anything nice or else it’s assault. No, nonverbal cues don’t count — he still has to ask for explicit consent before offering that kind of affection.

2. Mansulting

This is when a man says something really mean to you. You know, like, the opposite of a broplimenting. Mansults are worse than insults because each one is another brick being added to the fortress of the patriarchy that surrounds you every day no matter how hard you try to fight it with hashtags on Feminist Twitter.

3. Bropen-mouth chewing

When people see man chewing with his mouth open, most think that it’s just him being rude — but that’s just because most people aren’t educated on women’s issues. Social-justice scholars realize that feeling the need to display the crushing and grinding of food is actually a sign of dominance over the lesser being that you are consuming. Especially if it’s meat because eating meat is sexist because women need to show solidarity with animals because that’s how the world sees us anyway (like animals) and we have to be their friends. (I am only interested in dating vegan men who make sure they have chewed and swallowed all of their food before we return to talking about how many microaggressions there are in the restaurant. It’s so rowomantic!)

4. Mentoring

You’ve heard this word before, but unless you’re as educated and culturally aware as I am, you have probably never thought about how sexist it is. Why isn’t it “women-toring,” huh? I’ll tell you why. It’s because we live in a society where people think men are the only ones who can give advice. Seriously, I hate when like my boss or my dad tries to help me out or give me feedback and acts like it’s because he has more experience when really we all know it’s just because he thinks that he is better than me because he is a man and I am a woman. I fight against this by refusing to take advice or direction from men and smearing anyone who tries to offer it in a Jezebel post. I just did this with my boss, actually, and guess what? He fired me! Just more proof of sexism in the workplace.

5. Sleep Manpnea

Men snore because they have to keep imposing their existence on us even while they are asleep. It is of course different from women’s snoring. When a woman snores, it’s because she has been manterrupted all day and needs some way for her voice to be heard. By the way, if a man ever tells you that your snoring bothers him, what he really means is that he is uncomfortable with the idea of women being heard.

6. Mantroduction

If a man introduces you instead of letting you introduce yourself, that’s because he wants to control your identity. If you are out with a guy and he says “This is my girlfriend . . .,” leave immediately. Sure, he might have just been trying to be respectful, but don’t feel bad for him. That would mean he doesn’t understand his privilege and you don’t want to be with someone that dumb and out of touch anyway.

7. Manspiration

This is when a man tries to inspire you with a story from his own life as if he has any idea what your life is like as a woman. Now, while that’s unacceptable, it’s also past time to recognize that men and women are equal and exactly the same. Sometimes guys say this makes no sense and is contradictory and ask me to explain, but that’s an example of . . .

8. Manterrogating

This is when a man asks you to explain anything or questions anything you say. This is included but not limited to being asked to explain contradicting lines of thought or provide any actual facts or evidence to support your claims. A real man knows the only acceptable thing to do is to blindly accept anything that comes out of a woman’s mouth rather than to continue gender disparities by manterrogating her.

9. Manpacking

Similar to manspreading, (where men sit with their legs apart on the subway and take up too much room,) this is when men bring large backpacks onto the subway that take up too much room. Before you dare manterrogate me and ask why it’s a gender issue when women can have large bags too, check your privilege and realize that the only reason women have backpacks is for makeup and other items they need to measure up to the standards imposed on her by the patriarchy. If you see a woman with a large backpack taking up space, the only person you should be mad it is yourself for imposing that backpack on her with your unrealistic standards of beauty.

10. Mensoring

This is when men censor their cool partybro bro-time stories around women because they don’t think we can handle anything offensive.

Seriously? Treat us the same! It’s not like we’re easily offended or anything!

— Katherine Timpf is a reporter at National Review Online.