Why do men mansplain and manterrupt?

Jenavieve Hatch (Huff Po); Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Beautiful celeb Scarlett Johannson born a male? Video says yes: transgender manipulation

Hey, Bonerman, I don't need your opinion.

All Lara B. Sharp wanted to do last Wednesday was read by the pool. But the title of the book she was reading, paired with the fact that she was a woman in public, made her a victim to some "mansplaining."

• MANSPLAINING: portmanteau of man and the informal 'splaining (verb "explaining") means "to explain something to someone, characteristically by a man to woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing" (wIki).

Sharp, a New York-based writer whose long Facebook posts often center around social issues, was reading Men Explain Things To Me, Rebecca Solnit’s best-selling book of essays, when she says she had an interaction with an older man that honestly seems too good (well, bad) to be true.

Sharp said she typed the entirety of their conversation as it was happening on her Notes app and shared the story with her Facebook followers.

Hey, guys: How NOT to Mansplain Flowchart (Huff Post)

 

White male approaches to mansplain it to me

Excuse me? - Look, I'm a man. I know better. Let me tell you how this works. First thing is...

.

“Scene: Pool, balding man, maybe 65 or 70 years old, with blue, bloodshot eyes, drinking from a bottle of Ensure, wearing designer swim trunks, which are half hidden under a huge, extremely brown, beer belly,” she wrote. 

• Testosterone poisoning: pejorative neologism, a negative perception of stereotypical aspects of male behavior
• When Testosterone Turns Toxic (DiscoverMagazine.com) 
• Testosterone poisoning TV trope, popular culture, absurd
• Testosterone poisoning... American folklore says it causes rage, lust, competitiveness, nuclear arms races, beer hats...

The man, whose name Sharp later revealed to be John, apparently approached her and asked, “What’s that you’re reading, young lady?”

Mansplaining poem: "He Tells Her" by Wendy Cope

 
Sharp -- who’s 47 years old and reminds the man of this multiple times throughout their conversation -- went on to tell him what she was reading and that she’s a writer. Upon seeing the title of the book, Sharp said that John assumed that she was reading “a book about men mentoring women!” Not quite. 

 

Anyone who’s ever read Men Explain Things To Me could have told the gentleman that its most famous essay is about arrogant men and their inability to fathom that women might know as much, if not more, than they do -- but the man had no interest in listening.

Check out Sharp’s entire post below.
 

(TL;DR -- man thinks middle-aged woman needs mentorship from him even though he has no experience in her industry whatsoever, refuses to let her talk, objectifies her repeatedly, and refers to her as “young lady” throughout.)
 

Sharp’s post went viral over the weekend, with more than 39,000 likes and 15,000 shares. She told HuffPost that she is “very surprised, and extremely flattered” by the amount of people with whom her post has resonated.
 

“I’m just a middle-aged, menopausal woman, who writes about her life, on her Facebook page,” she said.

Latina Wonder Woman, help!

To that end, though, she’s “not at all surprised that so many women could relate” to her experience. “We all know John,” she said.
 

One silver lining of her experience was that one of those 15,000 shares was Solnit herself. The two women had a conversation when Solnit shared her post, and it apparently left Sharp pretty starstruck.
 

“I’m a HUGE Fan of your work,” Sharp told Solnit in the comment thread. Solnit responded, “And I just enjoyed yours immensely!” Don’t worry, Lara -- we’d be starstruck, too. More + POST

Related headlines

• Silence and powerlessness go hand in hand – women's voices must... (theguardian.com, March 8, 2017) Silence and powerlessness go hand in hand – women's voices must be heard... of those allowed to speak and of what can be said and who listens. ....woman or child dared to speak up, that people deigned to believe ...This essay is an extract from Rebecca Solnit's new book, The Mother of All Questions. 
• Mansplaining, explained: 'Just ask an expert. Who is not a lady... (Jun 6, 2014) Jessica Valenti: Author Solnit admits that even penning a book... we have a mass murderer saying hatred for women is the reason for his ...NSA... 
• Rebecca Solnit's Faith in Feminist Storytelling (The New Yorker, April 5, 2017) Moira Donegan on “The Mother of All Questions,” Rebecca Solnit's... 
• How Solnit Became Essential Feminist Reading (newrepublic.com, May 26, 2017) Female readers who endured a lifetime of being... Despite her canny take on gender dynamics, Solnit did not exactly set out to become... 
• Solnit asks The Mother of all Questions: Is a woman... (nationalpost.com, March 24, 2017) While it seems to go without saying that a woman is more than her womb... Solnit writes, “Monroe can stand in for any woman, all women... 
• The Problem With Men Explaining Things (motherjones.com, Aug. 20, 2012) Rebecca Solnit...let me just say that my life is well sprinkled with lovely men, with... where women's testimony has no legal standing; so that a woman can't.... After all, Women Strike for Peace was founded by women who were tired of making the coffee and doing the typing... 
• Solnit: How Women Are Changing the World (thenation.com, March 10, 2017) A woman in Sao Paulo, Brazil, holds up a sign, "The revolution is feminine," during... finally women were in a position to say, “We're not going to take this anymore.... 
• 80 Books No Woman Should Read (Literary Hub, lithub.com, Nov. 18, 2015) But I did just read Esquire's list of “The 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read” 
• Do men really talk too much? (latimes.com, March 23, 2017) Derived from an essay by the journalist Solnit... In her 2006 book, The Female Brain, the neuropsychiatrist Louann... The stereotype being that women, not men, have too much say. ...At the beginning of the feminist revolution...

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Mom kills 4 of her kids and their dad: Karma

AP.org; Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

It used to be that you could count on a few things, like a mother's love. It used to be that men were the killers for the most part even though all are capable of such a catastrophically demeritorious action, will and carried out, stored up to come to fruition in the future.

(Going to jail is not the fruit or phala of it, for its fruit is yet to ripen along with mental consequences called vipaka, which may begin right away with remorse, regret, and restlessness -- worry and confusion as to what will happen). But the Buddha warned that there are thee terrible things, three poisons of the heart/mind, three roots of all unwholesome deeds (karma). And without rooting these out, we are subject to them at varying levels until we brig ourselves to ruins, as in this case.

Once the Buddha pointed out that for a charioteer guiding horses, when they veer off, reins them in. The others are only holding the reins; they are no "charioteers" at all. In just the same way, when our emotions spin all out of control, like wild horses, we must rise to the occasion and be charioteers. The three terrible things, the poisons, the roots of all bad karma are:

1. Greed (attraction, lust, craving)
2. Hatred (fear, anger, aversion) 
3. Delusion (wrong views, ignorance, confusion).

The good news is that there are three wholesome roots also operating, and this is not the end of the world as it must seem sitting in jail facing court and multiple life sentences. There is still the opportunity for 

1. Nongreed (generosity, unselfishness, letting go)
2. Nonhatred (courageousness, loving-kindness, forgiveness) 
3. Nondelusion (right views, mindfulness, clear comprehension).

There are only a handful of deeds that have to ripen at a certain time in a certain way. For all of the others, there is a chance to mitigate and mollify them, to store up tremendous amounts of merit now while there's still the chance -- while we can still get to hear or read the Enlightened Teachings, have access to the mostly unknown Workings of Karma (a law, regularity or, better said, a "norm" and compelling tendency of the universe).

Readers may accuse us of going easy on her , and we are. There's no reason for us to join the chorus of condemnation. Nor should anyone cheer on or speak in praise of revenge, painful punishments, killing in retribution or such horrors. Things are not made better by more killings. The murderer is likely to ruin herself with regret and many, many consequences, in this life and lives to come.

Socially, how could we blame her anyway. Does one decry a slave who strikes back at a cruel slave driver? With the sexism of this society, it's hardly a surprise that sometimes women have had enough and go to extremes to put a stop to it.

 

Mother charged with killing 4 of her kids and their father

Alleged family KILLER, Isabel Martinez (AP)

LOGANVILLE, Georgia (AP) - Four young children and their father were found slain in a home outside Atlanta early Thursday, and police say the mother -- now charged with their deaths -- was the one who called 911 to report the killings.

(July 07, 2017) The five were apparently stabbed to death. A fifth child, a girl, survived and was hospitalized with injuries described as serious, police said. The woman was detained by police after the bodies were found inside the home in Loganville, Gwinnett County police Cpl. Michele Pihera told reporters at the scene. Police later charged 33-year-old Isabel Martinez with five counts of malice murder, five counts of murder and six counts of aggravated assault.

Oops! Mara gets the better of some people.

"She was quickly taken into custody and right now she's at Gwinnett County Police Headquarters being interviewed," Pihera said. Police have not said whether she was injured and said a motive wasn't immediately known.

"Right now we believe we have everybody involved in this crime," Pihera said, adding that she does not want people in the community to think that a dangerous person is at large. Pihera confirmed that the 911 call came from an adult woman who was inside the home. Pihera says police believe the suspect made that call.

Pihera said the caller was speaking Spanish, which initially made it difficult for 911 operators to communicate with her. The county sheriff's office said Martinez is being held for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement but didn't provide further details.

Early indications are that a knife was used to attack the five, though a medical examiner will make the final determination about the cause of death, Pihera said. The hospitalized girl was still alive Thursday afternoon, police said in a brief update on the case. ... More

What would I do for love? (video)

Ven. Nyanasobhano (Leonard Price, BPS.lk/AccessToInsight.org); Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Associated Press (AP.org); Lana Del Rey, "Video Games"

Encouraging or praising suicide, war, abortion...is the karma of "killing." Ask Carter.

Nothing Higher to Live For:
A Buddhist View of Romantic Love

Ven. Nyanasobhano (formerly Leonard Price)

Wisdom Quarterly tackles tough topics.

Practically nobody questions the supremacy of romantic love, which is good enough reason to do a little poking around the foundations of its pedestal. Who is entirely satisfied with the romance in his or her life?

Who has found the sublime rapture previously imagined? And if one has actually found such a thing, does it last, or does it not rather change and decline from the peak of ecstasy? And if it declines what becomes of one's purpose in life? If a purpose is achieved it is no longer a purpose; it can no longer guide or sustain us. Does one taste of nectar satisfy us forever?

A world gone mad (thismodernworld.com)

When we tire of crass, material goals we may go searching for love instead of, say, religious insight, because love seems both more accessible and more urgent and because so much of institutional religion in our time has degenerated into insipid humanism.

 

Some claim refuge here but many more, longing for authentic and moving experience, turn to the vision of the "lover," that source of wonder, joy, and transcendence, who it is thought must be pursued and if captured perfected and if perfected then enjoyed forever -- or until some other lover lights up the horizon.

 

If you loved him/her you'd "prove" it?

Love is its own justification, especially for the young who have no other inspiration or no career or responsibilities to dull themselves with as their plodding elders do. Longing bursts through this one channel that seems open, dizzily insisting that the life of unreflecting passion is the highest they can aspire to. They do not reason, but fall.

Their elders do reason -- obsessively -- but fall all the same, thereby admitting that, with all their thought and experience, they find, when driven to extremity, they have nothing but love to live for.

Who should you date, a cub or a cougar?

This is not to say that such a surrender must be bad, only that it happens out of instinct and uninformed passion. Love is sweet and it is our nature to give way. But why do we worship it so ardently, and why do we break off our search for fulfillment here? Perhaps because we see no other gods [Kama Deva, "Cupid," Lucifer as Tempter figure in Christianity, slick Mara in Buddhism].

 

Yet, if love is the highest thing to live for then this is a hopeless universe, because we should see in a calm hour that Cupid's arrows not only thrill us but make us bleed.

Gays on morning drive L.A. radio, KROQ

"Man Kills Estranged Lover Then Self." "Wife Stabs Husband in Domestic Quarrel." "Love Triangle Leads To Shooting." So read the headlines with depressing regularity. The stories behind these are only the most shocking of countless tales of passion, but they do forcefully suggest that romantic love is not always a blessing.

 

One might object that hate, not love, spawns such tragedies, but where has such hate come from if not from a prior attachment now broken? We should know from experience how easily what we call love can turn to bitterness, jealousy, and malice, and though we protest that this is not the fault of love, we ought to notice that where one passion arises another is likely to follow. Passions are unreliable, volatile, dangerous, and a poor foundation for happiness.

.

Beauty and supreme songstress Lana Del Rey obsessed withdysfunctional relationships.

.

Divorces, suicides, dissipation, violence, depravity, fanaticism, and other miseries great and small follow from passion, and yet passion is still, in the public mind, considered commendable, a mark of vigor and liveliness.

Though everybody will admit that passion gone awry is dangerous, few realize that passion is by its nature likely to go awry. Romantic love is a chancy passion that may result in the opposite of what is desired. It may have happy consequences, too -- else it would not have so many votaries -- but it raises the stakes in the gamble of life and makes us more vulnerable both to our own weaknesses and to unpredictable fortune.

As most of us count the joys of successful love (however we define success) worth the pain involved in its pursuit, we must learn to step lightly and with intelligence.

No demonstrators gather for dumb b/f killer.

We believe, with some reason, that love can ennoble and redeem us and call forth our purest energies, but we are slower to see that when the lamp of love flickers out, as it tragically tends to do, we might lose our way in a fearful labyrinth of suffering.

Granted that few will shun the pursuit of romance out of fear of unhappy consequences...More

Finally, Bitcoin EXPLAINED (comedy)

Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; Conan O'Brien's writers (TBS), March 11, 2014

Bitcoin is not a coin but a virtual, well, a...

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• Who actually invented bitcoin? It was the son of a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest hiding in California
• Conan O'Brien's bitcoin explanation (BusinessInsider.com)

Judge tours California Death Chamber

Paul Elias (AP)

Death Chamber, San Quentin State Prison, where we (whoever approves or applauds or carries out the killing of prisoners) make collective karma (Reuters).

SAN QUENTIN, California – A federal judge convened a most unusual hearing Tuesday [Feb. 8, 2011] at San Quentin Prison. Nearly all the routine court trappings were missing as U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel toured the state's new, $900,000 death chamber as part of proceedings aimed at helping him decide whether to restart lethal injections in California -- a procedure he put on hold five years ago. The judge was 70 miles from his regular courtroom in San Jose and wore a business suit as he and two dozen lawyers, prison officials, and other observers took a one-hour tour of the chamber. More>>

"Dead man reclining," the guards probably giggle as they stand by -- generating unskillful karma not only for physically participating, verbally encouraging, but also mentally approving of killing for the state.

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"Anti-social Network" and the new Web "Will"

"Anti-social network" aims to be Facebook killer app.

• VIDEO: Facebook, Twitter, and other Tech Bytes (ABC News)
• Suicide as a [mistaken] response to suffering (WBV)

PARIS (AFP) – Facebook makes you despair? Social networking makes you want to end it all? You may be ready for online ritual-suicide with the aid of a new website that helps you kill your virtual identity. "Impress your friends, disconnect yourself," is the slogan on seppukoo.com, a site that aims to subvert Facebook by offering its millions of users a glorious end and a memorial page..."As the seppuku restores the samurai's honour as a warrior, seppukoo.com deals with the liberation of the digital body," the site says. More>>

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"My WebWill" service performs last online wishes
Sweden (AP) -- Sunniva was devastated when her boyfriend took his life early this year. To make matters worse, his Face-book account proved almost impossible to put to rest, haunting her like a ghost with new wall-posts from network pals and holiday photos from the past.

Until now, there have been few ways to control our virtual afterlives, but a Swedish Internet site is launching a new service that offers to manage email and social networking accounts after death. My Webwill is set to test launch in Sweden and the US this month and go live in Britain and Germany in the beginning next year. An upgraded version is expected in May, expanding to more countries. Users can set up a digital will with directions on what should happen to their e-mail and social network accounts after they die. More>>

Virtual Murder, Tibetan Cannibalism

A [presumably Buddhist Japanese] woman whose "[virtual] husband" divorced her in an online game is jailed for killing his avatar. Tibetan scholar reveals gruesome practice of spiritually-motivated [and of course misguided] cannibalism.

Woman jailed after "killing" virtual husband
Mari Yamaguchi (AP)

TOKYO – A 43-year-old player in a virtual game world became so angry about her sudden divorce from her online husband that she logged on with his password and killed his digital persona, police said Thursday. The woman, who has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his ID and password to log onto the popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in May, a police official in the northern city of Sapporo said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.

"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations. The woman, a piano teacher, had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.

She has not yet been formally charged. If convicted, she could face up to five years in prison or a fine up to $5,000. Players in "Maple Story" create and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting monsters and other obstacles.

In virtual worlds, players often abandon their inhibitions, engaging in activity online that they would never do in the real world. For instance, sex with strangers is a common activity. The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married to kill the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his online avatar was dead.

The woman was arrested Wednesday and taken 620 miles from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sapporo, where the man lives, the official said. The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world. Bad online behavior is usually handled within the rules set up by online worlds, which can ban miscreants or take away their virtual possessions.
In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world.

When bad deeds lead to criminal charges, prosecutors have found a real-world activity to cite — as in this case, in which the woman was charged with inappropriate computer access.

In August, a woman was charged in Delaware with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through the virtual reality Web site "Second Life." In Tokyo, a 16-year-old boy was charged with stealing the ID and password from a fellow player of an online game in order to swindle virtual currency worth $360,000. Virtual games are popular in Japan, and "Second Life" has drawn a fair number of Japanese participants. They rank third by nationality among users, after Americans and Brazilians.

Considering Anthropophagy in Tibet

Frances Garrett (Univ. of Toronto, speaking at UC Berkeley)

Prof. Garrett's presentation examined "cannibalism" as a locus of connection between religious, medical, and occult traditions in Tibet.

Surveying examples of the consumption of human body parts as articulated in Tibetan contemplative, ritual, occult, and medical literature, and in myth, iconography, and narrative, this talk considered how anthropophagy has been controversial not only for Buddhologists and European visitors to Tibet, but also for Tibetans themselves.

Prof. Garrett draws in particular from the Nectar Tantras canon and its writings on the contemplative and ritual practice called "Accomplishing Medicine" (sman sgrub), an esoteric exercise that involves the creation and use of "nectar" recipes using human products. She concludes that in Tibet anthropophagous practices and narratives are acts of transgression, generosity, and incorporation that are simultaneously savage and civilized.

Frances Garrett is Assistant Professor of Tibetan Buddhism in the Department for the Study of Religion. She received her PhD. from the University of Virginia in 2004. She is intrigued by how Buddhist voices command a growing literary, ideological, social, and political presence in the formative twelfth-fifteenth centuries in Tibet.

A history of ideas that weaves across sectarian and disciplinary boundaries, her book, Religion, Medicine, and the Human Embryo in Tibet (Routledge, 2008) links aspects of Tibetan medicine to expressions of culture, religion, art, and literature through a study of embryology in Tibetan literature. Current projects consider the intersections between tantric practice, ritual and occult knowledge, and medical theory, and what these say about the processes of institutional and ideological change in "renaissance" Tibet.