...and speaking of Gloria Steinem

She's written about the differences in dialogue between men and women...that is to say, she was talking about mansplaining even back in the early 80s (possibly longer, but that's the time of the publication of the book I was reading). Anyway, as a general overview, she wrote about the constant overbearing manner in which men speak with women, even if, say, the group consists of ten to twenty women to one man. Men, it would seem, feel the need to pontificate at women, rather than speak with them, and prove time and time again to have some desire to correct/dominate women in conversation.

I observe this constantly.

In any group of people, they (men) cannot let conversation flow without making passes at taking control and reining in the dialogue not only in the directions they choose, but aiming to look like an expert in whatever situation, regardless of their actual igorance in the subject at hand.

I noticed it at my mom's Peace Group meetings--despite the fact that the women outnumber the men at least 2 to 1, inevitably some dude interrupts ANY woman talking, despite the fact that said dude has not *stopped* talking for hours, and brings the conversation, if it can even be called that, where he wants it, thereby reining in the out of control womens that actually thought they could SPEAK.

But yesterday was such an obvious, sad, sad experience at the University.

I was forced to go to the U. for re-entry/transfer student orientation as I'm starting classes again for Teacher Certification. Despite the fact that the orientation was unnecessary, as I know how to use email and where to find food and won't have use of the residence halls, I was required to attend. When all the speeches were finally over, and I was waiting with some students to go in to register for classes, we started making friendly conversation. Three women including me, one man. After we established the most basic of info about ourselves: One of the young women was transferring from Marshfield, the other from Oshkosh, the dude had taken a semester off after highschool, and me: Bachelors degree from this university, and thus, though I wasn't thinking it at the time, more knowledgable about how things work here. You wouldn't know that to hear this guy talk. After the transfer student from Marshfield asked me a question about registration, and I was answering her question, he interrupted me and started informing her of how things actually are, because there's no way this dumb girl could know anything about anything even if she DID go to school there for several years and he had not. I couldn't stop gaping, because it was SO OBVIOUS, and SO RUDE to me, but everyone else seemed oblivious, which only makes it sadder. I don't like being put in the situation of correcting someone's entitled, inexcusable behavior, because, quite honestly, I don't know how. If I were to interject with something fairly appropriate, such as, "Excuse me, but I was speaking, and I believe I can more accurately answer her question as I have experience in the situation and you do not, in addition to the fact that it's rude to interrupt people," I know they'd look at me like some kind of Crazy...because society is set up in such a way that violators of etiquette can do so without being called out on it, as those that draw attention to such violations look like disturbers of the peace. But what the fuck? I tire of listening to uninteresting people dominating conversation. Two days ago, a young woman came into the store and asked about our Women's Study section, and we had an excellent conversation wherein she recommended a lot of books to me and vice versa, and I found out that she's a Women's Study major at Marshfield. No one pontificated at the other, and we actually grew from the brief exchange by having new information to turn to. Men contribute very little to conversation...except consistently proving their utter douche-baggery to me every time.