Member-only story
Actually, Mansplaining & Compliments From Men Are The Same Damn Thing.
Through words, men are basically training women to obey the unspoken and spoken rules of being a woman in exchange for dog treats known as compliments.
Many years ago I posted a photo of full-length myself before heading off to an interview on Facebook. Instead of wearing the normal, no-frills, boring-ass suit I decided to stand out amongst the applicants and display my feminine creativity and potential in the position I was interviewing for by donning a beautiful, soft, multi-colored floor-length gown underneath a structured blazer.
One young man I went to high school with commented on my photo. “This is how a woman should dress like,” he stated.
While I replied with a quick thank you, I still couldn’t help but feel that sting of masculine superiority and subtle aggression in his comment that had me raising my eyebrows. It was as if my subconscious was trying to tell me that his words were not a compliment at all.
Now I knew this man for a few years and he always presented himself as very kind, sweet, and respectful towards women. But there was something about the ‘should’ part of his compliment that made me want to dig deeper into this nonthreatening “ally” I always believed him to be.
