How 'mansplaining' shaped Australian cities, and the way forward

Article here. Excerpt:

'Mansplaining "trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence," she writes.

With mansplaining in mind, men who created big visions about places have shaped our sense of the city. Think, for instance, of Jørn Utzon's Sydney Opera House and Robin Gibson's Brutalist architecture of the contemporary arts buildings across Southbank in Brisbane.

From its parks and gardens, to roads and traffic light systems, to iconic buildings, cities are known to be created by men.

By capturing the narrative of the city's places through mansplaining, our experience of cities is dominated by towering office buildings, monolithic civic structures and efficient, looping steel transport networks. As a result, we often experience the world through what men say and decide the world is and does.'

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

"Men do things. Women stand around and criticize them."
"If a man says something in the middle of a forest and his wife's not there to hear it, is he still wrong?"

And so on.

The authors are free to try their hands at building dwellings safe for others to live and work in for literally hundreds of years. Or they can go back to the old ways of doing things. Build some kind of shelters out of mud bricks, animal dung, straw, grass, etc. and wait for the first storm to come along and blow it all over.

Or just go live in the forest. Lots of natural cover there. But be aware that ticks and other insects love to perch in trees and let themselves fall onto animals passing along the ground beneath them. That's how people come back from hikes with ticks on their necks, in their hair, etc.

I mean, really. So many options. But that'd require DOING something and they seem a lot more happy to write articles for the paper than oh, I dunno, go learn to become architects and design their own buildings. That'd actually be a good exercise for them. That way they'll find out just why men design buildings as they do. Hint: Because they don't fall over.

Like0 Dislike0

The Sydney Opera House is one of the most famous buildings in the world.

But since it was built by a man, I guess it doesn't count. After all, it's the sex of the designer that counts, not the result.

What a building does is combine the genitalia of both sexes. It may be a tall, phallic building, but people occupy the vaginal interior.

Let's be honest: this is just something else for feminist to complain about so they can pretend to be oppressed--instead of going out and actually hanging steel. That's what men do--because if a man dies building a skyscraper, no one notices. It's just what men do.

But if a man is recognized for designing a building, that's oppression.

Like0 Dislike0

Ever notice architects usually dress in ties and stay pretty clean? Yes, we need more female architects!

Female construction workers? *crickets chirping*

Like0 Dislike0

1) I find it very interesting and telling that feminists get so upset whenever men are rightfully given accolades for something they accomplished that they will pretty much always concoct some BS reason to try to justify women being given the accolades as well

2) The Sydney Morning Herald abbreviates to SMH. How appropriate, given that I am SMH whenever I read it!

Like0 Dislike0