The condescension and man-splaining thing is difficult and is definitely a trained part of a male-dominated culture/sub-culture if it is based on prejudice. The chainsaw incident might have come from a genuine place of concern and caution since power tools can be dangerous, even variants of tools somebody has experience with. I personally struggle with gauging my expectations of how familiar any random person would be with something I’m bringing up, especially if it’s something I’ve had other people confused by in the past. I usually say “Have you heard of X?” or “How familiar are you with X?” to try to avoid either scenario of my audience thinking that I’m condescending them or them being lost about a subject they know nothing about.
I know and understand where it comes from, but I don’t want to deal with it in a partner.
The chainsaw thing was absolutely because I’m a chick and representative of his overall attitude toward me that evening. Asking if I’d used a chainsaw would have been appropriate, or a quick rundown on starting/stopping would have been fine.
Basically, I ask myself if he would have said the same thing in the same way to a man. I’ve worked on enough jobsites to know that no, that doesn’t happen.
The condescension and man-splaining thing is difficult and is definitely a trained part of a male-dominated culture/sub-culture if it is based on prejudice. The chainsaw incident might have come from a genuine place of concern and caution since power tools can be dangerous, even variants of tools somebody has experience with. I personally struggle with gauging my expectations of how familiar any random person would be with something I’m bringing up, especially if it’s something I’ve had other people confused by in the past. I usually say “Have you heard of X?” or “How familiar are you with X?” to try to avoid either scenario of my audience thinking that I’m condescending them or them being lost about a subject they know nothing about.
I know and understand where it comes from, but I don’t want to deal with it in a partner.
The chainsaw thing was absolutely because I’m a chick and representative of his overall attitude toward me that evening. Asking if I’d used a chainsaw would have been appropriate, or a quick rundown on starting/stopping would have been fine.
Basically, I ask myself if he would have said the same thing in the same way to a man. I’ve worked on enough jobsites to know that no, that doesn’t happen.