Althouse: Mansplainingbusters.

September 22, 2022

Mansplainingbusters.

Guess she realized how absurd she was being, because she edited it… pic.twitter.com/2n4Zqgqs5e
— IrishStephen (@NDIrishFan_72) September 21, 2022

75 comments:

Enigma said...: Projection.

Now do Hillary on the "vast right-wing conspiracy" and the nonsense it spawned for a generation. In many cases speaking out reveals your own anxieties and insecurities, it's merely what's bugging you and on your mind -- see Sigmund Freud.

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."; 9/22/22, 6:09 AM
Misinforminimalism said...: Pretty sure she hadn't been born yet when it was remarkable to see a woman wearing coveralls. Occam's Razor suggests she thought of that little repartee and invented a story to justify posting it.; 9/22/22, 6:28 AM
gilbar said...: i'm ASSUMING, that the guy was NOT cute?; 9/22/22, 6:38 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: Things that did not happen.; 9/22/22, 6:41 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: Travel to perfect natural setting for kickass background image? $100
Designer clothing that looks like it came from Goodwill? $200
5G ph8ne with bitchin' 15megapixel wide angle lens? $1000

Taking a picture and making up things that didn't happen for your fans?

Priceless; 9/22/22, 6:45 AM
Strick said...: Kari Bryon earned enough cred on Mythbusters she can wear coveralls anytime she wants. As to the three song question, it has some merit, but remember, Rick Beato recently declared that the band Aha was the best one hit wonder of the 80s. What do you do in that case? Repeat "Take Me On" three times?

Besides, I know and love a Grateful Dead song when I hear it, but I'm damned if I can remember the names of any of them. We're even.; 9/22/22, 6:48 AM
Christopher B said...: "It Wasn't A Joke."

Corollary to "That's Not Funny."; 9/22/22, 6:49 AM
iowan2 said...: I don't know why I would try to suss out what the motive of the questioner might be. "nope, not a mechanic, do you need some help?" Why assume anything? Is that a female thought process?
Or name the songs for the tee shirt your wearing? My mind doesn't work that way. Memory is just repetition. If I dont need the info in memory, I do know where to find it. Right now I have the symptoms of about a dozen different fungal leaf diseases in corn or soybeans in memory. But I had to put them there two weeks ago to scout fields and identify the presence and severity of the infections. By Thanksgiving it will take me an hour to complete the list and symptoms, because I don't care, but I know how to find the info. I cant name the songs I like, I recognize the songs I like and maybe attach a band name to theme 1/4 of the time.

She sounds like a common leftist. A proud member of the perpetually aggrieved.; 9/22/22, 6:54 AM
Another old lawyer said...: Well, she's not overcoming all stereotypes.; 9/22/22, 6:59 AM
Leland said...: Problems for progressives.; 9/22/22, 7:04 AM
Jake said...: She sounds like a real snob.; 9/22/22, 7:08 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Kari is short for Karen.; 9/22/22, 7:09 AM
rwnutjob said...: Chip, meet shoulder; 9/22/22, 7:09 AM
gilbar said...: what ARE her qualifications for being a 'mythbuster'?
Does she know ANYTHING? mechanics? physics? ANYTHING?
or, is she just an actress? (with fake boobs); 9/22/22, 7:12 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Pretty sure she hadn't been born yet when it was remarkable to see a woman wearing coveralls."

Ahem.; 9/22/22, 7:21 AM
Carol said...: We hear things in our heads sometimes.; 9/22/22, 7:22 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "what ARE her qualifications for being a 'mythbuster'? Does she know ANYTHING? mechanics?"

I think the answer to the question asked her was I'm not a mechanic, but I play one on TV and she lashed out with a joke... even though she's not a comedian but only plays one as told on Twitter. I kind of doubt that this incident even happened, and was that joke really something she came up with on the spot?; 9/22/22, 7:25 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Learned a great new word by clicking through to Maw's Twitter thread.

Headcanon

Maw wrote:Literally everything she’s mad about, according to this post, is headcanon she made up about the guy, and not anything he actually did.

Headcanon is apparently a word generally used about the fictional worlds of fandom, but it's clearly very adaptable to the real world these days. Here are two definitions offered online:

Merriam-Webster - "Headcanon refers to something that a fan imagines to be true about a character even though no information supporting that belief is spelled out in the text. Sometimes that involves filling in your own explanation for a character’s strange motivation, or projecting aspects onto a character that make them more relatable to you."

Quora - "A headcanon is someone’s personal theory or concept that they accept as true, wish to be true, or derive from the source material - something that is not explicitly stated by the source material."; 9/22/22, 7:29 AM
Owen said...: iowan2 @ 6:54: “… A proud member of the perpetually aggrieved.”

Bingo. It’s apparently a recognized and respectable line of work: exaggerate or invent slights and complaints that dramatize one’s victimhood; get paid and gain cred as an Influencer with a Following; rinse, repeat. Most of the Social Justice majors in our top schools are doing this or hope to.; 9/22/22, 7:36 AM
Temujin said...: I'm sure young girls are not born with a distaste for anything male. It's something either learned from bad experiences- a lot of them- or it's something taught, pounded into their heads. It's a most bizarre overreaction to a harmless interaction with another person. It must be hard going through life looking for shit where there isn't any.; 9/22/22, 7:42 AM
gilbar said...: Our Professor Althouse wisely says..
I think the answer to the question asked her was I'm not a mechanic, but I play one on TV

If she'd said something like that (assuming, for the sake of argument, that this Ever happened),
his response (Probably) would have been:
"Oh! i wondered, 'cause you're some smart and knowledgeable! i LOVE that show, and YOU are the Best Part!"

If i'd met her, (ten years ago); i would have said something along those lines.
(that was before i found out that she was just an actress); 9/22/22, 7:47 AM
dbp said...: A gear-head saw a woman in coveralls. He was encouraged by the prospect of talking mechanics with an attractive woman. She turned-out not to be a mechanic and the mild prospect of an interesting conversation with her was dashed.

The end.; 9/22/22, 7:48 AM
dbp said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/22/22, 7:50 AM
Bob Boyd said...: The man who stopped, if he existed, probably was hoping to get jumped.; 9/22/22, 7:52 AM
Gusty Winds said...: The struggle is real...; 9/22/22, 8:05 AM
Kate said...: Kari was born in 1974. In another year or two no man will approach her with repartee because she'll no longer be breedable. Be grateful, sweetie. Times are about to get tough.; 9/22/22, 8:07 AM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: If I cared I'd go back and hunt up the photo shoot she did for Vice about 10 years ago where she did a science experiment in a bikini and tweet it at her.; 9/22/22, 8:08 AM
Gusty Winds said...: I'm thinkin' that blue bandana around her neck is for when she mounts the horse not in the picture, and has to wear it over her face Calamity Jane style to prevent breathing in sand.; 9/22/22, 8:09 AM
Rusty said...: You were eye candy for the show Kari. Instead of resenting it, leverage it, It's show business.; 9/22/22, 8:12 AM
Howard said...: Feminine science accurately predicts when a woman makes a self deprecating remark about her weight to a male man, there is no possible response, including doing and/or saying nothing, the knuckle dragger can make that won't trigger a feminist into naming and shaming the insensitivity of clueless dolt.

Fishing for compliments, detecting insults.

Propositional calculus is a branch of logic. It is also called propositional logic, statement logic, sentential calculus, sentential logic, or sometimes zeroth-order logic. It deals with propositions (which can be true or false) and relations between propositions, including the construction of arguments based on them. Compound propositions are formed by connecting propositions by logical connectives. Propositions that contain no logical connectives are called atomic propositions.; 9/22/22, 8:13 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: 1. Dudes get excited when hot chicks are into cars.
2. She’s overthinking it.
3. He’s moved on.
4. She hasn’t.
5. Meeting TV personalities is like this usually. Or worse.; 9/22/22, 8:17 AM
Sebastian said...: "Why assume anything?"

At least as presented, even if made up in the way Althouse plausibly suggests: scores points against men, affirms female identity, fakes grievance to earn sympathy, promotes The Narrative. Prog self-presentation is overdetermined. Now where is the feminist science to test the hypothesis/es?; 9/22/22, 8:17 AM
Leland said...: "Pretty sure she hadn't been born yet when it was remarkable to see a woman wearing coveralls."

I read that as meaning the concept of women wearing coveralls was understood long before Byron. Is the "ahem" agreement? I realize she was alive for it, but Byron's coveralls reminds me of Alice Ghostley as Mrs. Murdock the auto shop teacher in Grease.; 9/22/22, 8:25 AM
Ron Winkleheimer said...: Maybe I'm just an old fart, but if I see someone running around in coveralls, I'm probably going to assume they are a mechanic. And now I'm thinking about Marisa Tomei in coveralls.; 9/22/22, 8:27 AM
Blair said...: This is why you're single and barren.; 9/22/22, 8:29 AM
Chaswjd said...: What if she had been a mechanic and a man had dismissed her as not being a mechanic because she was a woman?

I can only imagine the outrage then. It seems like a no-win situation for any who wanted to talk with her.

I would have thought it was a sign of progress that a woman dressed in overalls could be thought of as a mechanic.; 9/22/22, 8:35 AM
Levi Starks said...: She’s a highly qualified victim.; 9/22/22, 8:41 AM
John D said...: Ann Althouse said...

"Pretty sure she hadn't been born yet when it was remarkable to see a woman wearing coveralls."

Ahem.

How do you know for certain that the date Misinforminimalism is referring to is in the recent past. You can't know what they were thinking.

Using your date of 1945 as a milepost, the original statement would be true of everyone born after that date.; 9/22/22, 8:42 AM
Roger Sweeny said...: It's sad that in trying to combat some stereotypes, she's engaging in her own. Proving she's human. We should all be a little bit more charitable.; 9/22/22, 8:47 AM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: Blair said...

This is why you're single and barren.

Except that's not true, she was off the show for a while due to maternity leave.; 9/22/22, 8:56 AM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: Chaswjd said...

I would have thought it was a sign of progress that a woman dressed in overalls could be thought of as a mechanic.

It is, except when the coveralls are a fashion statement as I suspect they were here.; 9/22/22, 9:00 AM
Achilles said...: gilbar said...

i'm ASSUMING, that the guy was NOT cute?

She is sure she can do better.

One of the most offensive things to women like this is when a low status man speaks to her.

Those men should know their place.; 9/22/22, 9:26 AM
rcocean said...: "He laughs without detecting the sarcasm."

So, she was engaging in non-funny sarcasm? That people weren't supposed to laugh at. Weird.

Frankly, she strikes me as a complete drip. I can imagine someone wishing a "Good Morning" and her going "What's that supposed to mean?". When you find women who are aspberger they really are aspberger.; 9/22/22, 9:29 AM
s'opihjerdt said...: A gear-head saw a woman in coveralls. He was encouraged by the prospect of talking mechanics with a pleasant woman. She turned-out not to be a pleasant woman and the mild prospect of an pleasant conversation with her was dashed.

The ens

FIFY; 9/22/22, 9:34 AM
Birches said...: When my dad, who was a mechanic, first met my now husband, my now husband was wearing an old Conoco jacket he found at Goodwill. He was a bit of a hipster. Anyway, the first thing my dad asked was, "Do you work at Conoco?" I'm sure he was trying to find some commonality. We still chuckle about that.; 9/22/22, 9:40 AM
Joe Smith said...: She's cute. Maybe it was just his lame attempt at a pickup line.

Btw, I've known incredibly beautiful women who've worn overalls to work (in an office)...; 9/22/22, 9:53 AM
Jupiter said...: She seems nice.; 9/22/22, 9:58 AM
n.n said...: She's so trans-social or indulging in trifles for funny relief.

That said, keep women affordable, available, and taxable, and the "burdens" of evidence... demos-cracy sequestered in darkness.; 9/22/22, 10:05 AM
traditionalguy said...: Scary. A man speaks to a woman. That kind of thing could lead to population increase. It must be ridiculed.; 9/22/22, 10:06 AM
Howard said...: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

― Margaret Atwood

Blogger Achilles said...

One of the most offensive things to women like this is when a low status man speaks to her.

Those men should know their place.; 9/22/22, 10:14 AM
Rocco said...: Ron Winkleheimer said...
"Maybe I'm just an old fart, but if I see someone running around in coveralls, I'm probably going to assume they are a mechanic. And now I'm thinking about Mona Lisa Vito in coveralls."

FIFY; 9/22/22, 10:20 AM
lonejustice said...: When I was in law school back in the '80s, some of the female law students would occasionally wear overalls to class. Not the blue Big Mac overalls that farmers wear, but different colored ones that were tighter fitting. I thought they were kinda cute.; 9/22/22, 10:54 AM
Kate said...: Ah, Howard. We think both those things at the same time. Checking for rapists and rich prospects is a skill. Not sure if this guy set off the creep vibe or the loser vibe, but both are rejectable.; 9/22/22, 11:00 AM
Jupiter said...: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

Yes indeed! But which sex lives longer? And which one has no sense of humor?; 9/22/22, 11:06 AM
Jupiter said...: "I thought they were kinda cute."

You'd have thought they were kinda cute if they had worn burkhas, too. Just saying.; 9/22/22, 11:07 AM
Michael K said...: there is no possible response, including doing and/or saying nothing, the knuckle dragger can make that won't trigger a feminist into naming and shaming the insensitivity of clueless dolt.

All males are "clueless dolts" to a certain type of feminist. Some will accept beta males like you, however.; 9/22/22, 11:24 AM
ALP said...: My version of "doom scrolling" is to visit Reddit's r/twoxchromosomes. Posts similar to this are legion in which a man has a short encounter with a woman in public and it is perceived in the worst possible way. There are women that probably wouldn't leave the house for a week after an encounter like this.; 9/22/22, 11:50 AM
Howard said...: That makes perfect sense, Kate. My theory on the sexes is men are more emotional and women are more practical, contrary to the standard male model of masculinity.; 9/22/22, 12:39 PM
Rabel said...: Haven't you guys yet learned to just let it go when the girls say stupid stuff.

They can't help it. It's their nature.; 9/22/22, 1:01 PM
Vance said...: Kari Byron is pretty frank about the fact she came to Mythbusters mostly to get a job in Jamie's shop, doing special effects. She just happened to apply the day or two before Mythbusters started as an entertainment program, and she, frankly, was cute. I think she said her first day on the job is when they needed to cast her derriere for a 'Will your butt stick to the airplane toilet seat myth?"

She has a lot of artistic / modeling skill.

Any science chops she actually has she learned on the show as they grew progressively more insistent on actual scientific style testing. Which, to be fair, means she's the epitome of a lab rat who didn't do so well in the actual classes but rocked the lab part of science.

Going back and watching some of those early shows it is clear they could never be made today. Way, way too many sly jokes about Kari's bust were slipped in. Most of which she enthusiastically participated in. (Flashing a fainting goat to make it faint and "accidentally flashing her co-worker, making him faint? Yeah...)

She may not be a supermodel, but in the world of geekdom, she was a rock star. Why not play that up?; 9/22/22, 1:15 PM
cf said...: hmmm, not one but two paranoid, fussy-butt women hallucinating trouble because of awful, clueless MEN in Althouse's collection today.

This one and the scientist.

They both found a little pea under their pile of many mattresses, i bet they find one every time they try to rest their head. Those men!

I'm awful tired of my fellow women these days.; 9/22/22, 1:22 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: "My theory on the sexes is men are more emotional and women are more practical..."

Howard is definitely more emotional. Snopes rated this comment mostly true!; 9/22/22, 1:58 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: In the Firefly / Serenity universe, the woman who attracted the most male attention, and enjoyed it, was Kaley. The mechanic. Struck me as one of the more realistic bits. (Inara doesn't count, she was a paid professional.)
That was Kari's attraction, too.; 9/22/22, 3:12 PM
JaimeRoberto said...: Maybe she's been in San Francisco for too long. I'll try to forget this little episode, because she was awfully hot in Mythbusters, and I don't want to think ill of her.; 9/22/22, 3:26 PM
donnybrook said...: When demand for mansplaining/male toxicity far exceeds supply.; 9/22/22, 5:51 PM
Job said...: The other day a stranger struck up a conversation with me about the hockey team featured on my tee shirt.

I politely and jovially told him that I know very little about hockey and I don't follow the local team. (Sorry, not sorry.)

The stranger seemed a bit embarrassed to have asked me. I regretted embarrassing him but I'm not a good liar.

I wouldn't think of blowing this interaction up into a grievance about my sex or appearance or age or whatever. When did taking offense become a virtue?; 9/22/22, 6:07 PM
Bandit said...: Sorry - who is she?; 9/22/22, 6:31 PM
technogypsy said...: Not commonly in coveralls?

When was that? In my college days, and I'm the hostess's age or older, it was the preferred dress style it seemed at the large liberal uni I did my degree at. Of course, most of them wore nothing under said coveralls.; 9/22/22, 6:42 PM
Howard said...: Exactly Space Mountain. You know what it's like on a serious full pads football team. You really need to get your Irish up to dominate. Especially if you are down a couple scores at halftime with Coach whipping the boys into a frenzy. I even had one coach borrow a helmet and forced everyone to crack him helmet to helmet to get us fired up for the Samoans from Carson.; 9/22/22, 6:57 PM
RNB said...: That Atwood quote: Of homicide victims killed in the U.S. every year, four out of five are men. Men are also more likely to be killed by strangers than women. Nonetheless, Ms. Atwood believes what she believes.; 9/22/22, 7:06 PM
swassociates said...: The barista that made my coffee this morning was wearing coveralls. I guess she's a mechanic.; 9/22/22, 7:54 PM
TMLutas said...: She's a recently divorced mother of one. She's apparently the one who filed for divorce from her husband, Paul Ulrich.; 9/22/22, 11:11 PM
Impudent Warwick said...: “When did taking offense become a virtue?”

Sometime in the 90s, when it became politically profitable instead of a sign of fragility. Not coincidentally, around the time the internet was really taking off.

The movie “PCU” covers it nicely.; 9/23/22, 1:20 AM
Mitch Berg said...: I can't find the Scott Adams quote from "The Dilbert Principle", but it was something along the lines of there's nothing more attractive than a female engineer.

To guys.

#shrug; 9/23/22, 8:19 AM
BonafideView said...: Jessi Combs, who filled in on Mythbusters for Kari Byron's maternity leave, was the real deal. She was both a television personality and metal fabricator who also achieved the female land speed record.; 9/26/22, 10:40 PM