Republican Mansplains That Men Are Better Thinkers Because Man Brains

By Erin Gloria Ryan | June 13, 2013 | 4:30pm

Latest

Boobs, brews, bros, boats, balls, Borat, baldness, and breadwinning. Now that I’ve weeded out all the ladyreaders with that completely testosterone-soaked sentence of man related B words, I’m going to share an important man fact with all the dudes out there: your brains are better than lady brains. Says who? Says Maine’s Republican House Minority Leader/brain expert Ken Fredette, during a debate on the House floor on Wednesday. Bonus: he supported his argument using a widely-derided book from 21 years ago. Too bad Fredette’s manbrain didn’t understand how video cameras or the internet work. Or, uh, public record, for that matter.

Fredette’s heroic application of gender essentialism came in the context of a discussion of — you guessed it (actually, you probably you didn’t) — application of Obamacare’s federal funding for the Medicaid expansion at the state level. I’d explain it, but it would be easier for me to just step aside before my yogurt addled chickbrain ovulates all over Ken Fredette’s turgid, rock-hard logic and let a man explain. Fredette’s floor soliloquy, per ThinkProgress,

Most Popular

As I listen to the debate today and earlier debate on this bill, I can’t help but think of a title of a book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. And it’s a book about the fact that men sort of think one way in their own brain, in their own world. And women think another way in their own brain and in their own world. And it really talks about the way that men and women can do a better job at communicating. Because if you listen to the debate today, in my mind — a man’s mind — I hear two fundamental issues. From the other side of the aisle, I hear the conversation being about: free. ‘This is free, we need to take it, and it’s free. And we need to do it now.’ And that’s the fundamental message that my brain receives. Now, my brain, being a man’s brain, sort of thinks differently, because I say, well, it’s not — if it’s free, is it really free? Because I say, in my brain, there’s a cost to this.

Woo! Ladies be shopping with they maxed out credit cards!

Absurdity of comparing being in favor of expanding fucking health careto being a silly girl who doesn’t understand money aside, we should all be grateful for men like Ken Fredette. If it wasn’t for dudes telling me all about the negative ways women think and behave, I’d have no idea how to be a woman at all. Let me add “loves free shit and doesn’t understand cost” to the list of shitty woman things I’m supposed to embody, right after “trying to guilt trip hapless guy into putting ring on finger,” “bAbY fEvEr!,” and “catfights, catfights, catfights.”

And in case you heard of the book Fredette referenced, — Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus — it was a smash hit in the early 1990’s and is currently encrusted with mildew in a forgotten corner of your parents’ basement.

[ThinkProgress]