“Is Condi Rice Mansplaining the #MeToo Movement by Saying Women Shouldn’t Turn Into ‘Snowflakes’?”
That’s the headline for a weekend story by The Root, a U.S. online magazine that features “black news, opinions, politics and culture.”
“In words one might not expect coming from the woman who used to be provost at a major university (but then again, she gets it there, too), former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seemingly mansplained the #MeToo movement,” said the lead of the article, written by Angela Helm.
Now, we’re not sure if we need to point this out (and we think someone named “Angela” might have realized it), but Rice is a woman. So she can’t really “mansplain,” since mansplaining is defined as when a man explains something to a woman “in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner,” says dictionary.com.
The former Secretary of State on Saturday had harsh words for the #MeToo movement. She urged Americans to use caution when accusing men of sexual impropriety, and not to use the movement as an excuse to further marginalize women.
Speaking to Obama White House advisor David Axelrod in a CNN interview, Rice petitioned women not to become too thin-skinned over male behavior. “Let’s not turn women into snowflakes. Let’s not infantilize women,” she said.
Asked if she has ever experienced harassment, she said, “I’ve certainly had people suggest that maybe we should just go out — and you know — and situations in which it was somebody more senior than I.”
“I’ve never had anyone do anything that I would consider assault. But I don’t know a woman alive who hasn’t had somebody say or do something that was inappropriate at best and aggressive at worst,” she added.
But Rice also warned that the #MeToo movement could have unintended consequences, including forcing men to rethink having female colleagues. She said she did not want men “to get to a place that [they] start to think, ‘Well, maybe it’s just better not to have women around.’ I’ve heard a little bit of that. And it, it worries me.”
That upset The Root — not only because Rice is a conservative, having served under George W. Bush, but that she has the audacity to address women.
“Instead of justifiably placing the blame where it lay, Rice said women might want to pipe down about all this sexual harassment stuff, just in case the boys got tired of dealing with their complaints,” The Root wrote.
So predictable.