There has been a lot of back and forth on this issue over the past week here and in the media. Whether Bernie was directing his comment at Hillary, whether he was using a "stump" speech line, or whether it is just being used for political ploy doesn't matter.
It also doesn't matter what any man says in defense of Bernie. Unfortunately, the numerous men using the non SJW defenses are actually making the matters worse.
There are a few things which need to be addressed here.
Bernie has a problem with demographics. Bernie at one point had edged ahead of Hillary in women voters in some areas and that lead is gone.
Looking at the break down of any of the recent polls you will find numbers such as this (my emphasis is added:
Mrs. Clinton had large advantages over Mr. Sanders among both men (55 percent to 33 percent) and women (73 percent to 16 percent), and had leads among “very liberal” voters (57 percent to 34 percent), “somewhat liberal” voters (68 percent to 22 percent), and moderates (69 percent to 19 percent).
http://www.washingtontimes.com/...
While Bernie and Hillary both have dedicated women in their camp, there are many undecideds. This is the selection Bernie and his supporters should be going after. However, what I have seen from this site and elsewhere would and has been labeled by progressive and radical feminists friends of mine as "Flat out Man-splaining".
For those not aware of the term, it is when a man says something sexist and then uses language which is also at times sexist to explain their position and why they, or their friend, did absolutely nothing wrong.
Examples:
She just misunderstood.
He didn't mean it that way.
He is a really nice guy and would never say anything sexist.
She is just blowing this out of proportion.
She is just being hysterical, playing the victim card, etc.
I would call it out if it were sexist, but it wasn't so you shouldn't be offended.
He/I didn't do anything wrong.
There are many women who watched the actual quote including Hillary's original remark calling out Sanders position on guns, and his response who have then turned around and said
they felt it was a sexist thing to say. It doesn't matter if you think Hillary is making it up. What you are doing by your full fledged defense of the comment is telling these other women who agreed with her that they are mistaken, wrong, hysterical, or are just upset for no darn good reason.
Not to put my head in the lions mouth, but are there times when a women has in the past used false claims of sexism to further their agenda? Absolutely. But if you are a man, you don't get to be that judge.
The end. It doesn't matter if he wasn't trying to be sexist. It doesn't matter if you think it was a ploy. It doesn't matter if you think it was taken out of context. No more so than a white person has the right to tell a POC that comments they thought were racist really were not and "here's why".
Mainsplaining - The act of trying to explain away what a woman felt was offensive.
Bernie has a problem with women and the gulf is increasing. No matter how big or small the divide is, you cannot win a primary if you start to alienate parts of that demographic.
Let it go and everyone can move on. Bernie clarified himself and that was good. But his supporters keeping the entire thing alive by dissing Hillary and defending him by man-splaing has the possibility of blowing up and not in a a good way for Bernie.