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Original poster

Mansplaining

19 replies

Bluechinavase · 26/03/2022 08:45

Kinda lighthearted but nonetheless I’ve experienced more mansplaining in the last week than I’ve experienced in the last year. From my DH, colleagues, male yoofs, brother, Dads at school gate …..WTF is going on? Previously I’ve always enjoyed more equal conversations with males, but they now seem to talk over me or mansplain. I choose my moment, then when they realise they are doing it, they just get worse. You can see the cogs in their brain turning over and the dawn of realisation that I actually know stuff but instead of acknowledging that, they just try to find something else that they think they’ll be better at thus can mansplain more. Is it my age? Am I turning into a grumpy old woman. The yoofs were particularly bad which made me a wee bit sad as I thought their more modern upbringing would have had a more equalising effect.

OP posts:

LabelMaker · 26/03/2022 09:03

There's a new guy at work who is mansplaining my own job to me. I've been doing it nearly 10 years. I just don't know how to deal with it? Do I call it our to him somehow?

ChiselandBits · 26/03/2022 10:11

Ugh. Dp did this yesterday. I was talking about a famous academic who is an expert in my academic field. Dp hadn't even heard of him but decided to tell me that when this person had said X he really mean Y and just hadn't chosen his words carefully. No, he meant X. Its an unpopular, outdated view but this person does hold it. Not sure why dp thought he could comment on what this person really thinks when he hadn't even heard his name before let alone know his work and view. 🙄

Original poster

Bluechinavase · 26/03/2022 10:16

@LabelMaker that must be infuriating for you. I’m intrigued as to why they think the way they do. If it were me I’d eventually say something along the lines of ‘are you explaining my own job to me when you’ve just started and I’ve been here ten years’. That way you’re not actually accusing him of mansplaining but giving him the opportunity to respond.

OP posts:

Yellowleadbetter · 26/03/2022 10:20

I struggle with this.
I struggle with my facial expressions and struggle with not saying something to stop them in their tracks right there.

I recently had a colleague explaining to me what I should say to another colleague about a situation.. he literally explained to me exactly what I should say in the conversation.
I never bloody asked his fucking opinion on it.

I think he could see by my face and got the message loud and clear when I told him that I know what to say and don’t need instructions on how to have a conversation.

My face must have said “FUCK OFF DICKFACE” because he kind of slowed mid flow…

beeswain · 26/03/2022 10:25

My dh does this sometimes offering his invaluable explanations around something that is a key skill/piece of knowledge of my profession which by the way I have been in for 40 years.
I have lost patience and now I cut him off as soon as it starts with, 'no don't argue, I'm a (insert profession). He is learning

SliceOfCakeCupOfTea · 26/03/2022 10:28

@Yellowleadbetter

I struggle with this. I struggle with my facial expressions and struggle with not saying something to stop them in their tracks right there.

I think he could see by my face and got the message loud and clear when I told him that I know what to say and don’t need instructions on how to have a conversation.

My face must have said “FUCK OFF DICKFACE” because he kind of slowed mid flow…

My dad does this all the time. He practically writes me a script for virtually any conversation he thinks I should have.

Door broke a few weeks ago and rang him to see if he can mend it. He couldn't but told me in detail what I should say to joiners on the phone....which was exactly what I had said to him earlier that day...

HollowTalk · 26/03/2022 10:32

@LabelMaker

There's a new guy at work who is mansplaining my own job to me. I've been doing it nearly 10 years. I just don't know how to deal with it? Do I call it our to him somehow?

This is unbelievable! I think I would say to him to remember 2012, and what you are doing? When he's gone into along monologue about what he was doing in 2012, just say well in 2012 I started this job. I was in your position back then, 10 years ago. I've done this job every working day since then. Please don't tell me how to do my job.

gamerchick · 26/03/2022 10:36

I think the older we get and those hormones that make us want to have babies ebb away we look at men in a different light. We notice this shit more, but it's always been there.

Original poster

Bluechinavase · 26/03/2022 11:13

It’s the audacity of them that I find so curious. Never at any stage of my life would I have thought to contradict someone with obvious knowledge and experience about something. I’d want to learn from them not belittle them.

OP posts:

Oldraver · 26/03/2022 11:13

I had someone mansplain how to dismantle a cardboard box..yes he talked me through a demonstration of the dismantling process ie cut though the sellotape holding it in place and flattening it. Of course my last four and a half years practise meant nothing

I did say..."ooh are you volunteering to do them all"..

Gilead · 26/03/2022 13:21

I had a student mansplaining to me in a Le once. Telling me the question we were discussing was psychological not physiological. My brain scan as in literally a scan of my brain, next to a scan of a colleague’s brain, clearly marking the differences, was on the board at the time. He wondered why he failed that module!

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 26/03/2022 13:33

@Yellowleadbetter

I struggle with this. I struggle with my facial expressions and struggle with not saying something to stop them in their tracks right there.

I think he could see by my face and got the message loud and clear when I told him that I know what to say and don’t need instructions on how to have a conversation.

My face must have said “FUCK OFF DICKFACE” because he kind of slowed mid flow…

Why struggle? Why not let your face - or your words - tell the mansplainers exactly where to get off?

Justanotherobserver · 26/03/2022 13:41

A friend of mine started doing this some years ago. I once off-offhandedly told him in an email that I prefer moussaka to lasagne, as I had cooked moussaka the night before. He wrote back explaining the differences between the two dishes in fine detail and then told me that moussaka MUST be eaten with a green salad I was in my mid-50s at the time and we had been in a house share in the 80s where we did all the cooking.

Another time he told me in great detail how to make dal, something he knew very well I'd been cooking for about 40 years. I held my hands up and shouted 'I fucking know this, you divot!' and he stopped, thank goodness.

Freshprincess · 26/03/2022 13:46

There’s a 20 something at work, who does this to me. He sits with Google open reading an explanation out to me. Also likes to suggest things that I’ve already suggested to him.

Mate, I’ve been doing this since before you were born. Pipe down.

dudsville · 26/03/2022 14:07

It's annoying, and it's worth thinking up some ready made responses so you're ready next time, but I also keep in mind they do this to each other, and that helps me. My OH is a kind and thoughtful man, as are all his friends. When they get together 99% of their "conversation" is telling each other facts as if they're the authority on whatever topic. My OH spins out a bit if I know something he doesn't about what he thinks is his own specialist area of knowledge (I.e. the news!). And it never seems to develop into a "thinking together" dialogue as the other men pitch in with more facts they know. We aren't skilled in this style of interaction, thankfully, and we're taught to be nice, so it feels like a patronising barrage. I've learned from watching my OH and his friends, I can tease them about it or I can participate back with fun facts of my own or I can help them understand how to have a different style of dialogue, depending on what they're telling me they know so much about. I wonder if this is generational and when it starts. When my OH does it I've said "I'm not looking for an explanation, or I'm not baffled by it, I was just being curious, it's interesting to think about", and he's acclimatising.

PollyPutTheKettleOnKettleOn · 26/03/2022 14:11

My face must have said “FUCK OFF DICKFACE” because he kind of slowed mid flow…
🤣🤣

LabelMaker · 26/03/2022 14:36

@PollyPutTheKettleOnKettleOn

My face must have said “FUCK OFF DICKFACE” because he kind of slowed mid flow… 🤣🤣

I need to practise this face

Original poster

Bluechinavase · 26/03/2022 14:37

Maybe "why do you feel the need to explain something I clearly know" would work. Then if the response is "But I was just trying to be helpful" retort with "but if I clearly know something why would I need help".

Grrrrr.

OP posts:

PastMyBestBeforeDate · 26/03/2022 14:51

DH spent quite a long time insisting that a term used by an insurance company didn't mean what I thought it did. I used to work for the company.

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