Come & share your mansplaining stories here!

[TheStroppyFeminist]

Yesterday a male colleague told me that adding an extra column to my document would make it better.

a) It didn't and b) I've been hiring people since way before he was born so he can FTFO

What have you had mansplained to you recently?

DC1 was about 2 so very much at that age people start to question about DC2. DC1 is a summer baby. Random bloke at a dinner party starting telling me I should really prioritise getting pregnant early in the year so that we could have a September/October baby becuase it's so much better for them for schooling etc (they have two). We have mild fertility issues which I don't mind talking about so I explained that due to PCOS and the liklihood of needing fertility treatment again with DC2, we were unlikely to be able to even consider that level of precision. To which he explained to me, at length, that it's really important to pay attention to my dates for conception so I can have a September/October baby. He even talked me through gestation period, and the exact date I needed to make sure baby was born after. He may have said, repeatedly, that I should track my ovulation to make sure it happened (even though I had explained that with PCOS you can't do that).

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at these!

I had a man mansplain to me what an MBA was despite my saying I knew what one was

I commented that I was also studying to which he replied ‘oh childcare?’

I had no idea that if you have a baby the only studying you are allowed to do is about childcare

So just commented ‘nah my PhD’ but I could relate to his masters studying as I’d done 2 of them already literally the only time in my life I’ve felt the need to shove them down someone’s throat!

I was talking about a footballer from my country (non-English speaking) and a male colleague corrected my pronunciation of said name.

In my native language.

Spoken in the country I was born and raised in.

He had never set foot there, nor can he speak a word.

I saw a Jonathan Pie bit on facebook where he interpreted mansplaining as men simply explaining things they happen to understand better than women. Added a comment to say it was actually the opposite, quoting Rebecca Solnit, who coined the phrase. Cue three weeks of vile abuse and instructions to kill myself from men who felt this made me some kind of nazi.

I've had a man insist I was pronouncing my DDs name wrong. It was from my mother's country... he had never visited there, but had enjoyed an alcoholic drink from there!

I write books. I'm reasonably well known for it, sell quite a few, have won awards etc.

I was on Facebook in a group for people writing books, some of whom are just starting out, and I was giving some advice to someone about characterisation in their novel, when a man waded in to tell me how I was wrong and how he handles problems in his writing.

There was a bit of a pause, and then another contributor told him that he might want to check out who it was that he was replying to. He came back to say that he was still right, I was completely wrong and clearly didn't know what I was talking about.

Why yes, he hadn't had anything published, how did you guess?

So many

Men who question my like of football and formula one, just for me to know more than they do.

Men at university who would think i couldn't debate them and then they'd always end up giving in.

One time we had a debate around privatised policing. Do I believe in it? Not at all but I argued for it as that was what I was assigned to.

The guy first argued that the best police would be attracted to the private jobs - I said that the decrease in need for public police resources would mean that they could put more money into it. It would also generate tax etc. (a very flawed argument but he went with it)

He said rich people shouldn't be able to pay for improved security - I said I agreed but that the reality is they do already do this because they can pay for private security companies.

He said something derogatory about rich people.

He then said that if the circumstances in the normal police got better, it would mean the worst police officers would end up in the private services, wasting the money that was paid. I said that was surely what he wanted, no? People wasting money on a bad service.

He got himself into a right muddle, was so smug at first and ended up literally not coming back to uni because he was embarrassed.

I was studying a humanities subject for PhD. As with most subjects, it has some interesting women who have been engaged in it throughout history, but very heavily male dominated.

A man who read the same subject for his undergraduate degree told me I should specialise in the thought of a certain woman. I explained that I was actually studying a particular man. He then suggested another woman (thus nearly exhausting the stock of women he'd heard of in this field). I reiterated that I had already submitted my research proposal, been accepted, and was in fact in my second year of studying the thought of this male writer. He started explaining to me how it was such a shame that more women didn't study the thought of the previous women in this field because they were such amazing and powerful women. And added that he thought the male writer I had chosen would be too difficult.

He thought he was being progressive and woke by bigging up the historical women.

It's maybe not 100% best defined as mansplaining (I've experienced other occasions of definite mansplaining, as have we all!) but it was so sodding frustrating.

[Edited to make it clear that this man had a BA in the subject I was studying at doctorate level, and no other qualifications - he failed teacher training].

where does a mansplainer get his water?.....
..from a "well,actually..."

Oh, this as well. I have had so many men telling me I am misprouncing things in the language of a country I have lived in, speak to near-native proficiency (C1-C2), and have worked as a translator in. They vaguely remember a bit from school or have been to an all-inclusive English-speaking resort there.

My elderly neighbour asked why I'd been poorly and I told him I'd had mastitis. He became very excited to tell me he knew all about mastitis from when he managed dairy cows, and did I know that it was actually a blockage in the milk duct? There followed a 10 minute (bad) explanation of how to resolve it. It was difficult not to laugh

I bought a new build three years ago and within the first few weeks the Verisure alarm salesmen were doing the rounds. I answered the door to a sales guy one afternoon while I was WFH, he gave me his pitch and I said I wasn’t interested in getting an alarm system installed.

He gently informed me that it would probably be better if he came back when the decision-maker was available and when did I expect ‘him’ to be home?

It was clearly going to require too much mansplaining for my little female brain to process and, in the land of Verisure, women don’t deal with such important matters.

It’s my house and my budget. So I gave the sales guy a couple of times when the decision-maker (me) would be home and then ignored the doorbell each time he came back

On my first day at a new job a 22 year old man explained to me in great detail what the term 'perinatal' meant. Me being a 36 year old woman with 2 children. 😲

I actually know this Dr. She is every bit as awesome as all her medals would suggest and the things she has done to save lives under enemy fire deserve more medals than there could be metal for

We had a get-together in the office before a pregnant colleague left on maternity leave for her second child.
My male boss explained to all those assembled that second births were quicker and easier than the first.

This woman.

I bought a new kettle. Got home, plugged it in and all the electrics in the house blew. Did it again and the same happened. Went straight back to the shop and explained the problem. Got told by the man behind the counter that ‘no love, it must be a fault with your electrics, a kettle wouldn’t do that because ………….’ I persisted and he grudgingly agreed to test it. Disappeared out the back to do so and all seemed well. He reappeared with a smug grin on his face and before he could say ‘I told you so’ the shop was plunged into darkness. Shamefaced he gave me my money back.

In a pub in Islington once a guy who had recently graduated as a teacher so ‘knew about language’ corrected me when I used the word ‘urbane’. I politely told him he was mistaken and continued talking, but he wouldn’t accept this gracefully and insisted. Made a real point of it. He said I meant ‘urban’ and that there was no such word as ‘urbane’. He seemed to be a friend of a friend, so I was reluctant to be rude and embarrass our mutual friend in a social setting. Had he been a stranger I would have ripped him a new one. Thing is, I’m a highly experienced book editor with decades of experience - but, of course, it never occurred to him to enquire what I did, as he just assumed he knew better - and I most certainly did mean ‘urbane’ and my usage was entirely correct. I think of him every time I see that word and wonder if he ever learned his mistake in years to come and cringed with embarrassment. Probably not.

My ex attempted to mansplain the meaning of the word reductive after I used it in a sentence.
He failed to see the irony and got stroppy when I laughed

I have worked in a food-related industry for many years. Man I was dating worked in a different industry entirely but decided to mansplain to me (without prompt) the differences in how VAT is applied depending on whether food is hot/cold and eaten in or out. When I said well yeah I know that, it’s what I do for a job he got the raving hump and said “alright Mrs KNOW IT ALL”

A man at work told me that I should read the software manual. I told them that I wrote the fucking manual and was on the software development team and proved it by showing him the credits page.

DH went to a conference recently and waxed lyrical about a new AI trial they presented there . I said - you know I've been working on that project for the last 18 months . He then tried to explain it to me .

Male at work tried explaining something in the staff handbook to me.
I politely informed him that I wrote the staff handbook.
He argued that I hadn't and carried on explaining it to me.

Turns out my male boss had told him that he wrote the staff handbook...

Hilarious!

Once we were having help from a mortgage broker. Who I lost all respect for when he started mansplaining how exchange of house contracts works.

I had multiple years experience in property law.

Even after I explained this, he tried to "break it down more simply" for me.

After that, I made my husband deal with him without me. It was safer for us all. 🙄