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?

I have just clicked the link to order this excellent looking book and the first review is written by a man earnestly explaining what an important work this is. QED.

Had a plumber round and he asked where the stop tap was located. I explained that it’s in the garage and he didn’t believe me - “they’re never in the garage, and are always under the sink” and set about emptying the cupboard under the sink.

Has to fake a call to DH and say “DH has confirmed it’s located in the garage” before he would believe me 🙃

A good few years ago in our 20’s, we had a few couple friends that all hung out together, we were always doing stupid things and thought we were hilarious, it was a fun time tbf. One particular fun night where we had hours of banter and messing around, I said to one of the men in the group, ‘oh we’re just one big dysfunctional family.’ He then proceeded to explain what dysfunctional family really meant, ignoring my sarcasm and taking it as me not knowing what it meant.

Years ago, I wrote to an old friend about moussaka - we'd been emailing about food - saying I preferred it to lasagne and he wrote back detailing the precise differences between the dishes as if, at the age of 50 and having learned to cook at the age of 8, I might not know. He then gave the stern instruction that 'It MUST be eaten with a crisp green salad!'. Bizarre. He didn't improve afterwards either.

A couple of decades ago I was in Malaysia with my Malaysian DH. At a family gathering one of his uncles was telling me that they don't have peanut allergies in Malaysia and the reason for that is that they give children products containing peanut oil at an early age. The allergy problem in the West was entirely down to the decadence and lax moral habits of western society. He went on and on about how awful the west was and how we were the cause of our own issues and should be more like Malaysia.

Eventually I just got bored and said that the infant mortality rate in Malaysia was multiple times higher than Europe so perhaps all the allergic children were dying the first time they had peanut products. He went "humph" and went to talk to someone else. In Malaysia you are supposed to, if not agree with your elders, at least nod and smile and not disagree.

I just made it up on the spur of the moment, I did check later and Malaysia did have a much higher infant mortality but there was absolutely no information about peanut allergy.

Well, you sound absolutely fucking awesome. Would love to be a fly on the wall in those meetings.

Love this. I once had a senior stakeholder tell me I was wrong about a specific piece of legislation. He suggested I speak to the policy lead in the Government Department responsible this area. He was taken aback when I replied 'Yes, that would be me'.

I once went to the doctor with stomach pains that had not gone away over several weeks and were getting worse. It was so bad I could barely sleep. As it is very unusual for me to ever have stomach/digestive problems, I asked if it could be an infection ? He flat out dismissed an infection and told me to take antacids. As I wanted to at least try his suggestion, I did so and it made no difference. I was back and forth to several different doctors (male and female) over the next 18 months, all dismissing the idea of an infection. One (male) doctor tried explaining to me that he noticed on my notes that I was vegan and, 'all that fruit and veg must be very acidic on your stomach and therefore that must be the cause'. I was dumbfounded, as everything I had read indicated that plants are alkaline and not at all irritating to the stomach. I couldn't be bothered to reply.
Finally I managed to see another (wiser) doctor (male) who agreed to test for an infection and also sent me for a gastroscopy to put a camera down into my stomach. Guess what ? I was told at the gastroscopy appointment that I had severe inflammation. Caused by...an infection !! I was right ! Two weeks on antibiotics and my poor stomach was back to normal.
P.s. I still eat plants and my stomach is fine.
P.s. 2 if I ever get those problems again I will do a home test (for h-pylori) that is cheap and easily available online before setting foot in the GP practice.

DH has started doing this of late. I tend to give him the dead eye and say 'Thanks for that, Captain Obvious'. It shuts him up.

Guy l work with asked me to do something for him - he didn't have time and l was happy to help. Until l actually did it and he mansplained how l was doing it wrong. So l stopped and let him crack on and do it himself as l should have done in the first place!

He had completely misunderstood the article but the confidence with which he lectured me and told me I was wrong was astounding

^

It's this. The confidence

My favourite meme on the subject...

These all just make me want to…

22 year old male colleague explained the menopause to me, a 56 year old menopausal woman. He was an expert due to looking it up on the Internet for his mum!

😂

Worked with a colleague on a new piece of work involving a different type of report. He tried to explain to me we should reference another highly regarded report recently made within the department.

You guess it right. I wrote that report.

A builder told me in a phone call that I couldn't be smelling gas as they had removed an old gas heater and capped off the pipe. He said I should wait for my husband to get home.

I got somewhat bolshy after that!

😂

@CheeseDreamz

I definitely want to read this! Thank you.

I think we might be in the same FB group.

My favourite time was on an internet forum where there was a discussion which someone mentioned imaginary numbers , and I made a comment that my ds had said he was doing "invisible numbers".
I got thoroughly explained exactly what imaginary numbers were and how useful they were.
I have a maths degree.
I responded with cheerful agreement about imaginary numbers with reference to Navier-Stokes equations and various other things I can waffle about sounding reasonably impressive and a certain amount of knowledge. He almost apologised. 🤣

More recently in our local FB someone posted a panic about the unusual "chem trails" in the sky and how they couldn't possibly be normal (they were).
I posted about the terrible dihydrogen monoxide which is fatal in large amounts and piped into people's homes with the government's approval. The first few responses were laughing faces.
Then someone took it upon themselves to explain what it really was and I should not worry about conspiracy websites. I toyed with various sarcastic responses, and eventually, as the thread was kicking off enough, just stated "I was joking". He did apologise both on the thread and by pm.

A young, male, colleague of mine had to drive through an inch-deep puddle in the road on his way to work this morning. He then proceeded to mansplain to me at great length about what causes flooded roads, ie: it's been raining a lot and the local river has burst its banks.

No shit, Sherlock.

I was at a post project go live party where two engineers were discussing the project.One engineer turned to me and mansplained the project to me.

I said yes I know, I was the project lead for 19 sites for said project.

The other engineer turned to him and said "she is my boss"
Sadly I do believe that because I was only one of a handful of women in the room he thought I was administrative staff

One of my male friends helpfully mansplained to me that cars require a yearly MOT. I had no idea! Because I’m female I obviously have no clue about car ownership.

He quickly STFU when I helpfully reminded him that I had passed my test on the first go whilst he took 3 attempts. 🤣

Small example but my BIL told me I should use a wide hair straightener rather than a narrow one. I had a fringe at the time and so the narrow one was appropriate for the fringe. I know this from years of hair straightening. Are you imagining a short- haired man who never before or since used a hair straightener? You are correct.
He laughed at me when I explained why the narrow one worked best for me. Why did I bother?