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?

Mine too 😂

Come on, he’s not wrong though is he? 😉

I have hobby that is heavily male dominated and very competitive. Beat this guy and he proceeded to tell me why everything I did was wrong and that I shouldnt have won. He does this every single time anyone beats him though so not sure it counts. He is a self proclaimed expert in this hobby, despite not actually doing very well at it! If he spent more time listening and less time giving others his expert advice, he would improve no end!

Editted to remove my own womansplaining of mansplaining lol!!

Ove that.

And @tolerable - fabulous 👌

I'd just reached the end of a 85 mile cycle path. A man just setting off in the opposite direction mansplained the route to me.

Thought of another one: I did my Masters with a lot of mature students. Next to me was a woman who had a PhD in a different subject, plus 35 years' experience working in the field. She was doing the Masters as a retirement project. A 22 year old man who had come straight from undergraduate study decided to launch into a long explanation of something which happens to be exactly within her sphere of expertise, to the whole seminar group, completely uninvited, while we were waiting for the tutor to arrive. Of course, he was utterly sure of himself. She let him jog on with it for a few minutes (was generally a very chill person), but when he eventually paused for breath (and looked around as if expecting adulation and applause), she gently and politely pointed out his factual error. He just doubled down and insisted it was a matter of opinion, there were different ways of looking at it, she should open her mind to seeing things his way.

Like a PP I have sometimes used "Well thank you Captain Obvious" before. I think it works really well because it says quite clearly that a) you already knew what he just told you and b) that you think he is a tiresome wanker.......but mainly b)

That’s beautiful.
Young male colleague from a notoriously chauvinistic culture (would literally talk over women at any opportunity) explaining in great detail the process of getting a drivers license. To a younger than him colleague who has just passed her test.
He left to manage a women’s sports team; I had to rewrite the Bosses valedictory speech to remove any references to how well suited he was to the new role.

I bet he was in heaven 😂

Im afraid I'm not as subtle. "Do you think I'm totally fucking stupid?" is my usual response to DH's "helpful" suggestions. 🙄

Oh I have used that too! But it rather depends on the situation and I like the dry sarcasm of the Captain Obvious one, sarcasm being my communication method of choice!

Dh once took a covid test out of my hand and said he knew how to read it. I told him that I had many more opportunities over the years to read tests with little coloured lines on.

Stunningly arrogant male doctor telling me, 8 hours post-op, that a c-section isn't that painful. Also saying codeine doesn't cause constipation and he'd never heard of it. I said please tell me you're a new student and this is your first time ever on a post-natal maternity ward. Tosser.

Used to volunteer for a charity that was supported by Martin Lewis. A few of us were talking about ML when a young bloke helpfully told us middle aged women that Martin Lewis was not purely a philanthropist but also a TV personality and business man 😒. Like we were born yesterday and idiots.

This is me! I'm a man. Ask away and I shall explain it to you........

Oh, @MargaretThursday — not the point of the thread, I know, but I’m in awe of anyone who understands imaginary numbers! As far as I’m concerned, they’re the work of the devil…

A long time ago now (and not strictly mansplaining, I know — but a supreme example of male arrogance nonetheless), my mum was in hospital, and the male consultant asked her how many children she’d had. He listened to her answer, checked her notes — then told her she was wrong because the notes said something different to the answer she’d given… My mum, bless her, gave him short shrift.

Brilliant!

I think what bugs me about mansplaining is how they dont fucking listen. If they did then they wouldnt act like such assholes. Like the ones directing a PP to read a set text on a subject, when she wrote said text. I know someone that happened to. Was actually my father so not strictly speaking the same, but he wrote a very well known set of guidelines in his specialism. Its been updated obviously in recent years, but his name is well known in his field as the orignator. Some bloke old enough to know better tried to tell him that he was wrong on a particular subject and that he would "do well to read X by YZ, he is the industry expert." and my father said "Well that proves you havent listened to a word anyone said, because I was introduced to you earlier.....my name YZ". Apparently bloke didnt say another word during the whole meeting and actively avoided my father after that!

My father in law came to visit my grandmother’s house in a foreign country. Rather than following my very simple directions to the house, he decided he knew better and drove for 30 mins halfway up a dirt track up a mountain before admitting I might actually know better than him the route to the house I’d be visiting for 40 plus years.
He’s now my ex fil as my ex husband was also a twat.

@BetterWithPockets
Imaginary numbers are just a concept made up to allow you to solve certain problems. Using them means you can arrive logically at a solution to (often) maths modelling questions.
So they're a useful tool rather than understandable, if that makes sense.

My DP does this a bit but he's lovely in all other ways and has actually copped on and is trying to stop. In general, he will almost always, without fail, suggest an alternative to my plan, even if it doesn't actually involve him in any way. Eg I'm injured so will avoid the gym on x and y day. He'll say, "go on X day but do this instead of that". Specific examples are telling me what one if my favourite books that I have read and taught multiple times is really about, despite having never read it and when he monologued about how I should mark an A level essay that didn't really fit the mark scheme but was interesting and well written. I've been teaching for two decades. He's in IT.

I'd gone away with a group of friends to the Northumberland coast to celebrate a 50th birthday. Lovely weather, lots of sea swimming. A little party of blokes who I didn't know (the birthday girl did) joined us on the second day. We were all in the seas one day, and this chap says to me "if you look at the waves carefully, you can see how every third one breaks before it get the the shore". My reply "It's called depth limited wave morphology, I wrote a paper for JONSWAP about it", "JONSWAP?" he said. "Joint North Sea Wave Analysis Project. I spoke at one of their conferences when I was doing my PhD.".

Male gynecologist at an appointment pre endo diagnosis. When I explained that I experienced severe crippling pain during ovulation, he stopped me abruptly and asked how I could possibly know I was ovulating. I explained that it happened the same time every month with heavy discharge and he went on to say that still didn't mean it was definitely ovulation and I couldn't possibly know for certain that it was.

Dick.

Thank you. (I think what you just did there might be the complete opposite of mansplaining, actually: someone who knows what they’re talking about trying to convey that information to someone who has already attested to their lack of knowledge in said area, but doing it in such a way so as to not make them feel stupid…)

my FiL was a lovely bloke and I don't like to dis him but this still wrangles.

for some reason we were talking about electrical cords, you know like you have on a hoover. I happened to mention that my mom never liked to wind them too tightly, basically in case the wrapping on the cord broke and the electrical wire became exposed and subjected one to an electrical shock. FiL just laughed and said "well some women don't really understand electricity."

Frankly I was shocked (no pun) that he would be so dismissive of another person's concern. Also that given that they were both a similar age they would have seen how things changed with appliances over the years and safety on them would also have improved. Even at my age I remember old electrical stuff having stiff plastic coverings on the cords that had multiple splits and would spit little shocks out when turned on. Highly dangerous.