Mansplaining is a hilarious concept that's been making me laugh ever since I found this blog
mansplained.tumblr.com/
The poster who said "it's when a man explains the stunningly absolutely fucking obvious to you. On account of how he is a man so he needs to give a longwinded patronising explanation. You as the little woman obvs are too thick/too insensitive/whatever to actually to understand the issue" got it spot on!"
It can be hard to distinguish mansplaining from men who just like explaining things to people but I think when the explanation is staggeringly patronising and you realise there's really not another explanation for the man assuming you're completely thick other than the fact you're a little woman. Usually mansplainers are serial offenders and always to women which makes it easier to identify. It's just the tendency among a minority of men to assume women, particularly young women, are thick and incompetent...helped along by many men's love of explaiing things to women. Thankfully mansplaning is confined to an unfortunate minority of men.
When you read about it you realise just how often it happens! Last month a repairman at work tried to tell me how to turn a freezer on- as in, he actually said he'd come back and turn it on for me in a minute, I thought I'd misunderstood, but no, he actually came and showed me how to turn a plug on at a wall. Does that sort of thing happen to men, does it fuck.
Last week chatting about the next day's walk in a country park my mother's partner felt the need to tell me I should make sure to wear trainers or hiking boots in the countryside and also maybe a cagoule. Thanks.
A colleague in my biochemistry lab with whom I'd worked for years felt the need to explain to me what a compound was..which is like explaining to another lawyer what litigation is.
I find this concept explains alot. Yes, explaining dilution was a favourite from the mainsplained tumblr.