Mansplaining

[Featherstickers]

Is it a thing? Or another media cliché?

I believe Dh is a huuuuuge mansplainer and I find it frustrating infuriating at times.

AIBU to ask if it's a real thing and how to cope with it to protect my sanity.

Yes it is a real thing. And of course some men are boorish.

Have you pointed out to him what he does and how annoying it is?

If it is happening to you why do you need to ask if it is real. Are your feelings only valid if it has happened to another woman? No. Your husband is patronising you. Tell him to stop.

He may not realise he is doing it due to the socialising effects of the patriarchy. But he's not gonna stop until you tell him.

Imo using a term like mansplaining will only put his back up. But telling him when he does something you don't like may yield better results

Sadly yes its real.

Just tell him hes doing it. Everytime he starts just point out your doing it again. Ge will soon get fed jp just like you have

"Have you pointed out to him what he does and how annoying it is?"

Yes many times, I believe he can't help it. He isn't patronising when he manslains more like going into vast detail, and branching out giving me the whole freaking 360 picture, when a simple answer would suffice.

My oh explains everything to me. We can still get a frost this time of year. When the clocks go back it will be darker, etc., it's such a boring way to communicate because rather than taking part equally in a conversation about say, how one feels about time change, I feel I have to defend my knowledge base for these simple things!

Yes, my usually awesome DH does this. I usually reply with "the sky is blue" or "Trump is an idiot" and when he looks at me weirdly, say "oh, I thought we were having a state-the-obvious competition."

It was a term coined by the media off the back of this brilliant essay by Rebecca Solnit www.guernicamag.com/rebecca-solnit-men-explain-things-to-me/

Definitely a real thing. My brother tries to do it to me all the time to assert his 'superiority' (he's younger than me). Once i sent a picture on a family chat of coffee machine pouring coffee into a new cup (it was a Christmas present from the family so i wanted to show them how much I liked it) and i asked a question about the pods. To clarify, the picture showed coffee POURING from the machine into a glass mug. My brother replies with: 'to turn the Machine on you need to press the button at the side'...

If it isn't patronising I would call that simple verbal diarrhoea rather than mansplaining.

I have a new (to me) car and was telling my fiancé excitedly that I have reached dizzy heights of having a tyre pressure indicator as it had come on. My point was "get me and my posh car!"

He started to tell me about checking tyre pressure.

I burst out laughing and and reminded him I'd been driving for 20 years before we met.

He was suitably embarrassed.

Tbf, he's a hairdresser and when he dried my daughter's hair I started to tell him about the temperature switch. As he said "who bought you this hairdryer?" Womansplaining, guilty!

Sometimes, people are just trying to help and a gentle but firm "fuck off with your patronising" sorts it out.

Consistently though - I wouldn't be attracted to someone like that.

If it isn't patronising then I don't think it is mansplaining. If it is just excess verbosity then that is simply being a bore.

Something I am definitely guilty of at times

I work with someone who is a serious mansplainer. He is the world´s expert on everything and tells you all about it in the voice some people use when talking to a small child. He has stopped doing it to me now after I started interrupting him every time to ask why he was talking to me in that voice.

Arghhh. Yes, my DP explains everything to me in vast detail. It drives me insane. He doesn't to it to patronise, more like he wants to share all of his wonderful knowledge. He thinks everyone wants to know about things in great detail like he does. I really, really don't and I tell him to shut up when he starts .

I'll also say to him 'I'm going to ask you a question now. A Yes or No will do'.

Mansplaining is quite specifically done to put women in their place. If the verbosity is directed at anyone who will listen that is not it.

It's only "mansplaining" if he's doing it because you couldn't possibly know because you're a woman.

Otherwise he's just a boring fucker a little dull.

Although "Mansplaining" is a thing and men are the main culprits, I do know one woman who does it.

Mansplaining is definitely is patronising and about establishing yourself as the superior, knowledgable one talking down to an inferior.

As others say if it isn't patronising or lecturing its just wittering on / verbal diarrhoea / being a bore, and that isn't mansplaining and is something some individuals of both sexes tend to do (I do it too especially if I haven't spoken much in English that day )

Mansplaining is quite specifically done to put women in their place

Is it though? I would guess that mansplainers don't realise they are specifically targeting women but are just boorish products of a socialisation that has told them they know important stuff and that women are eager to learn from them.

And women, being socialised to stroke men's ego lest they "emasculate" them, nod and sound interested even when they'd rather be eating rotten mackerel?!

No definitely not patronising in our case but being talked at rather than talked with. He goes on, and on, and on.......

I do love hime.

Yes it's a thing because we live in a world where men's words are valued more than women's words. We raise boys and girls differently, we view men and women differently. In a world run by white males how could it not be a thing.

I get things mansplained to me, often the point I've just made.

It's more like not realising that when he fills me in on tedious background and context, that I WAS THERE TOO, we talked about it, it's obviously shared knowledge and history between us recent or ancient, no need to fill me in (sorry for shouting). I guess it's the disconnect that annoys me.

I would guess that mansplainers don't realise they are specifically targeting women but are just boorish products of a socialisation that has told them they know important stuff and that women are eager to learn from them.

That's possibly true, but if they aren't patriarchal twats they realise this and just have normal conversations....

" 'to turn the Machine on you need to press the button at the side'..."

OMG!-doesn't he think that he's funny?

" If it is just excess verbosity then that is simply being a bore."

Oh dear, I think that that may be me

It's not specific to men so shouldn't have 'man' in the title. It might be more prevalent in men but it's absolutely a retrograde step to start defining specific things specific sexes do and another step back toward the 1950s. It makes me cringe when I hear anyone mention 'mansplaining' as if it is a real phenomenon.

I like this explanation www.gurl.com/2015/10/28/what-is-mainsplaining-feminism-sexism-memes/

The term came about after an essay by Rebecca Solnit when a man lectured her on the topic of her own book, after she had told him she was the author. Which he ignored. Until somebody else said "she's the author of the Muybridge book". Although he ignored her too, at first.

As a guide, ask if they would say the same thing to a man. If the answer is no, because they would assume a man would know, they're mansplaining. If the answer is yes, because they can bore for Britain, they're just dull.

Another thing the mansplainer I work with used to do was if there was a discussion involving other people and I made a point, he would then say "I think what sonja REALLY wants to say is ...." and then tell them whatever he wanted.