To wonder whether mansplaining is, at least sometimes, something that men do to other men as well as to women?

[Carla786]

I've not come across mansplaining much irl but when I have I'm pretty sure it's been for sexist reasons. However, I read this article recently and it made me think.

I think some mansplaining is definitely sexist but could some cases be communication failure due to men sometimes using different ways to bond with each other than women do with their same sex friends? Other cases could be men using it to show dominance, but not necessarily precisely in a sexist way as they may do this with other men too.

YABU - no this generally isn't the case.

YANBU - yes it is, at least sometimes.

Sorry, here's the article I mentioned.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/darwin-does-dating/202307/why-mansplaining-might-not-be-what-you-think-it-is

I have a son, mansplaining starts early, he speaks differently to me than the males in the family. No way would he try and explain the shit he does to me to a man. I think it’s inherently men thinking they know better. Communication styles may come into but I have very, very rarely seen a man mansplain another man.

I definitely think they do mansplain to other men. Throughout my late teens to early 30s, my large social group who I spend all my social time with was 85% men. Dear god they loved the sounds of their own voices. They were always mansplaining to each other. It was quite comical really.

A couple of other pieces also arguing this.

https://www.economist.com/prospero/2014/07/10/johnson-why-men-interrupt?fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fbl%2Fed%2Fwhymeninterrupt

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/the-snowflake-diaries-mansplaining-to-other-men-2

Interesting. Yes, I do think men do do it to exert superiority, and sometimes they do it to other men.

The best one I've experienced, was when sjtting in a bar with DP and another couple, the struggle I've been having with menopause came up. DP has been a star and really tried to support me. He said something along the lines of he's doing his best, but something he doesn't know how to help, and the other man basically told DP (who has taken all his guidance from me) that DP was doing it all wrong. That it's all about accepting loss of libido, which isn't how it's affected me at all. For me it's all about the rages.

That's awful, your son should be respectful. Hopefully this will improve.

Otoh given you can't know exactly how he acts alone with male friends (which is probably when men focus most on status and one-upping), maybe it's possible he does? If I can ask, is your son a teen? It's possible I suppose of course that online stuff could be affecting sexist attitudes.

Yes totally. Obviously there can be a sexist element, but a lot of male-male talk is information-sharing, advice-giving, etc.

As a label for how men talk I think it’s fine. But as a denegration or as a go-to explanation of why (ie because they are talking to a woman) I think is often lazy. Viz:

”Oh God she’s fempathising to me again. Why do women think they can do that? They’d never do that to another woman”

I do think mansplaining men are more likely to assume a woman has no knowledge of a subject though. I once had a man try and explain to me how to train for a sport I've been competing in at a decent level for 20 years, when he was pretty new to it.

It was a reasonable assumption that I was too, as I'd been injured and not at my usual standard at that point, but I don't know why he thought he was qualified to give "expert" advice to anyone.

I also feel like the way mansplaining is often used now could maybe be an example of concept creep.

As in, I think (could be wrong) it originally started out as a descriptor for men patronisingly explaining stuff to women precisely in cases where they knew the woman knew more about it, as a sexist show of dominance. Then it often seemed to morph into a descriptor for a man explaining anything to a woman.

If it is done as a deliberate show of dominance when the man knows the woman knows more, that sounds much more like mansplaining to me. I suppose the key question would be whether he treats both men & women like that or only women.

My husband once described my (AuDHD) excited conversation style as 'a little bit like an 8-year-old boy who has just learned something cool and just has to tell everyone about it.' Almost immediately after he said this, we went on a tour of the Samurai Museum in Tokyo (Honeymoon) where there was a little boy of about 8... Who whenever they asked if people had questions excitedly had to tell the group something he had recently learned about Samurai (rather than a question).

That is to say, yes, I think sometimes people are not the best at social communication. That this tends to be a more male habit (though not solely).

I also think there is very much a concept creep. If I am incredibly knowledgeable in an area, and the audience is aware, then a man patronisingly telling me about my area of expertise (especially when they are confidently wrong) is obvious mansplaining.

My 7-year-old boy wanting to share something he has just learned about rocks (latest school project) without knowing if I know it already - is just someone excitedly sharing info, whilst not having fully developed social communication skills. This can very much apply to adults too.

That definitely sounds like mansplaining if you could reasonably be assumed to know more and he was new to it 🙄

As to why he assumed he was qualified to advise- reminds me of when my DM in her early 50s told me that she'd recently realised for various reasons that her older brother, who she'd always looked up to, spoke authoritatively about various things but wasn't particularly reliable about a lot of them. I think this is probably fairly common : women often second-guess themselves whereas men often speak confidently even when they don't have as much reason to.

I was homeschooled for the first 11 years of my life and a pretty confident child (probably too fussed-over!) and I remember finding it odd when I arrived at my girls' school and smart girls with good ideas would preface them 'it's probably only me' etc I started to feel maybe it was almost rude not to do so. This didn't last long, and improved, but I doubt it's a problem boys' schools would be likely to have, at least widely.

I was actually taught about this in a "women's career" training thing.

Women say "I think" or "it might be" unless they're 100% sure, whereas men will sound confident when they really don't have much of a clue. It's something I've really tried to address but still struggle with as it feels dishonest if I'm not actually sure.

So when woman do it is it womansplaining?

Who raised your son to do this? Im not turning this back to the woman's fault, he has (assumingly) 2 parents, who have influence.

I think men do like the sound of their own voice, and some mansplain to everyone. Some mansplain to women, and some dont.

I often find this helpful

www.bbc.co.uk/worklife/article/20180727-mansplaining-explained-in-one-chart

There’s a difference between mansplaining and monologuing and the two get mixed together sometimes

It's quite beautiful that that article was written by a man 🤣

I disagree anyway, because imo "true" mansplaining is not just men explaining things to women, it has to be specifically either treating the woman differently from how they would treat a man, or explaining something inherently feminine.

I certainly didn’t and I pull him up in it every single time.
His dad decided he was not going to see him anymore when he was very young.

Thanks for blaming me though 🙄

I really hate the term 'mansplaining', but oh yes, male-male it happens all the time. It is not in any way unusual or unexpected

My fil, and to some extent, bil, did this. Whatever dh did, it was like the Harry Enfield character "you don't wanna do it like that, you wanna do it like this. That may have been more to do with him being a know it all twat though. Its a show of dominance.

I am a man and absolutely some men do it to other men. Usually the same bullshit, talk confidently and loudly about a subject they have little knowledge in and ignore or talk over the bloke next to him who's day job is quite literally being an expert in the subject matter being discussed. Yes, we think they are absolute cocks as well.

@Carla786 so what is your aim, to show it doesn't actually exsist (because it's been misnamed)?
There's behaviour in work meetings etc that is only directed and supported by management, from male employees, to women. Things are getting better, payouts have helped, but us women, who are nearing retirement, know how we were treated and don't need to read a bunch of articles, written by men, to tell us we are wrong. Do men tell each other that they shouldn't be commenting on football because they are fat, bald, disabled? No, but they happily tell women, that they shouldn't be, even if thise womenare involved in football. The problem is that a lot of gendered sexist behaviour is subtle and constant, it's difficult to report, address etc. Often when women do object, we are whinging, hysterical, trouble causes. There's arrogance in both genders, but mansplaining is something unique.

I think this chart goes way far into pathologising a lot of normal conversion (and also making women seem like quite helpless bystanders in a conversation).

Women! Are you about to empathise?

Did the man ask you to? Then go ahead.

If not, are you a therapist or trained empathiser?

If not, stop. What qualifies you to speak?

If yes, is your life more together than the man’s?

If not, stop. What do you think he could possibly learn from you?

If yes, well that’s still the wrong standard. You need to consider whether a woman in his position would be struggling with this? If not, stay quiet.

But I think he would have done that to another man.

I don't think it is something men specifically do do to women. I'm a scout leader and the amount of 'helpful advice' men give each other at camps is huge.

There's a fundamental difference between explaining something to someone and empathising with someone. The former assumes the listener is lacking in some way, whereas the latter doesn't.

It's also very illuminating that empathising is being highlighted as a female trait in this thread. Stereotypical conversational gender roles are the very reason why charts like this exist!