Is there a cure for mansplaining?

[PissyMum]

I’ve been with boyfriend for about 18 months. We get on really well and have a really good laugh and amazing sex. I’m starting to be driven round the bend by his constant mansplaining though. I only really noticed him doing it about a month ago when he decided to explain the actual meaning of my favourite book that I’d lent him, which he’d never heard of until I lent it to him.

Now the scales have slipped from my eyes I can’t believe I didn’t see how often he does it earlier. I think I’d possibly dismissed it as he is a proper intellectual and a world expert in the field of science that he works in. I don’t have a degree as I dropped out of uni but I read loads, keep up with current affairs etc and can generally hold my own in conversations with most people. I thought that maybe he thought I was a bit dumber than I am or possibly because I’m over a decade younger than him that I dismissed it to begin with. Now he knows me properly he clearly still thinks I’m an idiot though. I can tell when he’s going to start a long winded explanation as even if I say “yes, I know that” it’s almost as if he hadn’t heard me and he just can’t stop himself from continuing in his lecture.

Do you think if I sat him down and really clearly explained how shit it makes me feel that he might actually stop doing it? Or am I flogging a dead horse? He’s late 40’s so I’m guessing it’s probably too late to change now.

@AnotherOldGeezer piss off

My abusive exH tried to explain parenting to me when I've been the primary carer for 14 years and he's seen the dc once a week. Fuck off twat face.

Oh my brother is a horror for it and for totally dominating conversations. Meh he is just socially unaware and likes the sound of his own voice, it is definitely not one of his better characteristics. No answers for how to stop it except drinking more wine to block it out.

Is it always mansplaining or is it sometimes info dumping? I’ve read about this recently and have recognised it in others. Could it be that he doesn’t actually care whether you know something or not but just gets something out of explaining / recalling a process? More socially unaware than arrogant.

[quote FabulousMrFifty]I think Communication styles are explained well in the guardian, but I’m probably mansplaining that.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/06/is-the-term-mansplaining-sexist-google-autocomplete[/quote]
If you’re not treating women like idiot subordinates, you’re not mansplaining. It’s really easy not to.

(PS, I don’t think that Guardian article means what you think it means.)

About the book - very calmy:

Hang on just a second, can I just check before you go any further? Are you really trying to explain the plot and theme of a book that you'd never heard of and that I lent to you?

Rinse and repeat. If he has any self-awareness at all, he'll get it. If he doesn't then have a good hard think about whether you want another 40-odd years of this.

@DogsWithJobs

Did you just tell women to "be kind" to men who treat them like idiot subordinates?

Yes, yes he did

Respond with “Are you trying to educate me? Because I’d really rather you didn’t, please speak to me like a fellow adult”.

Is he actually "mansplaining", or does he just think you aren't very bright? I work with some incredibly intelligent people, national or global leader in their field level people and unless they know someone is similarly intelligent they tend to follow the default that the person they are speaking to is not as smart as them, because in all liklihood they are not. I used to think one of the professors on projects I manage was mansplaining, then I realised he talks to everyone in a similarly explanantive way until he has established they actually understand (or they have the credentials which show they understand).

Some super intelligent people explain everything to everyone, it is not mansplaining, just explaining.

I will also point out I have been on the receiving end, I had a situation almost identical to the one in this article.I don't work for NASA, but I am a published research scientist. I do regularly see that academics tend to either over explain, or assume the other person is as equally knowledgeable as they are and leave people totally stumped. It seems to matter little if the academic, or the person talking to them, is male or female.

www.unilad.co.uk/viral/male-researcher-tries-mansplaining-womans-own-published-work-to-her/

@MatildaIThink

Is he actually "mansplaining", or does he just think you aren't very bright? I work with some incredibly intelligent people, national or global leader in their field level people and unless they know someone is similarly intelligent they tend to follow the default that the person they are speaking to is not as smart as them, because in all liklihood they are not. I used to think one of the professors on projects I manage was mansplaining, then I realised he talks to everyone in a similarly explanantive way until he has established they actually understand (or they have the credentials which show they understand).

Some super intelligent people explain everything to everyone, it is not mansplaining, just explaining.

I’m a senior academic, and I find the complete opposite — that we’re so used to dealing with fellow-experts in a field, that we tend to assume that everyone has a basic level of knowledge about the area, including admin support. Which doesn’t make older male academics immune to mansplaining, by any means — what I’m saying is that they don’t have any more excuse for doing it than Keith in Accounts, who thinks you can’t have understood the plot of Inception because you think Christopher Nolan films are just bad action films with a pseudo-intellectual veneer of jiggery-pokery.

@Verfremdungseffekt
I did understand the plot of Inception, I also think it was just a bad action film with a psudo-intellectual veneer of jiggery-pokery... I have always understood the plots of Nolan's films, I just don't think they are as amazing as many seem to think they are...

For me with academics and researchers I think it depends on the setting, that same professor I originally thought was mansplaining actually turned out not to be and is someone who actively encourages women to study masters and PhDs.

I think the worst for mansplaining is usually men who are not very bright, but want to try and claim that they have some kind of special insight or understanding. Though I generally find not only do they lack special insight or understanding, they are often just plain wrong.

IME my dad only recognised mansplaining as a thing, despite me constantly pointing it out for years, when he joined Rotary and got repeatedly mansplained at by other old white men. He wasn't sure whether to stick with it as he found it quite annoying to start off with, but now they do it to each other and raise money for charity at the same time.

[quote TyneTeas]Give him a laminated copy of this

www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180727-mansplaining-explained-in-one-chart[/quote]
Haha yes this, my ex husband was a great one for mansplaining, I have a masters, he doesn't even have GCSE's.

You have to call him on it.

DH is quite bad like this. He was perfectly respectful when we were at uni together, and when I worked in a job he admired, but as soon as I became a sahm (and he got a promotion and became very full of himself), he suddenly started talking to me like I’m an idiot and mansplaining everything even though half the time he’s wrong.

I ignored it for a while, but that made it worse, so now am being very blunt and sarcastic “thank god you’re here to save the day I don’t know how I survived forty years without your expert guidance on every teeny detail” / “save your micromanaging for your work colleagues” / “mansplaining alert!!” etc and it does seem to be helping.

@AnotherOldGeezer

Some more mansplaining ...

Please be kind

Sarcasm is not nice in an intimate relationship. I always regret it when I am sarcastic with my DW

With the username what it is, and the thread topic what it is, I'm going to assume this is a joke.

If not, kindly return to your pod.

I like walking away.

They've lost their audience of their profound wisdom.

Some more mansplaining ...

Please be kind

Sarcasm is not nice in an intimate relationship. I always regret it when I am sarcastic with my DW

It's better than a swift kick to the nuts, so trust me, when the mansplaining kicks in, it's definitely the kind option 😉

Sorry but there is no cure.

My most recent ex mansplained mansplaining to me.

He also mansplained the basis of my profession to me - something I deal with day in, day out, and something he knows next to nothing about.

So glad we are not together anymore.

I also had an ex mansplain hitch hiking to me. As if I had never encountered it before, sort of how you would explain it to a 3 year old.

I'd picked up hitch hikers so I was quite familiar with the concept. He did that a lot - patronising me over the simplest of concepts.

I couldn't put up with it. Only an idiot would patronise someone in this way, so ironically they aren't very smart.

I'm not sure if it counts as mansplaining, as it's a little different, but my ex was truly awful for just regurgitating whatever podcast he'd listened to/article he'd read/etc. to me, who he expected to be a willing audience whether I had any prior knowledge/interest in the subject or not. He took on the opinions of podcasters like some sort of cult follower, and would consider himself an expert in the subject after listening to some randomer waffle on about it for 3 hours, and would occasionally cry with rage if I disagreed with him.

There is definitely no cure for that, and probably no cure for your partner either.

I feel your pain, OP. I have had my pwn job mansplained to me before now - by someone who hasn’t the first idea of what it entails.

you need to mirror the behaviour.

DH used to wind me up with his hilarious joke of "wherever you left it" when I'd ask "Where's the car key/my phone/my trainers?" etc.
Not what you need in a hurry!

So I decided to do it back to him. Boy was he pissed off the first time! "It's not funny, I'm in a rush, if you can't help me just say you don't know!"
Aha!
He tasted his own medicine and found out it was bitter.
He stopped pretty soon after that.

Do it back to him. It really is the only way.

I tend to let it go with OH in general and tune it out. He just likes talking about stuff.

BUT if he does start mansplaining things he KNOWS I'm an expert on or anything to do with my career then I will shut him down fast and tell him he's being disrespectful.

He's stopped doing that so there is hope!

Whenever I say 'stop mansplaining' to men I get called a Karen or get 'ooh, forgot you are such a feminist' with a little snigger, which makes me even angrier. So I'm watching in the hope of a better response.