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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Is there a cure for mansplaining?

154 replies

PissyMum · 06/11/2021 23:47

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.

OP posts:
TerraNovaTwo · 07/11/2021 18:51

Following 😂

TerraNovaTwo · 07/11/2021 18:53

I've had some mansplaining. He didn't like it when I gave my own take on the issue he was giving a monologue on. I'm such a bitch for voicing my opinion. How dare I.

TerraNovaTwo · 07/11/2021 18:54

I've had some recent mansplaining

ErrolTheDragon · 07/11/2021 19:00

@whistleryukon

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.
I think you may need to find some new male acquaintances tbh.
whistleryukon · 07/11/2021 19:04

They aren't my 'acquaintances'. They are just men, everywhere.

whistleryukon · 07/11/2021 19:10

Actually, I might just start using patronising language in my responses to them, the same ones that would irritate me:
'Colin, what you need to understand about X, Y, Z is...' (and then proceed to outline bread and butter stuff)
'If I just explain, Colin, and if you have any questions you can ask me at the end' 😂
'I can see that you're asking me to help you to better understand this, so what I would say is...'
And I'll punctuate every sentence with 'okay?'

Bollindger · 07/11/2021 19:14

I had to laugh at my friend who has this in her new relationship.
She would put her head on one side look at him hold her hand up in front of her and tell him, Darling while I would love to be polite and listen to you rabble on, if you must use your mouth can you just kiss me instead,
He laughed and stopped it after 2 days.

WonderfulYou · 07/11/2021 19:17

I don’t understand the difference between mansplaining and simply explaining.

What is it called when a women does it?

ErrolTheDragon · 07/11/2021 19:18

@WonderfulYou

I don’t understand the difference between mansplaining and simply explaining.

What is it called when a women does it?

A woman explaining something to a male expert in that field? I think it's called 'unusual'.
DrSbaitso · 07/11/2021 19:37

A woman explaining something to a male expert in that field?
I think it's called 'unusual'.

Touché!

5128gap · 07/11/2021 19:55

Interrupt him with your own long winded explanation. Or wait in silence for him to finish (no non verbal encouragers, minimal eye contact) then say 'interesting' in a dismissive tone and change the subject.

laffer · 07/11/2021 20:00

A simple "Thanks for the mansplanation dear" usually works for me.

ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba · 07/11/2021 20:11

@WonderfulYou

I don’t understand the difference between mansplaining and simply explaining.

What is it called when a women does it?

when your mother-in-law does it it's called MILsplaining

there's also Teensplaining & Totsplaining.

EarthSight · 07/11/2021 20:41

@TitaniumTess

I am a female working in engineering so have seen quite a lot of this....

I either make it super clear that I know what I am talking about or..

I do the opposite.....with lots of sarcasm..e.g. can you explain that again to me please? I am not getting it.....can you tell me what a laptop actually is....is it this rectangular black thing....? Right I think I have got the first bit of this......!' Etc. Let me just check again....etc...

The latter tends to work quite well I've found. ! :)

Oh lol @TitaniumTess

can you tell me what a laptop actually is....is it this rectangular black thing....?

With some people, a sarcastic, humours, passive approach works better. I would like to sit next to you XD

EarthSight · 07/11/2021 20:44

@whistleryukon

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.
@whistleryukon

Wankers. I would try winding them up in the manner that @TitaniumTess does. Just ask really annoying, obvious questions and see for how long you can get them talking and to what silly level you can take it.

TitaniumTess · 07/11/2021 20:46

Thanks @earthsight! I keep it light but it makes a point.

A couple of chaps tried it a few years ago. It was linked to finances but they were basically explaining how to add 2 numbers together.

I remember saying, 'so let me just try one for myself....if I had 5 and 7 and added them together, would it be 12....? I think that I might be starting to get this...!'

From one of them, I got some sort of over-enthusiastic 'gun-shooting' hand signal and became one of their gang effectively in their head. I never had any trouble after that! :)

MastieMum · 07/11/2021 21:20

On a recent date we were talking about our week and I mentioned an issue I was dealing with. Luckily for me my date, who worked in an entirely different field, explained what I should do to resolve it. I said "thank you, but as I actually know what I'm doing, I did this instead." (I've had several books published about my area of expertise.) At the end of the date he asked me out again because I had "met his standards". "Has it occurred to you that you didn't meet mine?" I responded, and drove away. We didn't make it to date 2...

LongBeanTime · 07/11/2021 21:37

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FOJN · 07/11/2021 21:43

AnotherOldGeezer

Oh sweetie, take a break, maybe a holiday. I can recommend a place called Furthest Reaches it's situated in Fuck Off. Happy to womansplain directions if you need them.

PissyMum · 07/11/2021 21:56

@MatildaIThink I could understand him thinking that if he was explaining something to me that was related to his field of work which I absolutely do not understand and most people without a physics degree wouldn’t have the most basic understanding of. But I had lent him my favourite book which is explained to him I read about once a year as it’s a book that I feel I get something different out of every time that I read it. A book that he had never heard of before until I mentioned it (100 Years of Solitude so not exactly an obscure book!). He then read it and gave me a long lecture over dinner explaining what it’s about, not just his interpretation of the meaning of it but actually telling me the plot points as if he was telling me about a book I had never heard about before. I kept saying “yes, I know that” and telling him about various different people who had interpreted in similar or different ways but he just couldn’t stop his monologue. It was after that that I noticed he will do it about almost everything- a hobby that I introduced him to, an industry that the town I live in is based around and, although I don’t personally work in, grew up around and generations of my family work in. It’s quite incredible.

OP posts:
PissyMum · 07/11/2021 21:58

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LongBeanTime · 07/11/2021 22:05

@PissyMum

Why don't you challenge me, have an argument... not resort to childish playground tactics of 'lets all laugh at'.

LongBeanTime · 07/11/2021 22:13

I'm thinking that it's against Mumsnet etiquette to do that sort of thing.

youvegottenminuteslynn · 07/11/2021 22:13

@LongBeanTime

Is there a cure for mansplaining, quit bitching?
Dismissal of a woman's views (reinforced by other women's experiences) AND a misogynist term too?

Oh you do spoil us.

LongBeanTime · 07/11/2021 22:19

Okay, that was uncalled for, and provocative.

But, one says mansplaining, another says nagging... it's all so petty and ineffective.

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