"Mansplaining"

[Squishedpickle]

Hi all

Following an argument with my husband last night, we realised we have different understandings of the word mansplaining and how this ties in to feminist approaches.

Please could you tell me what mansplaining means to you, whether you would use it as a word, and if you align to a particular type of feminism?

Thanks

Mansplaining= a man explaining something to a woman or telling her something which she already knows.
Especially if she has more experience and expertise in the field than he does.
Sometimes made worse if the man ignores the woman's responses, such as - 'yes, I'm familiar with that, in fact it was the topic of my PhD'
I'm not sure it aligns with a particular type of feminism.

This pretty much sums it up

Mansplaining is a useful term to describe the subtle yes consistent underestimation of womens abilities on a micro level. I dont align it with any particular form of feminism.

Oh well done biscuits I couldnt get my diagram to upload!

I love the graphic.

I have encountered reverse mansplaining, although as a social phenomena rather than any known feminist thing. Which is where some members of a department can appear to only trust in and comprehend information when it has been disseminated by a male member of the leadership team. In that work place it became such a source of amazement and frustration that more than once one of the male leaders intentionally copied and pasted the same email word for word that a female leader had sent out, and the person who had complained that she couldn't get it and couldn't understand from the female manager voiced her gratitude for the better explanation. For some reason seeing a male name in the 'from' column made a big difference.

Thanks both. That was my interpretation too. He thinks that it's an unacceptable term because it doesn't promote equality or you wouldn't say someone was womansplaining. My view was that's because it's vastly more common phenomena from men to women and that is the way the power dynamic sits

Sounds like your husband might be mansplaining the term mansplaining ;-)

Ah Squished.....I assume your DH doesn’t understand or believe in patriarchy then

Spiegel

I have one issue with this - what if the man in question explains to everyone, not just women?

A part of the definition needs to be that he does this only to women, not other men.

@Spiegelx @Biscuitsanddoombar

Good point @MrGHardy. In this case it was just him and me.

Another question - do you think mansplaining involves the man actively denying the woman's experience or just ignoring/overriding?

Men mansplaining the experience of ovulation and periods.

Is your husband happy to be put in that type of category of men.

Women - and other men - have words for those types of men. I wont type them here because - I'm laughing too hard - and reasons.

Congratulations you’ve married an idiot.

It can be both Squished. Both denying and/over riding

My favourite is still the guy on twitter mansplaining astronauting to an actual female astronaut 😆

I've never used the term, as it doesn't do anything that informing someone they are being a condescending arse does.

*doesn't, obvs.

You wouldn't say someone was womansplaining because women don't have a history of speaking over men or appropriating their expertise and intellectual labour (as happened to Ada Lovelace and Rosamund Franklin and numerous others.) It's pretty offensive of him not to recognise this and to pretend you're starting from a position of equality on a level playing field.

I would say mansplaining can involve both denying experience and ignoring/overriding. Actively denying is arguably more offensive, but doing any of the above is grim.

I just reply (in no particular order) “granny, eggs, sucking, how, don’t, to, your, tell.

He gets it.

Mansplation explanation of something you already know but because they are male and you are female there is no way you would have vast amount of knowledge on the subject

Could be anything from how to fold the baby buggy to subject you have graduated in and work on a daily basis being explained back to you

We are women we are the fairer sex we know nothing

I’ve recently spilt up with my partner due to mansplaining. I was looking at buying some land but on looking more closely it had lots of covenants that made it not viable. I told him this, he nodded and smiled and said “don’t worry, I don’t think it’s that straightforward. You can still buy it, you just need to do X, X and X”. All of which I’d already told him wasn’t possible due to the covenants. The next day he asked me if I’d put the deposit down, he was really excited to see the land etc. I told him again that no, I’m not buying it due to covenants. Again he told me I didn’t understand it and I clearly didn’t believe what he was telling me. Of course I didn’t believe what he was telling me, he’s an engineer. I’m an estate manager who has a masters in countryside development and I have worked in this field for 20 years.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX I think that was his (poorly worded) thought process too

He's not an idiot at all really, he's taken himself of to do some research now. Maybe next time I'll just call him a condescending arse

@Squishedpickle I'd say mainsplaining is also sometimes unconscious- theres so much systemic arrogance and privilege built in that they literally may not even take time to consider or realise the woman knows more

@TheDaydreamBelievers that's a really interesting point