Mansplanied

[Mimmi78]

I have been told by my boss to apologise for saying to an external colleague, “thanks for mansplaining to me”

Yesterday was a busy day, lots on, I work in busy financial services role, interact with lots of external stakeholders at other company. The interaction was,
me - hi can I have this thing
him - no because of this, then, tacked on end a full explanation of how thing works.
for context 27 years in my industry, know how thing works. Explanation not required. I should just have said it in my head but my skirt pocket was fresh outta Fs to give.

Boss sympathetic but just wants it to go away, demands written apology, let’s get to it ladies, help me write the best apology for this one.

I am sorry to hear that you were upset by my use of the term ‘ mansplained’.

In future I will remember to use the term ‘patronised’.

Dear xx

Mansplaining is when someone, who could be male or female, goes into great detail and spends a lot of time explaining a concept, process or idea to someone who has sigificantly more experience in that area that the explainer.
(feel free to make the explaination as long as possible). Etc.
It is often not intentional but where the person being explained to is female, this plays a significant role in promoting sterotypes that women are not as knowlegable as men.

I hope this makes it clearer exactly what mansplaining is and why it is so important that we all take suitable measures to ensure that we are not reinforcing gender stereotypes within the organisation.

Please do not hesitate to contact me of you have any other questions about mansplaining.

Yours mimi

Joking aside, I'd send this. It's lowkey and doesn't pander to the knobhead

Worse, he thinks it’s about the thing he was explaining being correct! It was correct, I know that!

Who was he in relation to you?

“I’m thowwy I made Diddums cwy.”

Works for another business in the sector and we have procurement with that business for various products

So this wasn’t a colleague. This was a client?

Thought you might like this- you have to click on the photo to see the caption. I feel your pain.

I'm loving a lot of these replies. My instinct would be to send an email condescendingly explaining what mansplaining is.

Unfortunately, as this is a professional situation, you know you will have to just suck it up and send an apology for any offence.

Or tell him you are sorry you reacted as you did, but you were feeling hormonal as your period was due. 😂

You need what we call a Priti Patel apology:

I am sorry that you were offended by my comments.

This is perfect.

You mean he thinks you should apologise for saying he was patronising you...because what he said while patronising you was factually correct?

I’ll preface this by saying, I do appreciate where you are coming from @Mimmi78 .

However, he for all appearances was simply explaining something to you. Your response could be seen as unprofessional, unpleasant and potential bullying.

We all deal with annoying people at work just get on and handle it.

I am sorry if you were offended that I used the term mansplaining to save you wasting your time telling me something I already understood perfectly. I realise it is always difficult to gauge when to offer unsolicited help to a colleague.

Going forward I hope that in the future, should I ask , you would be prepared to offer advice if required. In the same spirit of co operation please be assured that should you ever need help understanding aspects of your job I would be only to happy to mentor you and provide appropriate training.

🙂

Love it.

If it’s a client, I wouldn’t have said it. And I absolutely would apologise.
If it’s not? Nope. I once “thanked” a male colleague for mansplaining in a board meeting.
“thanks for the mansplaining Gary, but my Masters is in x & y. What you’ve just mansplained is GCSE level, at best”.
I was the only woman in the room, there was a short, stunned silence, then they all moved on.

I think you should apologise and then explain what an apology is.

Love this!!!!!

Could you just send him a bottle of something so you don’t have to actually grovel?

Ooh petty and true.
I like this reply.

Was this a client @Mimmi78 ?

This is perfect.

I apologise for my 'mansplaining' comment. It was wrong of me to assume your gender identity, rather than simply acknowledging your gender-neutral talent for providing unsolicited basic instructions to someone with 25+ years of experience. I’ll be sure to respect your unique explaining style without labels in the future.

Men and women can be patronising. But in equal proportions? Or does one sex do it a little bit more the other?