True, but “mansplain” is a term that is meant to be gender specific. It refers to the specific type of condescension a man levels at a woman because he maintains a gender bias. Nobody ever said “mansplaining” was inaccurate. It is usually correct in the information it presents. The issue at hand is that this is done with a specific intent, i.e. To undermine a woman WHETHER OR NOT she asked for correct information, and WHETHER OR NOT she was intentionally being humorous. In other words, the man assumes the woman is wrong because she is inherently incapable of knowing things, and ignores all cues to intellect, like a subtle sense of humor, rhetoric, more extensive education, emotional terminology and so on. The man assumes that she requires him to enlighten her. The man assumes that he is ENTITLED to enlighten her. The man assumes a socially superior position, whether or not it is warranted.
I pay attention to these things, and I am sorry to say that this absolutely happens, without men even realizing they are doing it. And you cannot argue that “Women do it too”, because they do not do it with as much frequency. Nor are they allowed to “womansplain” to men, because men do not tolerate it and usually speak over top of them.
So, why use it? Why fight for equality by using gender-encoded terms? Because it is a negative gender-encoded behavior and it absolutely should be pointed out AS A NEGATIVE. We call a murderer a murderer and a rapist a rapist. A sexist is a sexist, meaning they are prejudiced against someone for their sex. Pointing out a gender bias with a humorous term is not sexist. Think about it. Do men have any funny and not inherently cruel and dehumanizing language for women? No. If they think a woman is unfair, they call her a bitch, a cunt, a whore, etcetera. There is no equivalent to “mansplain” except “feminazi” and that is of itself, a term designed to delegitimize and degrade. “Mansplaining” points to the negative behavior, and does not in any way deride the speaker. It merely elicidates the gender bias.
I saw something on this site a few days ago, and it is absolutely true: “When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like prejudice”.
Men are accustomed to being taken seriously with no more credibility than their genitals, endowed with authority, socialized to speak whenever or wherever they wish, and learn to treat women as unequal in subtle but hurtful ways, from gender bias in the work place to social interactions. When this negative bias is pointed out to them and highlighted, when the privilege of doing this with impunity is revoked, suddenly they feel as if they are being mistreated.
Too bad.
The problem is it’s over use. People use mansplain at the drop of the hat. For everything from actual mansplaining, condescending explanations, to legitimate explanations, answers or corrections.
People use it so often that is has moved from pointing out negative gender based behavior, like assuming a woman knows nothing or assuming a man knows everything, to being part of the problem. It has become its own negative gender based behaviour, assuming all explanations or answers from men are mansplaining, are coming from a sexist or condescending male.
Random video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOXh5repOWII have not yet seen its overuse. However my vantage is somewhat limited
I don’t think it is overused. Every time I have seen “mansplain” it always has a trigger. Body language, the way things are worded, the tone, the tendency, like Simon said, to do it without any reason. Like…men correcting women (a lot of time on nit picking, stupid stuff) without knowing the woman, without being asked, without one single care as to whether or not the woman requires him to or is pr off.
I would add that mansplaining is almost exclusively a form of nagging. It always either pocked the toniest of details, or presumes the OP or speaker has no idea what is “actually” important about the subject.
Like, I’ve had men try to tell me how to fucking tie my shoes. No shit. I am blind. I like to take my shoes on and off all the time. Because of this are usually time my tennis shoes so that the leases are not tied together. I create little macramé knots on either side of the shoe so that there is no Thai across the top of the shoe. This allows me to sleep my feet in an out whenever I feel like I need to use my toes. I have actually been at the gym and headman assume that I don’t know how to tie my shoes.
I am a body builder when I work out. I have had men try to walk up to me and explain form when in actuality Ive been watching them and seeing them donut entirely wrong. And saying that I’m a health educator I feel like I know what I’m talking about. They assume because I am a girl I need to do lower weight or need them to explain how a workout functions.
I have had men try to tell me how to boil an egg. No.
I have had men try to mansplain cleaning, typing, folding. I even had a male doctor try to mansplaim my fucking vagina. And no, he was not dispensing necessary medical advice. I was talking about an already diagnosed urinary tract issue, and this mother fucker tried to explain to me (in laymen’s terms while I was using proper terminology) how the vagina functions and blah blah. “Dude…i don’t need you to educate me about my genitals. Thanks.”
I have even had men try to mansplain labor. Fucking child labor. Uh…i did that. I know all about it. Shut up.
So let me rephrase, mansplaning is always done from a place of PRESUMING the woman is ignorant about something very small or very obvious, and always interacts with the woman as if she requires a lecture, not a heads up.
The Brain Squirrel Monologues 