I’m not sure that such is the full on requirement. All of the explanations which are not “Man tells woman how women work” seem rather over-the-top. It’s not impossible that any of them might completely ignore the credentials of a man, but it seems unlikely to me that the expert being a woman didn’t factor in. Even we Dopers tend to listen when someone points out their expertise—unless we have reason to doubt it.
Plus there’s just the fact that the women involved have more context from the interaction and more experience dealing with the topic. We’re just getting this tiny tidbit of information, often not even the words the guy actually said.
Finally, I could argue that it’s not really the woman’s job to figure out if the guy treats everyone else that way. If it walks like a mansplainer and quacks like a mansplainer, it’s reasonable to assume it is a mansplainer.
I just had this idea that should be an SNL skit or something - a prominent flat earther is speaking at a flat earth convention. We see a number of flat earthers outside the lecture hall a few minutes before it starts, and a woman tries again and again to share her flat earth views but is cut off by a man who mansplains things like the ice wall around the flat earth that science pretends is Antarctica, or the giant shimmering crystal dome that makes up the actual sky. Finally, the lecture us about to begin, and they head inside, at which point everyone in the room begins clapping; it turns out she is the flat earth expert who was invited to speak at the conference, and the mansplainer is thoroughly embarrassed.
Not sure people here (okay, men here) are clear on the concept.
It is when a MAN explains to a WOMAN how to do her job, which she knows how to do far better than he ever will, or conveys, in a condescending way, information which she already knows. Often extended to information conveyed by a man to a woman that she doesn’t know but doesn’t want or need to know, but I think that’s covered by “arrogance” or “obliviousness”.
It is a word because it is something that happens to women all the time.
If it happens to a man, it’s not mansplaining. If it is just over-explaining, or being boring in a geeky way, it’s not mansplaining.
Most examples of “mansplaining” are not really what purports to be mansplaining, even the supposedly egregious examples cited in the OP’s article.
Many are things that expert opinion does not have a consensus, in which case being the only expert in a particular conversation is not a valid trump card.
In some cases many women perceive things differently.
And some things are matters of opinion and/or semantics (e.g. eye color, or what constitutes a “refugee”).
FWIW, there was a striking example from this MB of what would otherwise be “mansplaining”, were it not for the fact that the target was a man and some of the mansplainers were women. Discussion was how to interpret some regulation in the context of Title IX, a long time poster notes that he is a Title IX lawyer and such-and-such interpretation (which many posters disliked for political reasons) is the correct one and that it’s a straightforward issue. Other posters - who were not lawyers, let alone Title IX lawyers - were unimpressed and continued arguing at length that the guy was wrong (and that even suggesting such a thing was borderline trolling).
(Of possible note, that lawyer does not appear to have posted to this MB since then.)
Men who argue semantics (women ALSO can over-explain! Men can do this to each other! There can be differences of opinion!) really don’t understand the concept. Much like men cannot believe that women simply walking down the street are sexually harassed all the time.
It’s the old “if it doesn’t happen to me, it doesn’t really happen, because the testimony of thousands of women means nothing” thing that men so very often do.
This is a poor place for the OP, because of the predominance of men. I’ve seen threads on other venues with hundreds of posts by women with personal examples of the most boggling kind. But you won’t get that here.
I was just kidding around. I agree with what you say and will mention that 'splaining in general is intrusively, without any request, explaining something to anybody to basically show off. It is something I find men to do much more often than women, and some men 'splain to women when they wouldn’t do it to a man. These are other reasons to call it mansplaining.
You seem to be suggesting that I’ve denied that mansplaining exists, which is incorrect.
What I said was “Most examples of “mansplaining” are not really what purports to be mansplaining, even the supposedly egregious examples cited in the OP’s article.”
The concept definitely exists, but the prevalence is vastly exagerated by people interepreting things as mansplaining which don’t (necessarily) fit the supposed underlying concept.
To be more accurate, there is no collected data to tally just how prevalent “true” mansplaining is, but the word has begun to slop over into all kinds of egregious behavior not originally covered under the term.
This is so funny… Mansplaining seems like such a great term to describe a behavior I struggled to describe many years ago (of course it’s been around for a long time). There was a guy in my office who seemed to offer overly long, unneeded explanations to his female colleagues. I told a friend that I think it was a “male” behavior, that a lot of guys do this.
There are a ton of other modern phrases that perfectly describe stuff that’s been going on a long time. Another one: Friendzone. I guess living long enough to see these phrases appear is a good thing!
My neighbor, as well as being the most boring person on the planet, is also a world-class mansplainer. When he does this with his wife or adult daughters, he actually prefaces what he’s about to belabor with “You see, Honey. . .” He has gone on at length to my wife about aspects of San Francisco, where she lived for 25 years. Nothing derails him; it’s like a recording that has the play button stuck.
To be fair, I have some sympathy with their attitude, because hands down the most incorrigible overconfident presumptuous 'splainer that I’ve ever encountered is me (a woman).
But I also recognize that the term has value to designate a particular kind of characteristic gendered interaction, not just overconfident presumptuous 'splaining in general.
When I was in college, I was moving to a different apartment , and my roomie’s boyfriend was going to move in with her.
He was helping me move, and he told me that he would take my stereo up and set it up, because he knew how to set it up and I didn’t. Did I mention that it was my stereo? And I had moved it several times because already because, college?
I paused for a second to point this out, then realized that his words meant that he was going to do work for me, so just cheerfully let him have his illusions and his task
This is the problem. Those things are very obviously mansplaining. The article included several descriptions where a man told a woman how women work, or lectured female experts about their fields of expertise.
Your claim that the examples were situations where the was actual debate by the experts is not supported by anything stated in the article.
