If you are a woman, you will have experienced some form of mansplaining – at some point and to varying degrees. Some men presume that women either need protection or guidance or information – and that it is up to them to protect and explain – basically to condescend to women. A recent Twitter thread gave a perfect example of mansplaining – where a man presumes to know more and better than the woman he's having a conversation with:
This tweet refers to a Twitter conversation between a man who told a woman that she didn’t know what she was talking about. This is about a book she wrote about The Good Friday Agreement (a 1998 peace agreement between the British and Irish governments); whereas he was convinced that she had never read the agreement.... though she had written a book about it!
While the screenshot misrepresents the actual conversation as it happened, it does get the essence of it. It does tell us about an incident where a man assumes that a woman doesn’t know what she is talking about. A clear case of mansplaining, according to this tweet.
It’s funny because it is so very familiar – to women mostly.
This diagram explains what mansplaining is – a ready reckoner for men who feel the urge to ease along the path of the silly woman by giving her advice/information – which she didn’t ask for.
Mansplaining is based on the assumption that a man knows best – even in a subject where the woman is an expert.
This tweet shares the experience of a woman who had a man argue with her to prove his point – and cite her work back at her!
Here is a woman scientist with a PhD in Astrophysics speaking about the problems of climate change, with a climate change denier asking her to ‘learn some actual science’.
This tweet shares yet another instance of mansplaining. A man assumes that a woman doesn’t have requisite qualifications when he could easily have checked and to save himself the embarrassment.
So many problems with that – the fact that it seemed necessary to point out that models can actually be competent away from a fashion runway, the fact that someone thinks this is a ‘waste’ and another who doesn’t believe it.
Mansplaining is the patronising attitude that results in some men assuming women to be ignorant, inexperienced and/or incompetent. Society’s overarching patriarchal structures condition men to be self-confident and women to be diffident. So why is mansplaining still a thing? Well because patriarchy is still a thing --- unfortunately.
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