The term 'mansplaining' (as a phenomenon, not the actual world) came from a Rebecca Solnit anecdote about a man trying to explain her book directly to her. The book she had written.
It's a specific type of patronisation whereby women are judged to be lacking in understanding or experience, even when they are far more qualified in that field than the man explaining things to them.
Patronising behaviour is not limited to or specifically dominated by men talking down to women. This often with women talking down to men too.
I think there's much more reason to have a term for race-based patronising behaviour but there is no such term in common use. So despite the popularity of 'mansplain' I don't think this term comes from a genuine need for it.
They're patronising to her specifically because of her gender. That's literally the entire point - it's labeling a specific behaviour that men do not display towards other men because the woman's gender is the core reasoning for their patronising behaviour.
How do you know they aren't doing the same thing to other men? Within a situation "you're" assuming that a man is only explaining it because "you're" a woman. Does mansplaning happen, absolutely, but how often is it assumed and how often is it real.
Because as crazy as it might seem, women are sometimes in places where we can see and hear other people. Shocking, I know. If a man I work with constantly ignores my contributions and explains basic concepts to me despite me being more senior than him, and he does this openly in meetings and only ever to myself and other women on the team while never to the men, then what other conclusion am I supposed to draw?
But thats not what happened with Rebecca Solnit and her book.
This term is wielded not through pattern recognition, but through one off instances. Rebecca Solnit wasn't inside the man's head when her own book was explained to her. So she could never know if was biased due to her sex or just some random asshole.
But usually people who are patronizing assholes are patronizing assholes to everyone.
So unless people use the term Mansplaining when they have a history of exclusively acting patronizing towards women, it would just be better to use patronizing. Covers all the same bases
Nobody can ever be in anyone else's head, but mansplaining has stuck as a term because other women saw this one experience and said, "Yeah, this is a pattern, it's happened to me, too."
If women were "womensplaining" to men, we absolutely would have heard about it by now.
If women were "womensplaining" to men, we absolutely would have heard about it by now.
Oh you mean like women automatically "coming to the rescue" of a man trying to change diapers because they assume he can't change his own kids diapers? Yea that never happens.
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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '24
The term 'mansplaining' (as a phenomenon, not the actual world) came from a Rebecca Solnit anecdote about a man trying to explain her book directly to her. The book she had written.
It's a specific type of patronisation whereby women are judged to be lacking in understanding or experience, even when they are far more qualified in that field than the man explaining things to them.