memoriescantwait:

It’s getting annoying to read the “debate” over this term on tumblr. One one hand, you have SJWs overusing this term anytime they’re cornered in a debate by someone with more facts, and as a result, those on the other side think it’s a meaningless, sexist term that’s just thrown out to dismiss arguments by men.

In fact, “mansplaining” is a useful term, one that refers to a very particular type of “explaining” by some men – I like the definition put forward by the New York Times when they picked at as one of their “Words of the Year” in 2010:

“A man compelled to explain or give an opinion about everything – especially to a woman. He speaks, often condescendingly, even if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about or even if it’s none of his business. Old term: a boor.”

Or, as in the original post about it:

“Mansplaining isn’t just the act of explaining while male, of course; many men manage to explain things every day without in the least insulting their listeners. Mansplaining is when a dude tells you, a woman, how to do something you already know how to do, or how you are wrong about something you are actually right about, or miscellaneous and inaccurate ‘facts’ about something you know a hell of a lot more about than he does.”

Here are some examples of mansplaining combined with things that are not mansplaining:

Not Mansplaining: A woman in a Constitutional law class gets something wrong, so the professor explains to her why she is wrong.

Mansplaining: A guy who hasn’t taken a civics class since high school lectures a woman whom he knows is a Constitutional lawyer about how the Constitution works.

Not Mansplaining: I’m talking to a non-musician about my music degree, and he is interested and asks me questions, and shares what he knows about my area of expertise without condescension, and allows me to correct him if he’s wrong.

Mansplaining: I’m talking to a non-musician about my music degree, and he proceeds to lecture me with what he knows about classical music (usually stuff that I learned in first-year theory). If I correct anything he says, he will scoff at me, imply or state outright that I don’t know what I’m talking about, even when I clearly do know more and explain to him just why he is so wrong.

Not Mansplaining: A tumblr SJW makes a ridiculous and incorrect generalization about women based on her own experiences. A man argues against her using statistics or by revealing her statement to be a logical fallacy (for example).

Mansplaining: A tumblr SJW makes a ridiculous and incorrect generalization about women based on her own experiences. A man argues against her by denying the reality of her experiences and implying he understands those situations better even though he’s never been in them.

Women can be mansplainers, but the reason to use “man” here is because it’s rooted in male privilege and the way men’s opinions are treated as more important than those of women – which is why you see way more men with this tendency, and it particularly comes out when they’re talking to women. The way gender is treated in our society, women usually have the idea that their opinion is equally valuable on all subjects stomped out of them from an early age. Most men do, too, but a lot more are able to get through without learning this valuable lesson because of the way our society privileges men’s experiences.

Or as explained in this follow-up to the original “mansplaining” post: “[Mansplaining] is not just people being ignorant and condescending, it’s people doing so through the mechanisms of privilege supporting their superiority in a given situation, even though, on the topic at hand, they have an inferior understanding. [Emphasis hers.] Using a term that notes the privilege is, I think, essential to calling out the perpetrator not just for bad behavior, but for behavior that is sourced in and enforces that privilege.”

Plus, one particular strain of mansplaining which is the kind discussed on feminist blogs most often is when men assume they know better than women do about an issue that affects women more than it affects men. For example, the guy on my Facebook wall saying that government shouldn’t cover birth control because if women can’t find money to pay their co-pays “they just don’t care enough.” Now, granted, while I think birth control should be completely covered as essential health care for women, I can think of plenty of other arguments he could have made against covering it that would not be mansplaining. But he particularly took it on with the angle of “I know women’s situations better than they do,” which makes him a mansplainer.

So the NY Times is right that it’s similar to a boor, but it’s a bit more than that, too. Mansplainers are a specific type of boor.

Like “spoons,” “harassment” and “triggering,” the term “mansplaining” gets abused a lot on tumblr to dismiss any disagreement and prop up bad arguments (in this case, it’s most commonly abused by the SJW throwing it out as soon as she realizes her rebutter is male). But like those terms, that doesn’t mean the actual definition lacks merit. What leads me to defend this word is because I just see this happen all the time in real life – where a guy who is capable of treating other men as equals turns condescending and starts talking down the second a woman enters the conversation. Or where a man who is capable of understanding that another man can know more about a particular subject than he does, but always lectures to women even after they present proof of superior credentials in that area. It’s not all or even most men who do this, but it is a very gendered phenomenon that is rooted in the different ways we treat men and women’s knowledge.