lifehacker.com: Mansplaining has become one of the defining phenomena of the 21st century, and its pedantic tentacles touch everything from the last presidential campaign to online riffs about how women just can’t “get” Rick and Morty. While we’ve come a long way towards naming and shaming the mansplainers in our midst, on the flip side of that exchange, catching yourself in the act (and taking a step back) can be a challenge for anyone who’s spent their whole life assuming that they always have something interesting and useful to say, despite all evidence to the contrary.
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Mansplaining gets a reputation for its stupidly obvious representation on Twitter - the clueless or clearly misogynistic man explain something to a woman - but in reality many of these cues aren't gender exclusive. Taking up space, speaking quickly, interrupting, and not picking up obvious cues are all things that not only indicate mansplaining, but plain old interruption or assumption that your feedback is wanted when it isn't. While the term was coined because of the disproportionate use of this tactic by men against women, I feel the way it was explained in this particular article wasn't the best way to clarify the meaning of the term from just being clueless. That being said, the signs are fairly accurate for in-person mansplaining, and are a good resource to send to your friends or family that may be repeat offenders.
I think this is a very important thing for everyone to be aware of. I, being a white man who was raised in the south, have caught myself shaving habits that definitely fall under the category of "mansplaining" and maybe even exist at times. For me, it is nothing intentional, and I am always quite embarrassed when I find myself doing so. Most of the time, it is completely unintentional. This is why I think it is important for people to call others out when they are inadvertently mansplaining, being sexist, etc. However, I think it is just as important for people to do so kindly understanding that for most people, this behavior is not meant to offend or hurt others, but simply a reflex or habit that we have let ourselves slip into over time. This is not to try to excuse it or justify it in any way. I am merely trying to provide an explanation for it. And really I think it is way more productive and less likely to end in an unnecessary argument if these situations are handled calmly and quickly.
Before coming to Carnegie Mellon, I went to an all-girls school at which sexism, feminism, and female empowerment were a constant topic of conversation inside and outside of the class room all around campus. Over the many years that I was at the school and becoming more and more aware of sexism and feminism in general, the topic of mansplaining and everyday instances of sexism came up very often. But in high school, while I knew these problems existed and affected women everywhere on a daily basis, I never really felt like a lesser person because of comments made to me by men. When I came here though, I have run into everyday sexism, especially the idea of "mansplaining" a lot more. It is an annoying problem, and while a lot of mansplaining may not be meant in a menacing way at all, it can be tiring to be talked at while trying to work and go about your day. I think that as this is a more well-known issue, it can be fixed with more open conversation and discussion.
I think this article is an effective model to try to cut down mansplaining. It concisely identifies the problem and the shows how men or the doers of this behavior should change their actions to stop the behavior of mansplaining. The method unlike a lot of rape prevention lectures/classes is directed at the people performing the behavior versus the people having the behavior done to them. In the context of mansplaining it makes perfect sense for mansplainers to stop their behavior to stop mansplaining instead of the victims needing to do things to stop a perpetrator. For people confused on why perpetrators should not be taught to change their behavior, this article is a great resource. It shows how perpetrators need to solve the problem and the blame can’t be put on the victim. Someone might ask for help but they don’t ask to be talked down to or mansplained so it is not their fault that the mansplainer is mansplaining to them. Just like some have argued in the past that the victim was “asking for it”. This argument is useless because the victim can’t control the perpetrator. Overall this was a great article for combating mansplaining and has a great transfer to help show how effective rape prevention must deal with the perpetrator.
This is a really well written and informative article, and there are a lot of people I want to read this. Often times these types of articles are just screaming asking for sexism to stop, and do not provide any real ways to move forward. The list of signs that show someone is mansplaning is very real, and I have seen many of them happen. I think one of the most important things with this is that men don't realize they are doing it, and I hope that this can help open up their eyes. I also am impressed how much this is in conversation, as I remember hearing this word for the first time last semester. Over the summer I had a man ask me after he gave me some instructions if I thought that what he had just said was mansplaning. I didn't think it was, and I told him so, but the awareness was really incredible and something I admired. As someone who doesn't use twitter I think it would be interesting to see examples of this, and if it is more men posting things that are mansplaning, or women recounting situations.
It is so often that you hear people going after men for mansplaining, but the problem is so few people can address the roots of the behavior and why it crosses lines. It is a step in the right direction to recognize it as wrong and to call it out, but where we all are at fault is escalating those moments into name-calling, screaming matches. When we are able to articulate the problems we have with one another and why a behavior is offensive and derogatory, we take a useless release of anger and turn it into a moment of learning. It takes everyone working to be better and to be aware of their own actions to find a balance of working with one another and communicating effectively to work to eliminate these negative patterns. It is important that we keep in mind that we are all learning to work with new people in new environments, so it is important that we respect one another’s intellectual capabilities and address each other with patience and grace.
First of all, I love Donnelly’s tone throughout the article, it made the point and was fun to read. I think the key to not mansplaining is to just not explain things to people if they don’t ask you to explain it/ to assume people know what they are doing/ talking about unless proven otherwise. When it comes to the technical direction industry, I think there is a tendency to do what I suppose could be called “manhelping”. This is when some guy sees a woman completing a task, particularly a task that involves lifting or carrying something, and then rushes in to the rescue like some knight in shining armour protecting the damsel in distress from the horror of a 20 pound object. Because of this, I tend to be extra careful in terms of how and when I offer people help carrying things. First of all, I offer to help people carry things only if the object is particularly large or cumbersome or they seem to be having some difficulty moving the object, if they don’t look like they want help, I don’t offer. If it does seem like they could use a hand I say something along the lines of “do you need a hand with that?” or “have you got that?”, and then if they say they don’t need help, I DON’T HELP THEM. It is pretty simple. Also, even if I could carry the object myself (which typically isn’t the case since most of the time I don’t offer to help carry something if I see it as something I could carry on my own since I’m smaller than most people) I don’t just take it from them and carry it myself. That just comes across as obnoxious no matter how well meaning. I think what is comes down to is you can’t assume you aren’t acting in a sexist way just because you don’t hold sexist beliefs. First of all, you might be behaving in ways you’ve seen others behave without realizing it. Second, even if you (continuing with my example) offer help to men and women in the same way in the same scenarios, you still have to be careful not to come off the same way as the sexist men that women are forced to work with on a daily basis behave. Yeah, it is unfortunate, but that is the world we live in, and ignoring the problem because you have the luxury to not think about it isn’t going to help anyone.
As infuriating as mansplaining is, and as much as I just want to scream "STOP DOING IT" at every man ever, but this article makes a lot of really good points about how men can recognize that they are mansplaining. I would like to assume that most men that mansplain are not entirely aware of what they are doing, and they are genuinely trying to be helpful. However, they do not realize that they are speaking to women like they are dumb babies that have not spent a day in the world. It's a pretty common theme, at least in my class, that technical direction students tend to assume that managers know nothing about construction or the scene shop, despite the fact that we've taken several TD classes and have done carpentry and scenic crew for multiple weeks, in addition to any outside experience we have. I like that this article points out some body language signals that can show men when they are mansplaining, but also these are just kind of generic signs of irritation, but I guess either way it's just a safe bet to stop talking.
Wow these are all such incredibly helpful and useful tips for recognizing mansplaining. Societal inequality has existed for so long that many of these traits seem almost involuntary. This is clearly the result of subconscious views about women that have been programmed into men over the millennia. We as a society need to do a far better job about this and ensuring that women feel comfortable speaking in front of men without being putoff by nonverbal gestures that make them feel insecure about what they are saying. Furthermore, understanding how changes in speaking speed and cadence can also be off-putting are important to show men how to not speak on phone calls that might also be off putting to women as well.
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