It should be called 'correctile dysfunction'
October 14, 2017 6:07 PM   Subscribe

Where do mansplainers get their water? From a well, actually 🗣️
posted by Thella (77 comments total) 50 users marked this as a favorite
 
Well, actually, as an old white guy, I found this amusing. Thanks! 8)

PS: Mea culpa, Mea maxima culpa!
posted by MikeWarot at 6:23 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I keep having to mansplain to my eleven year old son that he has to be careful about using the phrase, “well, actually,” because it sets so many online teeth on edge. He’s not a mansplainer (I mean, FFS, he’s just barely getting into puberty) but he has ADHD and is extremely smart and verbal (you know, to the extent it’s starting to cause him social problems as he gets older), but he does get loggorhea occasionally. I mean, hell, he was speaking in complete sentences before he was even eighteen months and of course we rewarded the hell out of the behavior then as his excited parents, but not only is there the whole problem of mansplaining, but some people out there in onlinelandia just viscerally, passionately hate words, so maybe I’ll show him this just as a precautionary measure and it’ll encourage more circumspection.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:33 PM on October 14, 2017 [11 favorites]


Most of this is PAINFULLY TRUE, but this one is actually funny:
When women sing
"They did the Mash"
And then the guy chimes in
"They did the *Monster* Mash"
That's called Wolfmansplaining.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:35 PM on October 14, 2017 [72 favorites]


Mod note: Couple comments removed. There's a whole pile of cultural context for the stuff in the link that doesn't really bear pulling out of context; if you're not up for riffing on mansplaining or examining it in that context, or just think it's over the top or whatever, that's okay but something to just go ahead and skip the thread on.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:46 PM on October 14, 2017 [14 favorites]


Well actually, cortex, that’s how posts go sometimes.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:49 PM on October 14, 2017 [60 favorites]


In place of the Dark Lord, you would have a Queen, not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Dawn. Treacherous as the Sea! Stronger than the foundations of the earth...all shall love me and despair!
posted by lazycomputerkids at 6:52 PM on October 14, 2017 [8 favorites]


Where do mansplainers ...

Actually, the plural of mansplainer is "mensplainer".

You're welcome.
posted by Groundhog Week at 6:54 PM on October 14, 2017 [8 favorites]




These are super funny and also they make me wonder what's wrong with me that I haven't seen much of this in real life. If I can't pick out the mansplainer in the room, does that mean it's me?

Well, actually, everyone says I'm really quiet, though.
posted by Western Infidels at 7:19 PM on October 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


I've seen most of these before except THAT STATUE. Lol! And of course it's in Texas.
posted by floweredfish at 7:49 PM on October 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


These are super funny and also they make me wonder what's wrong with me that I haven't seen much of this in real life. If I can't pick out the mansplainer in the room, does that mean it's me?

I'm assuming from this comment you're a man? It's a pretty well-established phenomenon that people with a certain form of privilege tend to be pretty blind to these kind of microaggressions that people without that privilege experience. As a white person, for instance, it took me a long time to really appreciate how much racist stuff the people of color experienced without me even noticing it.

So you probably have witnessed it without even being aware.
posted by lunasol at 7:51 PM on October 14, 2017 [15 favorites]


I did enjoy it when some friends of mine started talking about mansplaining, and I very innocently asked one dude, "What's mansplaining?" and the conversation came to an awkward halt.
posted by daisystomper at 7:55 PM on October 14, 2017 [17 favorites]


Real life e-mail exchange with my younger sister:

Me: I'm not going but I saw Rebecca Solnit (wrote Men Explain Stuff to Me, coined "mansplaining") is doing a reading Wednesday.
Sis: Um . . . Did you just mansplain Rebecca Solnit to me?
posted by mark k at 7:55 PM on October 14, 2017 [18 favorites]


I keep having to mansplain to my eleven year old son

Mansplaining is not a thing a man can do to another male person

Whitesplaining is not a thing a white person can do to another white person

Cis-splaining is not a thing a cis person can do to another cis person
posted by a fiendish thingy at 8:04 PM on October 14, 2017 [30 favorites]


saulgoodman: I keep having to mansplain to my eleven year old son that he has to be careful about using the phrase, “well, actually,”

I'm not sure if you meant this as a joke? But 1) by definition, you can't mansplain to another male; and 2) by definition, the explaining has to be done condescendingly. So this doesn't qualify as mainsplaining at all.

If you meant it as a joke, please excuse me. I find that I no longer have much of a sense of humor. It's been a rough couple of years for women.
posted by tzikeh at 8:09 PM on October 14, 2017 [30 favorites]


#11 is my favorite joke of recent years, and I love most of the rest!

With that said, as I recall it, #19 was a misinterpretation that was cleared up almost immediately, but that didn't stop the initial take from going viral. (I remember this because I was one of the people who retweeted the initial take, and then had to issue a retraction.)

("read the full article" was a shortening of "I read the full article" to fit the 140-character limit, not—as reasonably supposed—"you should read the full article." The responder was aware that he was writing to the author, and wished to make it clear that he was not simply offering a hot take based on a quick glance. Whether his input was particularly good is another question, but that's not what he was being called out for here.)
posted by Shmuel510 at 8:13 PM on October 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


I shall dutifully await, but without expectation, for MeFi user listen, lady, prophet, patron saint, and living embodiment of mansplain threads, to bless this modest attention to a profound evil.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 9:31 PM on October 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


I am guilty of mansplaining. Growing up as the "smart" kid meant that I earned status and praise by performing intelligence, and that's still the most comfortable social role for me to assume.

Want women to like me + only way I know how to get people to like me is to be smart = textbook mansplainer

I think I'm getting better at this, but there's probably always going to be some part of me that fantasizes about my wife having an actual interest in hearing me explain whatever inane bullshit I'm suddenly an expert on. I kinda wish this part of my brain didn't exist.
posted by jsnlxndrlv at 9:50 PM on October 14, 2017 [25 favorites]


I—a woman—am perfectly willing to use mansplain for how men sometimes speak to other men. It's infrequent, but when it shows up I look on in bemused wonder at the rare specimen.

A case: waiting around for a lecture to start, chatting about pets with two dudes I know who don't know each other.
Me: Wait, you don't have any pets, right?

Dude A, obviously referencing toxoplasmosis: Yeah, dogs are too much work and we all know that cat lovers are just brainwashed.

Dude B: (rearing back with pleasure at the knowledge he is about to import) well actually, they've found that cats carry a parasite—
It's essential that authority be completely denied to whoever's being spoken to, but the form is so unmistakable I find the extension warranted.
posted by felix grundy at 10:11 PM on October 14, 2017 [7 favorites]


I kinda wish this part of my brain didn't exist.

In retrospect, I wish I hadn't ended on that note, because it suggests too much resignation and acceptance of my shitty behavior. I still wish that part of my brain didn't exist, but I can still work toward eliminating it myself. My plan for now is to cut most declarative statements out of my interpersonal conversations; I shall become as a resident of Whither, communicating primarily through questions. Unlike my Whithern siblings, though, I won't actually answer one question with another.
posted by jsnlxndrlv at 10:35 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Dude B: (rearing back with pleasure at the knowledge he is about to import) well actually, they've found that cats carry a parasite—

I guess it depends on the spoken tone, but that reads like the lucky 10,000.
posted by Coventry at 10:39 PM on October 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


True story.
Face to face conversation
Max: I mansplained today. But apologised as soon as I remembered Alicia was an actual medical doctor. I felt like a bit of a dick, really.
James: [sternly] If anyone ever told me I was mansplaining, the conversation would be over!
Me: If a woman tells you you're mansplaining, the conversation is already over.
James: ... what?

... later on facebook in a written conversation about the historic name of a property and whether it was originally owned by a single member of a family, or multiple members

Me: So it's either Barber's Farm or Barbers' Farm
James: Well actually, Thella, if it's plural, the apostrophe goes after the s.
Me: James, you just mansplained grammar to a high school English teacher.
James: ... what? No, I was just sayin'...
posted by Thella at 11:31 PM on October 14, 2017 [15 favorites]


Mansplaining is a haranguing offense.
posted by JLovebomb at 1:26 AM on October 15, 2017 [37 favorites]


My favourite recent mansplain experience was my brother for some reason describing to me in great detail how to wash hands.

I’m a doctor, I have scrubbed for surgery making my hands so clean that they are fit to place inside another human being. I have had fucking exam questions about hand hygiene. DON’T TELL ME HOW TO HANDWASH!
posted by chiquitita at 2:14 AM on October 15, 2017 [43 favorites]


Male coworker: Double, come over here and let me show you how this model works.
Me: I built that model.

it happens all the time. And they never apologize. They never even have the grace to look sheepish. They either look doubtful or annoyed.
posted by double bubble at 3:20 AM on October 15, 2017 [19 favorites]


i must admit i'm guilty of humansplaining, i tried to tell my cat how to kill mice.
posted by rubber duck at 3:23 AM on October 15, 2017 [7 favorites]


I walked out on a date because the guy was mansplaining to me that mansplaining did not, nay, could not exist. Women do it, and worse! Men do it to each other! Have you heard kids with a little bit of knowledge?!

The look of shock on his face as I got up and said "we're done here," is still etched in my mind.
posted by bilabial at 3:52 AM on October 15, 2017 [55 favorites]


But 1) by definition, you can't mansplain to another male; and 2) by definition, the explaining has to be done condescendingly

i'm a guy - one reason i dislike hanging out with most men is because they, especially in groups, get into mansplaining with each other - it's like watching dominance displays of verbal chest beating and finger pointing with facts
posted by kokaku at 4:20 AM on October 15, 2017 [13 favorites]


Mansplaining is not a thing a man can do to another male person

I wouldn't be too sure about that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:27 AM on October 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


And from the comments : I guess its a guy thing, wanting to 'solve' problems' or something. But just please know, most of us don't really mean harm, we think women are awesome..

I think he just mansplained why he mansplains. But good to know that I'm awesome, so there's that.
posted by perrouno at 5:16 AM on October 15, 2017 [8 favorites]


Want women to like me + only way I know how to get people to like me is to be smart = textbook mansplainer

weird. In my case it's "want woman to like me" == paralyzing neurotic panic.

End Scene.
posted by mikelieman at 5:23 AM on October 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


And from the comments : I guess its a guy thing, wanting to 'solve' problems' or something. But just please know, most of us don't really mean harm, we think women are awesome..

I think he just mansplained why he mansplains


i'm curious what the line is in this specific instance between mansplaining and trying to understand and then talk about one's own behavior in the context of a larger pattern of cultural behaviors
posted by kokaku at 6:01 AM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


Kokaku, sounds like excuses for bad behavior, to me.
posted by agregoli at 6:03 AM on October 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


(And I'm sick of that one...women don't care about solving problems? We don't label anything with apt names to try to cause some understanding? HMMMM)
posted by agregoli at 6:04 AM on October 15, 2017 [11 favorites]


it's like watching dominance displays of verbal chest beating and finger pointing with facts

This is exactly it. Men must use the currency and methods of their times to establish dominance, appear desirable, attract those who value top-percent performance, etc. since time immemorial.

Whether it's jousting or buffalo hunting or car repair or whatever- there is a task, and there is a need to display excellence in that task. That is the space where mansplaining lives. Some know they do it, some do not. Some never do it. Some do it well. Those who do it worst are why this thread (and that article) exist.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 6:05 AM on October 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


thank you agregoli - hearing it as 'guys are like X therefore...' helps drive the point home - that needs to be a big red flag whenever it comes into looking at behavior
posted by kokaku at 6:20 AM on October 15, 2017


I'm occasionally the target of mansplaining and I just try to ignore it. To do anything else is, you know...
posted by tommasz at 6:24 AM on October 15, 2017


Here's a good take on a strategy to avoid a common mansplaining scenario (SLYT). Surprise! It involves listening and asking questions.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 6:26 AM on October 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


ETA: My takeaway from that video, and other comments, is that it's not bad to explain things or to offer opinions. It's bad to do so without first determining whether that input is even desired, and without understanding fully who you're talking to, and where they're coming from.

If you simply wait, and do some discovery before you open your mouth to speak (or 'splain), you have already made great strides.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 6:31 AM on October 15, 2017 [7 favorites]


In other words, have a conversation not a lecture.
posted by double bubble at 6:48 AM on October 15, 2017 [13 favorites]


Kokaku, I read it that way because the man was explaining to women the reason he mansplains is because men are problem solvers by nature.
posted by perrouno at 6:59 AM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


I often wonder what value my existence has beyond the information I possess and the tasks I can execute.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:09 AM on October 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


Fear not, your sheer Faintness of Butt is a joyous wonder to us all. We would never vote a Faint Butt off the island.
posted by Coventry at 7:13 AM on October 15, 2017 [9 favorites]


(´•ω•`๑)
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:16 AM on October 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


i like faint butts and i cannot lie
posted by entropicamericana at 7:30 AM on October 15, 2017 [16 favorites]


there's probably always going to be some part of me that fantasizes about my wife having an actual interest in hearing me explain whatever inane bullshit I'm suddenly an expert on

This also does not sound like mansplaining, unless every topic you are suddenly interested in was something your wife was interested in first.

The specific behavior described by the term is not "lecturing people" or "holding forth on a subject" or "trying to impress people with knowledge" or "trying to beat people into submission with your intellect".

It specifically describes a man trying to explain a woman's own area of expertise or experience TO HER, and/or correcting her when she describes it herself.

Solnit didn't coin the term, but most people associate the genesis of the term with her essay where she describes a man at a party finding out that she was an expert on a historical figure, doubting her expertise, and then proceeding to lecture her about a book that had recently been published on that figure, which she and a friend tried to tell him HAD BEEN WRITTEN BY SOLNIT. He was lecturing Solnit about how important it was for her to read a book that Solnit had written (and which it turned out he had not read himself-- he had read a book review).

I know that terms change and take on new meanings, and that some people use the term to describe other forms of men explaining things, but I find it very essential to have a word that is specifically about this extremely common behavior.

Men deciding that they know everything and lecturing various people about those subjects whether or not those people want to hear it is annoying and universal, sure. But a random man explaining space to a female astronaut who was posting about her experiences in space is SO MUCH WORSE.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 7:37 AM on October 15, 2017 [16 favorites]


I tell you, brethren and sisteren, that a man can totes mansplain to another man. Just go into a shop and buy something technical. Only this week, I had someone tell me how Ohm's Law works (incorrectly, in every detail) as part of the ritual of trying to buy a new vape when you neither know nor care about whatever hipster bollockry is currently in fashion.

It was actually painful, and not just because I was biting my tongue so hard you could use bits for a tissue section slide. No moving the conversation on, no way to get him even to acknowledge that I had simple requirements that could be plainly stated, and there was no point in trying to well actually him out of it. He was going to try and sell me inappropriate stuff on the back of technobabble while insinuating (no, actually denying) that I might know something about what I was there for.

So, apologies for the times I've done that to people - although I hope that's not often, as explaining stuff is a big part of my work and a big part of that is reading the audience. Which helps in not being a cock, I hope.
posted by Devonian at 7:42 AM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


I tell you, brethren and sisteren, that a man can totes mansplain to another man.

A man can be a dick to another man, but mansplaining is discrete because of the implied power balance with man v. woman. At least this is my feeling on the matter.
posted by sixfootaxolotl at 7:46 AM on October 15, 2017 [19 favorites]


Yeah I have to say this shouldn't be yet again "men do this to other men too." No, they don't, since the phrase is about men doing this to women. That's what the term and the thread are about.
posted by agregoli at 7:49 AM on October 15, 2017 [7 favorites]


I loved the French translation: very elegant. The Finnish is just a literal translation or just using 'mansplain'.

I'm in love with "hepeating" along the same lines.

Allow me to mansplain: hepeating is when a man repeats what a woman had previously stated in the same conversation and he receives credit for the idea/gives validity to the idea by virtue of being a man.

We're terrible and I'm glad we are being called out on our bullshit and made fun of. Sexism, like racism and many other -isms, isn't an incurable disease. It just needs to be recognised, called out and conditioned out of people individually and societally.
posted by slimepuppy at 7:50 AM on October 15, 2017 [9 favorites]


He was going to try and sell me inappropriate stuff on the back of technobabble while insinuating (no, actually denying) that I might know something about what I was there for.

I think the idea is that men have the confidence or implicit social capital to shut someone like that down, whereas women find that difficult, or generally pay a much higher social price for doing so.

But mansplaining between men is a useful concept if it reduces the risk of me behaving like a jerk.
posted by Coventry at 7:53 AM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


women: here is a term that describes a behavior men perpetuate against women
men: NO THAT TOTALLY HAPPENS TO ME TOO, A MAN
women: no, we are specifically talking about a scenario where men do this to women--
men: NO US TOO YES I HAVE EXPERIENCED THIS AS A MAN IT IS THE SAME I GET IT I TOTALLY GET IT, AS LONG AS YOU DISREGARD ALL THE SPECIFIC POWER DYNAMICS YOU ARE DESCRIBING THEN IT TOTALLY ENCAPSULATES MY EXPERIENCES AS WELL, LET ME EXPLAIN TO YOU HOW OUR EXPERIENCES ARE THE SAME, LOL MEN ARE THE WORST AMIRITE
posted by a fiendish thingy at 8:02 AM on October 15, 2017 [54 favorites]


kokaku: i'm a guy - one reason i dislike hanging out with most men is because they, especially in groups, get into mansplaining with each other - it's like watching dominance displays of verbal chest beating and finger pointing with facts

I've noticed that the number of "Well, actually"s in a group of men goes up dramatically when the size of the group goes from size 2 to size 3. Simultaneously, any expression of weakness or tenderness goes dramatically down.

It's a different thing from mansplaining, as a fiendish thingy makes clear, but it does feel like there's an overlap in the social interaction program that gets turned on when "an audience" appears, whether that audience is a third man or any woman.
posted by clawsoon at 8:25 AM on October 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


So, if I see some douchbag Mansplaining something to a woman, and I talk over him, and explain how he's man-splaining to her, that is NOT me mansplaining to him. Got it.

And mind you, going forward if I see any of this, I AM going to explain to the man that mansplaining isn't cool. If anything, at least I'll break their flow. From now on, if there's any verbal dominance displays it's going to be , "That's not cool, bro. UG!"
posted by mikelieman at 8:42 AM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


Mansplaining is not a thing a man can do to another male person

I've got bad news for you, mon ami: I listen to my alliance members in EVE Online, on comms, who are ALL GUYS, mansplain shit to each other ALL THE TIME. I usually bust out of laughing and point out what they're doing.

I like to womansplain the mansplaining.
posted by gsh at 9:22 AM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm not from the U.S. and---how do I say this?

Specific gender structures/concepts get exported to the world from the U.S., including to my own country all the time nowadays. While some of the concepts are immensely helpful, some others are.. less than ideal in term of reflecting actual problems on the ground.

I think mansplaining is one of the latter. Seriously, I've tried to let go of my preconceptions and for 10+ or more times remembered to check whether or not in a group convo that I've been in if there were incidents of mansplaining.

What I found out that it all depends on the context. One cocky friend of mine that majors in communication (male) liked to wrongly explain philosophical concepts.. wrongly. I corrected him a few times, gently, but like - he's kind of an asshole. Most of the time, people---both men and women---are respectful or if it's not a serious conversation, funny and tension-free. I met some people in seminars/workshops that are really -splainy but it's both men and women who acted like that.

Can a concept really be applied when it only applies to a super-minority of cases and might be very culture-specific? In term of introducing something like this, some culture writers are primarily throwing oil into the metaphorical gender relations-fire, doing more harm than good. This is a hot-button term for many people and in Line chats/groups (popular here), younger people are confused because they don't think this is significant enough to merit a term and that it is not a term that is fair to men.

Lest I'm accused of mansplaining mansplaining, I've also talked with vaguely and strongly feminist-identifying women in my social circle (urban, college-educated, liberal) and most of them don't really think that this is a fair term to use. One said that it's intellectually dishonest and lowers the overall discussion/conversation standard and pedestalizes women, as if they can't also be assholes too---and if you get accused of mansplaining, you can't really wriggle your way out. It's a general ad-hominem tool.

To be fair, the term's origin could probably came from how women are socialized---for women in the U.S. at least, what I observed from afar is that it's less socially acceptable to act like a man in a discussion (aka unable to counter response an obnoxious overexplain-y person). But still, that's a speculation.

Feel free to disagree.
posted by tirta-yana at 9:53 AM on October 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


a fiendish thingy, that seems like an unfair reading of what i was saying (since i raised the point) - power dynamics are power dynamics - i agree with you that the consequences are different for women - i was not saying our experiences are the same, only observing that men do this to men too - that the problem seems to be how men learn to communicate - that men might be reached and have lightbulb moments if they realized how they do this and how other men do this
posted by kokaku at 10:00 AM on October 15, 2017


I love the Icelandic word for mansplaining: hrútskýring, a portmanteau of ram (the male sheep), hrútur, and explanation, útskýring. I hope whoever came up with that got a language award or something.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 10:13 AM on October 15, 2017 [10 favorites]


How about this:

Assuming you're an expert, or know more than others, about more things than you actually understand is a failing that mostly affects men in our society because of patriarchy.

When they act that way to other men, it's simple assholery.

When they do it to women, it tends to have an extra, sexist, patronizing and insulting flavor. That's mansplaining.
posted by emjaybee at 10:15 AM on October 15, 2017 [24 favorites]


Part of it I think is this basically universal difficulty with neologisms where as a term gets wider use and disseminates out from the specific point of origin, there's semantic drift and folks will see a term as capturing different things. With mansplaining I think the main point of difference is in the scope of what's being described, even if folks more or less agree on the mechanics.

So you get folks wanting to use it to refer pretty tightly to the specific phenomenon of a man cluelessly and condescending explaining things to a women as a reification of patriarchal power imbalances ("man"-splaining as in this is a thing men do to women that reflects systemic gender role fuckery in society, as a way to discuss those gender dynamics), and you also get some folks wanting to use it to refer more generally to that reflexively-condescendingly-explaining thing as a thing people, typically men, do in conversation period ("man"-splaining as in this generally male-originating kind of rhetorical interaction, as a way to discuss rhetorical interactions for their own sake).

Getting people to universally agree on the scope of that definition is going to be hard because usage drifts and bifurcates as it spreads. Which can be frustrating when two people are having a conversation about what they both think they've got a workable definition for but that definition isn't the same from one to the next.

My personal feeling is that mansplaining as a descriptive term makes more sense in the stricter Solnit-inspired sense of being a commentary about Men Splainin' To Women because its that context in which having a more specific bit of sociological jargon is useful; as folks have said in various ways above, there were already words for "being condescending" or "being a presumptive asshole" for describing the broader-scope conversational phenomena. But I get why, when the term has made the messy cultural expansion from "reference to this specific essay on men-women interactions" to "that word for that thing that guys do in conversation sometimes", there's not a natural consensus about where it does and doesn't apply. Language is a sloppy, living thing, which is part of why we recognize jargon and terms of art as distinct from lay usage.
posted by cortex at 10:23 AM on October 15, 2017 [6 favorites]


When they act that way to other men, it's simple assholery.

I wrote a long comment to this full of examples, then decided that was an irony too far, so I'll go with:

It's not simple assholery; it's kind of a complex tangle of power dynamics, a sort of clueless arrogance, and maybe some Dunning–Kruger action (all of which get worse when gender is added to the mix), so it's a specific assholery that we don't have a good word for, so it's an easy trap for men to ignore the man- part and focus on the -splaining part, especially since that nicely erases the gender element they would prefer not to see.

(I had a lot of trouble with mansplaining when I was first exposed to it because my eldest brother was an epic elderbrothersplainer, and irritated memories of that fed my own sense of injustice rather than my empathy at the injustice directed toward women.)
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:35 AM on October 15, 2017 [4 favorites]


I love the Icelandic word for mansplaining: hrútskýring,

My brief internet search failed to produce a pronunciation sample. Can anyone help, because I want to include this in my vocabulary.
posted by mikelieman at 11:04 AM on October 15, 2017


Feel free to disagree.

Gee, thanks.
posted by elsietheeel at 11:32 AM on October 15, 2017 [5 favorites]


hrútskýring,

My brief internet search failed to produce a pronunciation sample.


I'm not Icelandic, but Googling and a vague understanding of Norwegian pronunciation leads me to believe it's something like 'h'root skreeng'.

But please someone correct me if I'm wrong because I want to know, too!
posted by elsietheeel at 11:35 AM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


Ugh, I forgot to add: none of that is meant to excuse or absolve the act of mansplaining, the idea of mansplaining, or the tendency of men to downplay the "sexism they don't see."
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:36 AM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


i appreciate what's been shared and have a better sense of the nuance of how mansplaining operates for women vs whatever one might call the similar-yet-different power dynamic in male-male interactions
posted by kokaku at 11:57 AM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


(Actually, make that more like skeer, not skree. Hooray, dyslexia!)
posted by elsietheeel at 1:10 PM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


Here's a potential rule of thumb (via a fiendish thingy's comment upthread): Mansplaining when doing it to women, Whitesplaining when doing it to POC, Whitemansplaining when doing it to WOC, Cissplaining when doing it to Non-Cis, and when you do it to persons of your own category OR don't care what they are: just SPLAINING.

And there's a not-too-broad line between MeFi's already-defined "beanplating" and Splaining.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:01 PM on October 15, 2017


Speaking of mansplaining...

A couple months ago I was sitting in class and the air conditioning was a bit too high and I said I was cold. A guy in class said to me, “Here’s what you should do. When you’re at home put a sweater in your bag and bring it with you every day. Then when you get cold you can put it on.”

I truly thought he was joking so was chuckling a little, but he kept a completely straight face. I was so shocked I couldn’t think of a comeback.

I got the perfect retort today though:

“Tell him that when he's at home, he should put a mirror in his bag and bring it every day. Then when he feels like being an asshole, he can pull it out and talk to someone who actually cares.”
posted by bendy at 2:55 PM on October 15, 2017 [11 favorites]


But please someone correct me if I'm wrong because I want to know, too!

Pretty much as you wrote it. It's "HROOT-skee-ring", with a rolled R. Been here 18 years and the hr- pronunciation is still a struggle.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 2:56 PM on October 15, 2017 [5 favorites]


A friend recently mansplained to me that my ex-husband is an asshole. I'm okay with that.
posted by theora55 at 6:38 PM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


Pretty much as you wrote it. It's "HROOT-skee-ring", with a rolled R. Been here 18 years and the hr- pronunciation is still a struggle.

THANK YOU! ( I love you all! ) ( Is there ANYTHING the MeFi Hive Mind doesn't know??? )
posted by mikelieman at 6:58 PM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


So here's the first time I saw 'mansplaining' used as a word. (I think this is the first time it turned up on the internet - it definitely predates Solnit's essay, which iirc doesn't use the word but explains the phenomenon so well it's been bound up with it.) It was in a mostly-female fandom drama discussion community called fandom_wank. This is fandom in the sense of fanfiction and related discussion, back in the LiveJournal days, so it might not have been a blip on your radar if you weren't part of that scene but this was a huge and popular shared interest 10-15 years ago.

Anyway, at the time the TV drama show Supernatural had just started its third season. There was some concern among fans that it had taken a worrying direction around women, with several female characters getting written out and the main (male) characters starting to use a lot more gendered insults - "bitch" in particular. Someone collected a list of the number of times the two main characters used "bitch", "slut", "whore" etc in the most recent season compared to previous seasons. So there was a lot of debate in the fandom community, which again was mostly female, about this list, about underlying misogyny here and indeed underlying misogyny in the fandom itself.

And then along came this man who wasn't part of the community but posted on fandom_wank about how much everyone was wrong about that list. It is hard to express just how tonally deaf this was, in about every possible conceivable way - beginning with "Man here!", zero background knowledge of what was going on, massive blocks of text on a platform that was usually pithy one-liners, a patronising explanation about how this list is trying to use statistics you see and unless you have qualifications in statistics you don't realise that they aren't your friend, let me explain why to you! Also the list doesn't show the context of every time Dean Winchester called someone a bitch so how can we really know if it was a bad thing, hey? Also you can't count that one as "slut" because he said "slutty" and that's not misogynistic at all, it's just a description. And so on. And so on. And so on.

I'm sure in a more mixed community this would have launched a tortuous and patient debate about, I don't know, confidence intervals and actually gosh you know some women do sort of feel like "slutty" is maybe kind of harsh, or something. As it was, he just got laughed at. "OMG it's a real live man, everybody shut up and listen!" "Tell us, helpful dude, is your mother a whore or is she merely whore-ish?" And of course: "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MANSPLAINING THAT FOR US!"

So sure maybe there's discussions to be had about the deeper meaning of the term mansplaining and how it can or can't be universalised, or whatever, but to me its main benefit is and forever will be a way to just not have to patiently humour the bullshit.
posted by Catseye at 1:32 AM on October 16, 2017 [9 favorites]


Mod note: Another comment removed. larry_darrell, I'm not sure why I need to say this explicitly still two days and multiple deletions later, but you are interacting badly with this thread and need to leave it alone.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:53 AM on October 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


Saying men can mansplain to other men is just one more way for men to take a specifically gendered phenomenon where men patronize and condescend to women, and turn it into something that Happens To Men Too!!! Men Are Hurt By This Too!!!

If you’re totally okay with that, then by all means, use the word incorrectly and continue to devalue all female experiences to the point where they don’t exist as problems experienced by women.
posted by tzikeh at 9:54 AM on October 16, 2017 [10 favorites]


tfw a buzzfeed listicle has one of your tweets in the number 1 spot.

(I had interacted positively and [I hope] supportively with Brianna multiple times while she was dealing with GamerGate shit and went for an easy joke when I saw the possibility [because jokes to ease tension have always been my raison d'etre]. She, explicitly in a later tweet, appreciated the joke and understood where it had come from. I, in turn, got my own instruction on exactly how wide-spread the audience can be when making jokes.)
posted by hanov3r at 11:33 AM on October 16, 2017 [3 favorites]


TIL 'mecspliquer'. Heh.
posted by homunculus at 4:41 PM on October 16, 2017


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