this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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"Mansplaining" is sexist. It's the equivalent of saying women are airheads, or gossips, or talk too much.
Is each man expected to just... Assume that everyone else shares their exact knowledge? Would such an assumption not therefore eliminate most communication entirely?
Or what if we decided to divide up groups by something other than gender. Would it be okay to say "asiansplaining" or "jewsplaining" or "gaysplaoning"?
Can a trans-man mansplaining? Can a trans-woman mansplain? Is there a separate category of "transplaining"?
Here's an example of "mansplaining": I've been beekeeping for close to ten years. A gentleman joined our group recently who has had maybe a few months' experience. Wearing a brand new bee suit and gloves, he proceeded to tell me how to carry out a basic hive inspection. He was not assuming I shared his exact knowledge, he was assuming I knew even less than him.
The term mansplaining came about because it encapsulates a very common scenario. I know a few chaps who constantly explain stuff to me that I know a lot more about than they do, and in a very condescending way. One old codger even patted me on the head and said, "A young thing like you wouldn't know about MS-DOS." I bought my first computer in 1984.
I haven't found mansplaining as prevalent among young men, I must say. They seem more open and egalitarian in their approach, more respectful. Though a friend told me, "It's because you remind them of their granny."
You're right. The behavior really should be called "non-consensual info-dumping". Furthermore, people should ask first and only proceed to 'splain away if emphatic consent is given.
That's the key. I LOVE explaining things I'm passionate about but it's rude to just go wild on people, so I've developed a process to gauge familiarity and interest.
So when my ex-husband first went to vet tech school they, at some point, learned about menstruation. He proceeded to explain to me, a middle aged woman, how periods work, lol.
So your ex-husband was an asshole. Cool story, but the world is full of condescending assholes of all kinds and polite people of all kinds.
Right, just an example of the behavior of note in action. Correct, he was also a condescending asshole. I think those are prerequisites.
That's great input! Good job pete!
I've already heard the term "gaysplaining" unironically more than once in the bisexual sphere to call out gay people that try to gaslight bi people into thinking that they're not really bi.
Sounds like a conversation that devolved into generalization and prejudice, treating each other as symbols of their identifies rather than individuals.
I'm sure it happens. Tons of bigoted shit happens. That doesn't make it okay.
As we all know, a bi person dating a different gender than themselves is just confused and straight, while a bi person dating their own gender is pretending to be gay to fit into LGBTQ spaces. /s
Dude ngl so I was accused of mansplaining by an ex while explaining some technical shit I was talking about and I knew she didn't know, claiming she did in fact know..
And that's exactly what I did, upon her request. I stopped explaining technical terms when talking about something assuming she'll just know what a buffer tube and an H3 weight are. Turns out that made her "feel stupid" which of course wasn't my intention, I intended to both A) comply with her literal request as per respecting boundaries, and B) hope she'd see just how ineffective of a system that is for communication. Turns out I was the asshole for doing as she asked, who knew. She threatened to shoot me (she wasn't gonna do shit but still threatening to isn't exactly "chill") when we broke up for the crime of checks notes spending my own money legally, so I'm sure I was the problem lol.
There's not much of a point to that story really other than I enjoy telling it but I rarely get to since it's rarely relevant, and to say don't bother assuming everyone knows things, they might just hate that too lol. Danged if ya do danged if ya don't, I'm royally danged.
"Mansplaining" is describing something sexist. It describes a real phenomenon that is necessarily gendered.
It's not sexist for the same reason terms like "anti-semitism" or "gay bashing" aren't prejudiced. They're descriptive of a real thing that happens.
Terminology like this can help women navigate problems that men don't have. If you don't see the value in it, maybe that's because you've never experienced that problem.
I don't know...my wife wifesplains things to me...assuming I'm a toddler and I'm not loading the dishwasher optimally; despite me knowing how to run computational fluid dynamics software and being aware of water flow optimiztion. 😀
That must be really frustrating.
Bit of a difference between "mansplaining" and the other terms in that the other terms mention the target of the action, leaving the actor ambiguous. Anyone could be anti-semitic or bash gay people. Mansplaining is a term specifically coined to say that only men can perform condescending infodumps. What's worse, nowadays it's often used just for men explaining things they're not sure if the other person knows. Some of us are also neurodivergent and have trouble picking up even fairly obvious social cues. I know it's a problem for me with ADHD and I know there's also "tism infodumps". Both disorders affect women too (and ADHD in women is underdiagnosed), but I've never heard "womansplaining" used as a term, nor do I think it would be appropriate. It'd be a hella sexist term.
I'm sure there's quite a few men out there who legitimately are so condescending, they feel they have to explain basic things to "dumb women". But I'm willing to bet most cases of "mansplaining" are some guy being an idiot and missing hints from the other party in the conversation, as well as just misjudging what is common knowledge and what isn't.
It doesn't help that women are just more polite and more likely to let you finish talking even when they know everything lol
I was agreeing with you sooo heavily until this last paragraph. This is a biased generalization of women, and arguably an implied contrast to men.
Maybe it's just the people I know? Could even just be the upbringing in a formerly soviet nation, it used to be pretty socially conservative in many ways here. Younger people are starting to break out of that pattern luckily. All I know is, in my generation and older ones, on average, guys tend to be more loud and in your face, more likely to interrupt you while talking.
If you're a man, who are you to invalidate the experiences of women like that?
If someone overuses the term and accuses someone of mansplaining when that's not what they're doing, by all means call it out. I've been unfairly accused of mansplaining before. But that had nothing to do with the word itself and everything to do with the person who said it. Not having access to that word wouldn't have made them more reasonable.
Meanwhile the word describes an experience that you have never had, and you're sitting here saying that most of the people who have had it actually haven't. That's kind of fucked up, dude. Take a step back.
The term literally is sexist because it implies it's only bad when men do it. These days it's used to describe any time a man explains anything. It's lost any meaning it may have had originally.
White knightism is sexism in its own right too, because it brings to the table the assumption that women are weaker and need protection, thus not equal to men,
Because you seem to have missed it:
It's describing something that is really happening.
There is a systemic bias that exists where men treat women this way. It's a problem that these women have to deal with. Trust in the experience of people who are actually in this situation instead of trying to invalidate them to feed your need to win arguments on the internet.
I never said it doesn't happen. I said it's overblown.
Online, literally anything a man has ever said seems to be described as mansplaining now. Offline, I've barely heard anyone complain about it - only talking about car mechanics I believe. And I've got some people in my circles who are pretty vocal about gender dynamics issues.
👍
Just because something happens doesn't make it okay to generalize that behavior across an entire identity.
"Mansplaining" is a pretty mild example but we can look at other more extreme ones. One of the most classic is racists who love to say "Do you know 50% of crime is committed by 13% of the population?", and use that as justification to the idea that black people are inherently more likely to be criminals. And they may occasionally walk it back and try to say shit like "not you, you're one of the good ones".
Or it's like someone who feels as though they got taken advantage of in a business deal saying they got "jew'd". And then trying to say "well no I'm not antisemitic, but I've personally seen and heard of Jews conducting business unfairly. And it's common enough that the term has arisen, so it's gotta be somewhat true. And if you are a Jew who conducts business fairly then I'm not talking about you". If you encountered someone trying to say that, you would be quite correct to respond by saying "wow that's actually really fucking antisemitic". And this is the exact same thing you are trying to argue with the word "mansplaining".
Not gonna lie, I had no idea until this post that "mansplaining" was strictly considered male behavior. I've had women do the same thing when I'm in spaces or situations that are traditionally female dominated, and figured that "mansplaining" was the appropriate descriptor for that. TIL.
And yes, women can mansplain
Nope