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'''Mansplaining''' is a ] of the words ''man'' and ''explaining'', coined around 2008-09 to describe a social phenomenon commonly experienced by women, whereby a man who describes some topic to a woman, habitually does so in a ] and ] manner, perhaps unwittingly, and often despite having limited knowledge himself, because of the ] and ] that a woman needs matters explained much more simply or must have far less background or technical grasp and knowledge than a man would.<ref>{{Cite news|title = VIEWPOINT: Why We Need To Stop 'Mansplaining'|date = 3 March 2013|url = http://thinkprogress.org/media/2013/03/03/1653271/viewpoint-mansplaining/|last = Strasser|first = Annie-Rose|work = ]|accessdate = 20 August 2013}}</ref> '''Mansplaining''' is a ] of the words ''man'' and ''explaining'', coined around 2008-09 to describe a social phenomenon commonly experienced{{Citation needed}} by women, whereby a man who describes some topic to a woman, habitually does so in a ] and ] manner, perhaps unwittingly, and often despite having limited knowledge himself, because of the ] and ] that a woman needs matters explained much more simply or must have far less background or technical grasp and knowledge than a man would.<ref>{{Cite news|title = VIEWPOINT: Why We Need To Stop 'Mansplaining'|date = 3 March 2013|url = http://thinkprogress.org/media/2013/03/03/1653271/viewpoint-mansplaining/|last = Strasser|first = Annie-Rose|work = ]|accessdate = 20 August 2013}}</ref>


Mansplaining also covers a ] mix of mannerisms in which a speaker's reduced respect for the stance of a listener, or a person being discussed, appears to have little reason behind it other than the speaker's assumption that the listener or subject - being female - is not expected to have the same capacity to understand as a male would, or their views are not given the same respect a male's would be given. It also covers situations where it appears a person is using their conversation primarily for the purpose of self-aggrandizement, by ] to a presumed less capable female listener in order to appear knowledgeable by comparison. Mansplaining also covers a ] mix of mannerisms in which a speaker's reduced respect for the stance of a listener, or a person being discussed, appears to have little reason behind it other than the speaker's assumption that the listener or subject - being female - is not expected to have the same capacity to understand as a male would, or their views are not given the same respect a male's would be given. It also covers situations where it appears a person is using their conversation primarily for the purpose of self-aggrandizement, by ] to a presumed less capable female listener in order to appear knowledgeable by comparison.{{Cn}}


The term quickly gained wide recognition,<ref name="Atlantic" /> and in 2010, '']'' named it as one of its "]."<ref>{{cite news|title = The Words of the Year|date = 18 December 2010|url = http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/weekinreview/19sifton.html|last = Sifton |first2= Grant |last2= Barrett|first = Sam|newspaper = ]|accessdate = 20 August 2013}}</ref> The term quickly gained wide recognition,<ref name="Atlantic" /> and in 2010, '']'' named it as one of its "]."<ref>{{cite news|title = The Words of the Year|date = 18 December 2010|url = http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/weekinreview/19sifton.html|last = Sifton |first2= Grant |last2= Barrett|first = Sam|newspaper = ]|accessdate = 20 August 2013}}</ref>
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The word is thought to have been first used in 2008 or 2009,<ref>{{Cite news|title = The Art of Mansplaining|date = |url = http://www.nationinstitute.org/blog/nationbooks/3059/the_art_of_mansplaining|last = Robinson|first = Anna|newspaper = ]|accessdate = 20 August 2013}}</ref> shortly after ] author ] published an April 2008 blog post titled "Men Explain Things to Me; Facts Didn't Get in Their Way.". In it, she did not use the word ''mansplaining'', but defined the phenomenon as "something every woman knows". Her post involved the story of a man she met at a party, who began to ]ally describe to her a recent "''very important''" book (which it transpired he himself had not read, but had read about in a review). The man needed to be told by her accompanying friend three or four times that Solnit was in fact the author of the book concerned, before actually paying attention to and absorbing the information that the woman he was trying to explain the significance of the book to, was in fact the author. The word is thought to have been first used in 2008 or 2009,<ref>{{Cite news|title = The Art of Mansplaining|date = |url = http://www.nationinstitute.org/blog/nationbooks/3059/the_art_of_mansplaining|last = Robinson|first = Anna|newspaper = ]|accessdate = 20 August 2013}}</ref> shortly after ] author ] published an April 2008 blog post titled "Men Explain Things to Me; Facts Didn't Get in Their Way.". In it, she did not use the word ''mansplaining'', but defined the phenomenon as "something every woman knows". Her post involved the story of a man she met at a party, who began to ]ally describe to her a recent "''very important''" book (which it transpired he himself had not read, but had read about in a review). The man needed to be told by her accompanying friend three or four times that Solnit was in fact the author of the book concerned, before actually paying attention to and absorbing the information that the woman he was trying to explain the significance of the book to, was in fact the author.


Rebecca Solnit later published ], a collection of seven essays surrounding this theme. Rebecca Solnit later published ], a collection of seven essays surrounding this theme.


Solnit's original essay went further, to cover the consequences of this ], drawing attention to its effect in creating a ] and disempowerment:<ref name="essay2008"> - April 13 2008, essay, ]</ref> Re Solnit's original essay went further, to cover the consequences of this ], drawing attention to its effect in creating a ] and disempowerment:<ref name="essay2008"> - April 13 2008, essay, ]</ref> Re

Revision as of 14:40, 23 October 2014

Mansplaining is a portmanteau of the words man and explaining, coined around 2008-09 to describe a social phenomenon commonly experienced by women, whereby a man who describes some topic to a woman, habitually does so in a patronizing and condescending manner, perhaps unwittingly, and often despite having limited knowledge himself, because of the gender assumption and stereotype that a woman needs matters explained much more simply or must have far less background or technical grasp and knowledge than a man would.

Mansplaining also covers a heterogeneous mix of mannerisms in which a speaker's reduced respect for the stance of a listener, or a person being discussed, appears to have little reason behind it other than the speaker's assumption that the listener or subject - being female - is not expected to have the same capacity to understand as a male would, or their views are not given the same respect a male's would be given. It also covers situations where it appears a person is using their conversation primarily for the purpose of self-aggrandizement, by holding forth to a presumed less capable female listener in order to appear knowledgeable by comparison.

The term quickly gained wide recognition, and in 2010, The New York Times named it as one of its "Words of the Year."

Rebecca Solnit's original essay took the idea further than the bare concept of mansplaining, to cover its consequences, which she describes as covering many situations where women, whether members of the public or professionals and experts within some area, are routinely seen or treated as less credible than men, or as needing a man to validate their testimony or insights, stating that this is one symptom of a widespread behavior that "keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence".

Mansplaining differs somewhat from many other forms of condescension since it is specifically a gender-related form of condescension, considered very widespread, and is rooted in a sexist assumption which assumes that a man will normally be more knowledgeable, or more capable of understanding many matters, than a woman.

History

The word is thought to have been first used in 2008 or 2009, shortly after San Francisco author Rebecca Solnit published an April 2008 blog post titled "Men Explain Things to Me; Facts Didn't Get in Their Way.". In it, she did not use the word mansplaining, but defined the phenomenon as "something every woman knows". Her post involved the story of a man she met at a party, who began to didactically describe to her a recent "very important" book (which it transpired he himself had not read, but had read about in a review). The man needed to be told by her accompanying friend three or four times that Solnit was in fact the author of the book concerned, before actually paying attention to and absorbing the information that the woman he was trying to explain the significance of the book to, was in fact the author.

Rebecca Solnit later published Men Explain Things to Me, a collection of seven essays surrounding this theme.

Solnit's original essay went further, to cover the consequences of this gendered behavior, drawing attention to its effect in creating a conspiracy of silence and disempowerment: Re

Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It's the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence.

More extreme versions of our situation exist in, for example, those Middle Eastern countries where women's testimony has no legal standing; so that a woman can't testify that she was raped without a male witness to counter the male rapist. Which there rarely is.

Credibility is a basic survival tool. When I was very young and just beginning to get what feminism was about and why it was necessary, I had a boyfriend whose uncle was a nuclear physicist. One Christmas, he was telling -- as though it were a light and amusing subject -- how a neighbor's wife in his suburban bomb-making community had come running out of her house naked in the middle of the night screaming that her husband was trying to kill her. How, I asked, did you know that he wasn't trying to kill her? He explained, patiently, that they were respectable middle-class people. Therefore, her-husband-trying-to-kill-her was simply not a credible explanation for her fleeing the house yelling that her husband was trying to kill her. That she was crazy, on the other hand....

Even getting a restraining order -- a fairly new legal tool -- requires acquiring the credibility to convince the courts that some guy is a menace and then getting the cops to enforce it. Restraining orders often don't work anyway. Violence is one way to silence people, to deny their voice and their credibility, to assert your right to control over their right to exist. About three women a day are murdered by spouses or ex-spouses in this country. It's one of the main causes of death in pregnant women in the U.S. At the heart of the struggle of feminism to give rape, date rape, marital rape, domestic violence, and workplace sexual harassment legal standing as crimes has been the necessity of making women credible and audible.

- Men Explain Things to Me; Facts Didn't Get in Their Way, Rebecca Solnit, April 13 2008

A month later the word mansplaining appeared in a comment on the social network LiveJournal, and its usage has grown since.

Since 2010, journalists have described U.S. Republican politicians including then-presidential nominee Mitt Romney, then-vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan and Governor of Texas Rick Perry, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell, and various characters on the HBO drama series The Newsroom as mansplainers.

Controversy

There has been disagreement among women regarding the usefulness of the term. Given its gender-specific nature and negative connotation, the word has been described by Lesley Kinzel as being inherently biased, essentialist, dismissive, and a double standard. Annie-Rose Strasser states that that the term is too easily misunderstood and misappropriated, which makes it counterproductive in calling out problematic behaviour. She cites the coinage of the term "womansplaining" to describe a woman interacting with someone in a condescending manner as evidence of this misappropriation.

See also

References

  1. Strasser, Annie-Rose (3 March 2013). "VIEWPOINT: Why We Need To Stop 'Mansplaining'". ThinkProgress. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  2. ^ Rothman, Lily (1 November 2012). "A Cultural History of Mansplaining". The Atlantic. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  3. Sifton, Sam; Barrett, Grant (18 December 2010). "The Words of the Year". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  4. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118555/rebecca-solnits-men-explain-things-me-scourge-mansplaining
  5. http://www.culturalweekly.com/rebecca-solnits-men-explain-things/
  6. Jaschik, Scott (16 October 2012). "Calling Out Academic 'Mansplaining'". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  7. Robinson, Anna. "The Art of Mansplaining". The Nation Institute. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  8. ^ Men Explain Things to Me; Facts Didn't Get in Their Way - April 13 2008, essay, Rebecca Solnit
  9. Cogan, Marin (1 August 2012). "The Mittsplainer: An Alternate Theory of Mitt Romney's Gaffes". GQ. Retrieved 20 August 2012.
  10. Stoeffel, Kat (12 October 2012). "Mansplaining Paul Ryan Meme Came True". New York. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  11. Weigel, David (27 June 2013). "Mansplaining the Mansplainer: Rick Perry's Accidental Abortion Honesty". Slate. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  12. Ioffe, Julia (8 August 2013). "Dear Lawrence O'Donnell, Don't Mansplain to Me About Russia". The New Republic. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  13. Stuever, Hank (11 July 2013). "'The Newsroom' vs. 'Honey Boo Boo': Which one really gives us more to think about?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  14. Weigel, David (5 August 2013). "Trying to Tolerate The Newsroom, Week Four". Slate. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  15. Greenwald, Andy (16 July 2013). "Death by Newsroom". Grantland. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  16. Kinzel, Lesley (16 August 2012). "Why You'll Never Hear Me Use the Term 'Mansplain'". XoJane. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  17. Strasser, Annie-Rose (3 March 2013). "Why We Need to Stop 'Mansplaining'". ThinkProgress. Retrieved 22 August 2013.

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