Mansplanations
I was over at Historiann’s tonight, checking to see what new delights lurked in her latest blog posts and what new comments had been added to earlier posts. Just the other day, she’d posted a wonderfully skewering critique of a weekend NYT article that raised a horrific social panic about what are all these young college women going to do for dates and boyfriends if girls outnumber boys on campus.
I noticed that a mansplanation had made its way into the comments there. Oh, boy. Because, you know, we weren’t interrogating the problem from the (obviously!) only one important angle: how this feminization of the B.A. would affect educated women in Afghanistan. Silly us! We obviously needed a mansplaining or two, now, didn’t we?
You all know what mansplanations are, don’t you? A mansplanation isn’t any explanation that a man offers, but it’s the particular moment when a man corrects a woman on something about which she has first-hand experience or expertise in, say. Or when he comes in to say “You women, you’re doing this all wrong!”
Do you want more? Of course you do! Scienceblogger Zuska inspired a torrent of examples by inviting others to share their experiences in You may be a mansplainer if. . . .. Or you can read Rebecca Solnit’s bemusing and occasionally disturbing essay: “Men Explain Things to Me”.
I’ll wrap up this delving into the mystifying world of mansplanation with a video clip of the inestimable Babe Bennett (Cathy Jones) from This Hour Has 22 Minutes who gives us hope that someday all men might be able to accept a gal with gumption. Faint hope, but still. . . .
Thanks, Janice! Mansplainers will never cease in their war against women writers and thinkers.
I love the Solnit essay. I think it was something I posted about early on in my blogging career. It’s a classic of the feminist blogoverse.
You’re welcome and thanks so much for sparking the original discussion!
Solnit’s essay resonates painfully well. I remember reading it soon after the initial publication and thinking “Oh, yeah, I’ve seen that more than once!”
Nothing to do with this article, but I only have one class all year with another female in it. Considering I take such a wide range of classes (from Canadian history to Eastern European Politics) it is really strange.
Interesting! I’m assuming that the one other woman is NOT in the Eastern European Politics course just because of the ways I’ve seen the gender breakdowns fall out on previous occasions. Am I right?