Women On Twitter Shared The Dumbest Ways They’ve Been Mansplained. Wow, Some Men Are Really Clueless
The most well-intentioned men in our lives think that it’s their responsibility to educate the women in their lives about themselves, their bodies, how the world functions, and anything at all. Some men look down on women, disrespect them more obviously and do it to feel superior. Some guys, on the other hand, feel like they are doing it out of care and concern, while totally ridiculing our intellect. Like this guy who often came to me with current events that I have already written on earlier that day. And these were like basic, trending events that most people would know of. Especially someone who gets paid to be on top of things and write about it. He once tried to explain to me what the UN is and I was agitated, to say the least. But it’s the same guy who picked out vegetarian options for me at dinner (he is a non-vegetarian) without even checking with me. I understand he means well but hello, that’s not care, that’s an insult.
Mansplaining has been around since forever, and many men do it without realising they are even doing it. Actually, that’s sorta how it works. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, mansplaining is “to explain something to someone, typically a man to woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing.” It probably comes from how they have been raised. They’ve grown up with mothers who were preoccupied with domestic duties and fathers who’d probably be responsible for bringing in knowledge. But women today have gained knowledge and exposure to the world. We know it, dude. If you love educating women then invest in the education of the girl child or go become a teacher or whatever. This is annoying AF. The worst of all the mansplainers though, are those who try to educate you on what you definitely have more knowledge than he does. Imagine a guy telling a psychiatrist what Asperger’s Syndrome is. Or a man teaching a woman about her period.
what’s the dumbest thing that’s ever been mansplained to you?
mine is one time I was driving and my husband let me know our home was “up ahead on the left.”
— Priscilla (@itsPKav) August 1, 2020
Recently, a woman asked on Twitter, “What’s the dumbest thing that’s ever been mansplained to you?” She added, “mine is one time I was driving and my husband let me know our home was “up ahead on the left.” Tweets started pouring in as women shared how they’ve been mansplained in the most ridiculous ways. It is funny how as women when we read those tweets, we’re so baffled that the men doing the deed are so oblivious to how hideous they sound.
My fav was when a man tried to use news coverage to tell me what I clearly didn’t know, but then sent me an article I wrote. https://t.co/3VMYQKj9Lg
— Erin Robinson (@ImErinRobinson) August 2, 2020
“My boyfriend tried to explain me the difference between lab glassware and regular glassware. (Lab glassware is made from borosilicate glass and more resistant to sudden temperature changes blabla..) My job involves lab work. He works in IT,” a woman shared her experience. Obviously, a woman would not know anything about lab work. It’s not like she’s a pro or whatever. Dear men, this is literally mansplaining taken too far. There’s no redemption for this!
How it feels to be pregnant …
While being 8 months pregnant https://t.co/i3ddvaQZf6
— Sarah Maddox (@Sarahmariie44) August 2, 2020
Another lady shared how her husband thought he knew more about sanitary pads than his wife, pad manufacturers, and scientists. “Just this morning my husband told me it was foolish to have different-sized pads, they all do the same thing just streamline for efficiency,” she wrote. Just wow!
A guy actually mansplained mansplaining to me as I was mid conversation about it because someone else asked me what it was. The person who asked was like “That! That’s mansplaining!” https://t.co/iXVKPPM6gi
— kristen ☁️ (@netsir_k) August 2, 2020
one time some guy tried to mansplain to me that toxic masculinity wasn’t real and THEN told me that toxic masculinity was allowing men to he feminine?️??️ https://t.co/SbQQC8dkKJ
— ???? (@axolotlhorns) August 3, 2020
.Okay, so we are just a bunch of unicorns high on some potent shit that we imagined all the toxic masculinity for ages. Nice, slow claps for this gentleman. What would have we done without this enlightener?
A guy just spent a full minute mansplaining how to open the gate I was in front. It was locked. Gotta love that his first thought was that I was unaware of how to open it, not that it was locked. #Mansplaining
— Angelica Nyqvist (@Angeschka) August 3, 2020
During my first year of grad school, someone in my cohort explained how to make a window on my computer bigger. https://t.co/NEOZN5lNeU
— Beej ? (@brittjohnson013) August 2, 2020
And then we have men who think women are so dumb that we can’t even perform basic functions without male guidance. A woman shared, “During my first year of grad school, someone in my cohort explained how to make a window on my computer bigger.”
Congratulations, men on being so adamant on trying to exert your assumption of being of higher intellect than women, so much so that the word has been declared as word of the year by several publications. I am glad it is a part of the oxford dictionary too; unlike some men who refuse to believe in this, our beloved dictionary does.
I have had more than one male colleague sincerely ask whether a certain behavior is mansplaining. Since apparently this is hard to figure out, I made one of them a chart. pic.twitter.com/7DZ1RTrB3R
— Kim Goodwin (@kimgoodwin) July 19, 2018
Two years ago, Kim Goodwin, a renowned author tweeted a simple guide for men to consciously stop mansplaining, considering it is usually unintentional. Several men would like to not appear like an inflated version of their dicks and hence, they would genuinely want to fix this issue. He shared a chart to explain things. All in all, from that Twitter thread that went viral, one could conclude that it’s better to not presume that you have more knowledge on a subject than a woman does. It’s probably better to ask if they know about this before taking time and effort into explaining the whole idea. Do not do it for the most obvious things on the planet, like the existence of the UN or how to maximize a window, unless you’re talking to a 5-year-old. Also, if a woman is an expert on something, do not go on to explain her own area of expertise in it, especially if you are nowhere close to being a veteran in the same subject.
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Although I would like to point out that women do it too. If I had a dime for each time I met a woman who explained basic concepts like they have gained exclusive knowledge of it through years of meditation, I may not be rich but I’d still have some money. Yes, men do it more, because this is a way of communication that exerts superiority over the other person and men like to do it with women. I guess it’s time to learn manners and behaviour in school. Why couldn’t they introduce effective communication as a subject in the education reform and make mansplaining a chapter mandatory for all?
