EXCUSE ME, WHO ASKED YOU?

Sir,

I am generally an open person, I love striking up a conversation wherever I am. I could be at a wedding and I’ll ask the person next to me if they think they will ever get married and why; or I could ask for their opinion on gender roles.

I love talking, and a very good, intellectually stimulating conversation helps me grow, it helps me see how other people think and view the world and its issues.

However, there is one trend I have noticed among many men who I’ve engaged with, whether directly or indirectly, and that is – they tend to do a great deal of mansplaining!

‘Mansplaining’ is defined as the instance when a man condescendingly lectures a woman on the basics of a topic about which he knows very little, under the mistaken assumption that she knows even less.
Ironically, the topic is usually one where the woman has greater chances of having experienced it first-hand. Any woman can tell you a story or two about how she tried to relate her experiences, and most likely a man started telling her what she already knew.

Talk to any woman, and they’ll tell you this phenomenon is way too real. This all-too-typical experience of being unthinkingly talked down to teaches women to doubt themselves and exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.

One of the characteristics of mansplaining is that the mansplainer is rarely really hearing what the woman is saying when she speaks. He may be listening, but his focus is less on taking in what she is saying to him, it is more on how he can shape his next sentence to prove his point.

A mansplainer uses a woman’s turn to talk and to think about how he can better arrange his arguments for his next bombardment.
If it is a written conversation, he quickly scans through the words without understanding, and then starts explaining a woman’s experience to her.

Mansplaining at its heart is about the cocksureness of the ignorant, presuming that the actual truth matters less than the calm confidence with which a man presents his version of the facts.

Mansplaining isn’t just guys explaining things. It is men explaining stuff to women specifically because they assume - in the context of a patriarchal culture, where the collective and individual voices of men are elevated above the collective and individual voices of women - that they know more by mere virtue of being male. By this, I am not saying women aren’t guilty of providing this same brand of helpful advice.
It’s just extra insulting when it comes from somebody who has never and will never experience what it’s like to be on the receiving end.

Mbuli N

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