Dear Men: Please Stop Mansplaining

Dear men,

Please stop mansplaining.

Sincerely,

Women.

You may or may not be familiar with the term “mansplaining”. It is a term that is used to describe when a man explains something to someone, typically a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing. Mansplaining happens more often than not and this is due to the fact that most men don’t recognize the effects this act has on a woman. As a society, we hardly ever discuss mansplaining- what is means to act upon it as well as the resulting outcome.

As a woman, I have struggled my whole life trying to figure out why men feel the need to explain every little thing to women, assuming that we don’t have knowledge in a particular subject. Due to the fact that mansplaining isn’t really brought up in conversations, men don’t see it as a negative action. Maybe if we talked about the term more, men would begin to wrap their brain around why women feel belittled by this very common action.

For example, a couple is at dinner on a date. They are having a great conversation over a glass of Pinot Noir about their careers. The man begins to explain what he does for work and instead of just explaining his occupation, he says, “I am the CEO of Lloyd Bank which mean that I am the Chief Executive officer of the company.” In this scenario, the man is automatically assuming that the woman has no prior knowledge about CEO’s and what that job title entails and stands for. This leaves the woman feeling unimportant.

Instead of mansplaining, the man could have just not explained what a CEO is unless the woman asked him to explain it to her. One of the worst feelings a woman can have is feeling like she isn’t equally as intelligent as her partner. Just because we are a different gender does not mean that we are any less intelligent as the male species. The only way to end mansplaining is to get to the root reason of why men act upon it.

In the article Mansplaining 101 for men: Why we do it, written by Mark Greene, he explains the reasoning behind the term. He says, “It’s not the result of men believing we know everything, it’s our collective fear that we will fail to give that impression and be shamed or lose status. It comes from the transactional nature of male relationships. It’s LITERALLY why we don’t ask for directions. We’ve been shamed and conditioned into believing we must pretend we already know every damn thing.”

It is not that men necessarily want to tear women down and make them feel less intelligent, it just so happens to be the way men were brought up. They were taught to be emotionally detached, strong, and superior. They feel pressured to have to know everything about anything. If our society stops putting so much pressure on boys and men to be all of these things, then maybe the male species won’t feel as inclined to always be right; this could possibly end mansplaining for good.

So men, the next time you are having a conversation with a woman, remember that she has a brain too and she may know more about the topic you both are discussing than you do. Before you cut her down by explaining something that she may ready know, just talk about the subject as if she has prior knowledge on it. I promise you that your date will go much smoother than if you were to mansplain.