David Mitchell says the term ‘mansplaining’ is unfair

31 comments

1. It is just a conversation as he says, but let’s not beat around the bush, it is purely sexism.

   Not so long ago, someone in our local Facebook group had someone elses parcel.

   I wrote “Have you had a look to find the address and pop it round? This is what I do when I get someone elses parcel”.

   The first response from the poster was “Yeah, no thank you for the mansplaining please”.

   I feel I would have been banned from the group if the roles were reversed and I responded to a woman with “I don’t need advice from a woman”.

2. And he’d be correct. It’s usually used in an attempt to shut down male opinions when operating under the arrogant assumption that a man couldn’t possibly know more about something than a woman does.

3. Am I going to have to mansplain to him what mansplaining is?

4. He’s got the definition of mansplaining wrong but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone use the word correctly for years (‘gaslight’ has fast gone the same way) so it does feel pretty pointless now.

5. I personally find a lot of women use the word when a man explains anything, condescending or not. The term is so overused.

   I’ve even been told I’m mansplaining when I’ve literally been asked to explain something.

6. I find a lot of women misunderstand the term “mansplaining”.

   I often have to describe what it means to them in great detail.

7. Not sure if this is related but I have noticed that some women really hate any form of help from a man, they seem to assume they’re being treated different. What they don’t realise is that most men help each other out all the time, give each other a hand up, hold a ladder, help lifting something heavy. I’ve been in the fire service and it was certainly true there.

8. Terms like this often have a place but, given how stupid the average person is, when they’re taken up en masse they’re rarely actually used when it’s warranted.

9. Mansplaining is a stupid term, I prefer the term “guys who talk down to people”. Those people certainly exist, I’ve know some guys who talk down to people, especially women, because they think they are better than them.

   But I’ve also known plenty of women who talk down to men in the exact same way. I don’t understand why some people decide to gender it by calling it “mansplaining”. That’s just daft, people of any and all genders can be arrogant know it alls who see themselves as above other people.

10. Mainsplaining is definitely a sexist term but I’m already prepared for the downvotes because “you can’t be sexist towards men”.

11. The backlash against the all the -ism’s is gaining momentum

12. He says mansplaining means “explaining things in a boring way”, which absolutely is not what mansplaining is.

13. It’s only unfair when it’s used incorrectly by people who don’t understand the meaning of it

14. I’m sure this sub Reddit demographic will have some insights

15. Every time I hear the word ‘mansplaining’ I’m always taken back to this exchange.

    https://youtu.be/ZOXh5repOWI?si=2aPTH33WeB5av64y

16. So he is a comedian and in part what he said was a joke, but he is right in that men do normally communicate with each other in this way. I’m sure there’s lots of social reasons behind it such as men’s worth being tied to how much they bring to the table (skills, money, influence, problem solving, etc.) and explaining something they know is literally just fulfilling that social contract and expectation.

    Dismissing mansplaining therefore is a lot more damaging than it first seems. It’s essentially saying “the only thing that gives you value no longer gives you value”.

    It’s always assumed ill or hostile intent, and I guess when you are fighting for value or recognition it can sometimes be that way.

    We should probably work on deconstructing unnecessary gender roles or societal expectations rather than furthering them.

    But I guess this will just come across as mansplaining and my desire for a kinder world will be mistaken as a hostile take over

17. Cuts both ways doesn’t it, like my (boomer feminist) mother attempting to talk down to me about how circumcision is supposedly a good thing, whilst not having the faintest idea what she was talking about or having done the slightest bit of research, and this after years of ranting about FGM for whatever reason (no idea what she thought I was supposed to do about that).

18. I’m not even going to lie a lot of the comments on here from men are pretty funny because a lot of the time you don’t even realise you’re talking down to us- a lot of women will have the experience where you try to joke with a man and he explains it to you like you’re stupid instead, or he explains it in a way that he would never do to a fellow man. Obviously not all, but it happens and denying it because you as a bloke have never experienced it does no good either.

19. The original intended meaning of the term was fine, but like so many neologisms it quickly got misused by people who didn’t really understand it and the meaning ended up far removed from what it was meant to be. At first it just meant “when a man condescendingly explains something to a woman who knows more about the subject than him”, then it became “when a man condescendingly explains something to any woman” and now it’s just “when a man explains something to a woman (with the connotation that this is rude/insulting)”. The current misuse of the word is ridiculous, because sometimes it’s perfectly valid for a man to explain something to a woman. That doesn’t need a special word: “explain” is sufficient.

20. “I wouldn’t have to man-splain if you weren’t wom-incorrect”

21. Overall its just an unnecessary word when we already had one – condescending.

    I think there are absolutely men who are condescending to women in the way they explain stuff. There are also plenty of women who are condescending to men in treating them like children that are incapable of proper thought. Being rude is a unisex activity.

22. David Mitchell says the term mansplaining is unfair. And describes why in under 25,000 words

23. “Mansplaining” as the phenomenon of “unqualified man explaining to highly qualified woman her area of expertise” is a very useful term.

    I would say it’s used correctly like 1% of the time, though. Another good word murdered by idiots.

24. I don’t mansplain- I’m patronising to everyone- it’s a character flaw rather than sexism

25. David Mitchell presents himself as very intelligent. Its very odd he doesn’t understand what mansplaining is

26. What started out as a man explaining something to an expert in that field / knows far more than the man – morphed into a word used negatively for a man just explaining something.

    It’s safer just to explain stuff to men tbf half of our conversations are trying to say the last bit of a sentence to show we also know what we are talking about

27. Mansplaining pure and simple- this is the phenomenon where a man wrongly assumes he knows something that a woman would not and then explains it to her in patronising detail with zero self-awareness. You should look out for it now you know!
    (From Richard Herring)

28. Let’s face it. Most people think everybody else is stupid. Most people think they know more about ‘anything’ than everybody else. At least that’s the way it appears.

    Mainsplaining. Womoaning

    Using those worlds also a way to denigrate the opposite.

29. It’s only unfair when the term is misused. Mitchell is overlooking the sexism element when he says ‘mansplaining’ is simply boring ‘conversation’ that men do to other men too. Mansplaining only occurs when a man assumes, either consciously or based on unconscious bias, that a woman (who may have more experience than him) lacks knowledge/competence due to her gender. This is something frequently experienced by women in male-dominated professions. Obviously the mere act of explaining something to a woman is not sexist, and anyone who uses the term that way is simply wrong.

30. I adore Mitchell but if he has a flaw I can easily believe it being mansplaining. He loves things and he loves explaining things, it would be easy to cross over into condescension.

31. Tbf, for a comedian who’s entire shtick is acting irrationally frustrated and ranting condescendingly, this is an unsurprising headline

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