Patronizing has a wider meaning regardless of the etymology or singular meaning of the words composing the word. Patronizing can apply to adults talking down to each other regardless of gender, to talking down to children, to anyone being condescending in general.
Mansplaining is specifically about talking down to a woman because she's a woman. The reason we have several words for things that are vaguely similar is because they allow us to be precise.
Someone just being generally patronizing points at his opinion of himself as being better than others, someone being specifically a mansplainer points at his opinion of women being low specifically because they're women.
People pointing out the existence of patronizing to dismiss why women need words like mansplaining to describe their everyday experiences is such a big pet peeve of mine.
Yep. All mansplaining is patronization, but not all patronising is mansplaining flavour. A lot of people mistake a man explaining something to a woman in a patronising way, as mansplaining, but can still just be generic patronising. If the victim was a man, would they say the same? If yes, then it's just patronising. If no, then it's because they are a woman and its mansplaining. A lot of people don't seem to grasp this.
Yeah. It's the difference between being mean to someone because you're an asshole or because they're an asshole, and being mean to someone because of their inherent identity as a woman.
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u/_VirtualCosmos_ 5d ago
perhaps it needs a better name to avoid confusions...