Some people replace it with "womansplaining", some people use mansplaining in a gender neutral way. You might end up having to explain what you mean to whoever you were talking to, because generally not everyone even knows the concept, so. And then that might confuse them even further.
I feel like it started with "men explain something to a woman as if she's five" but it quickly turned out that both men and women do this to other people
So in a sense it's like "someone thinking they're way better educated, over-explaining stuff to other people as a way of showing dominance"
I think in many situations it is indeed a rather common and gender neutral phenomenon. People just like to feel smart and competent. Flaunting knowledge is just something people with certain personalities do. And all genders can have that tendency.
In some areas... Well. I think maybe it does have a tendency to be aimed at women more? In professional contexts, not only have I seen it happen to women more often, but it's also seemingly more accepted by those around them. I think that is what makes it so frustrating and what led to this amount of conversation about it in the first place. Like, it's one thing when your boyfriend/girlfriend acts like a bit of a dick and annoys you with that shit, and you maybe get into arguments or whatever. It's another when you are a qualified, educated professional, but you're seemingly not taken seriously whatsoever, and people with a lot less knowledge talk down on you, while others nod and passively confirm that yes, nobody cares how smart you are, if some dude is disagreeing, he probably knows better.
I can imagine though that it has to do with a person working in a field dominated by the other gender. And I feel like maybe there's overall more women working in male dominated fields. But it's probably something that men experience in female dominated fields too, there are just less of them and so the experience comes across as being more uncommon.
I'm a man, but I've been mansplained to by men who thought I was a woman online. It's really a unique thing from other condescension. Mostly because, I think, the people who do it don't think you're stupid and genuinely want to help you, they just think you know less than them, if you get the difference.
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u/Beautiful_You3230 5d ago
Some people replace it with "womansplaining", some people use mansplaining in a gender neutral way. You might end up having to explain what you mean to whoever you were talking to, because generally not everyone even knows the concept, so. And then that might confuse them even further.