I Was Wrong about Mansplaining

Truce?

Last month, several opinion writers for the New York Times did something admirable: They wrote columns in which they admitted to being wrong. While some of these columns were larded with justifications and excuses (looking at you, Michelle Goldberg), many of the other columnists set an example for how we ought to reexamine our prejudices and acknowledge when we’ve messed up. I took the lesson to heart, and so I am here today to tell you that I was wrong about mansplaining.

Well Actually

Mansplaining is explaining “something to a woman in a condescending way that assumes she has no knowledge about the topic.” Until last month, I yielded to no one in my disdain for mansplaining. I loved to cite Rebecca Solnit’s famous essay, I made aggrieved remarks on Facebook, I rolled my eyes.

This is the kind of sarcastic joke I have been known to make.

I had my reasons. Like all women, I have been mansplained to. There was the time I was talking with a guy I met in a bar, and he used the word “serendipity”—and then interrupted himself to define the word for me.¹ Or there was the time my college boyfriend and I saw a calico cat when we were out on a walk. I said, “Isn’t she pretty?” and he insisted I was wrong to assume the cat was female. I had just learned about why almost all calico and tortoiseshell cats are female in my college biology class,² and so I told him about it. His response was to mansplain that because he hadn’t learned these facts in his biology class at Harvard (which he clearly believed was a superior university to mine), my explanation couldn’t possibly be true.

In spite of whatever was being taught in Harvard’s inadequate biology class, I do know that this adorable cat is a girl. Photo by Ripple Qian on Unsplash.

While it is easy for me, a middle-aged woman, to defend women against the Karen slur, it’s a bit more of a challenge to speak up for mansplainers. But the difficulty of speaking up for the other side doesn’t absolve any of us of the duty to admit it when we’re wrong. It’s ok, though: When we approach other people with empathy and generosity, we will be rewarded with conversations that are more meaningful and productive. And that’s worth the momentary discomfort of admitting we’re wrong.

Mansplaining, Firemen, and Dad Jokes

I had an experience on a hike last month that forced me to reevaluate my opinion about mansplaining. It was a challenging hike (17km/11mi with a total elevation gain of 860m/2800ft), and on my final push to the literal high point of the hike—the summit of Faulhorn—I was accompanied by an old Swiss guy and a young Swiss guy. The old Swiss guy, hearing me huffing and puffing, pointed to a large rock and said, “You should sit on this rock and rest.” I could have felt patronized, but I decided instead to follow his advice—and discovered that he was right. I did in fact badly need to stop and catch my breath. His solicitude wasn’t mansplaining but rather Swiss hiking culture, which emphasizes looking out for and ensuring the safety of other hikers.

The young guy, whom I’ll call Hans, waited with me and started telling me the names of the mountains that swept in a panorama around us. As it happens, I knew their names perfectly well; this was my third time on that particular hike, and only his first. I was initially irritated, but then I realized that Hans wasn’t talking down to me. He was telling me the mountains’ names not because I was a woman and he was a man, but because he was Swiss and I wasn’t—a fact that was obvious as soon as he heard me speaking Hochdeutsch instead of the Bern dialect. He had no way of knowing that I have many years of experience hiking in that area.

It was interesting and useful for me to think about my knee-jerk reaction and about being wrong. I was already aware that women mansplain too, or at least I do (for example in footnote 2). Moreover, in other contexts I acknowledge that the people we talk with have no access to our inner states, so it was a small step to acknowledging that this principle ought to apply to alleged mansplainers too, who also usually have no way of knowing whether we already know about a given topic. I took my thoughts to an online group of friends, and we had a terrific discussion about mansplaining. Here are some of my friends’ thoughts,³ shared with their permission.

Bill asked,

I always wonder how many cases of “mansplaining” are really good faith efforts to engage in conversation. I wonder if men naturally converse in ways that are more didactic and lecturing? Even as a man, I’ve had plenty of other men (especially older men) mansplain stuff to me. I used to be much more bothered by it—I hate feeling patronized—but now that I’m in middle age I have a lot more sympathy for older men. They just want to feel like they’re contributing, really, that all their hard-won knowledge will have some use.

Jason mentioned a party he had attended, where a young man lectured everyone about airplanes to an excessive and awkward extent, causing Jason to wonder whether

there’s an autism angle as well. . . . [The young man seemed] quite autistic. Not so much so that you couldn’t take him to a party, that he would infringe social norms. But he was incapable of a real conversation: He was obsessively focused on a sort of internal fact-world. I bring this up because I read somewhere the stereotype that the endpoint . . . of male personality traits is autism.⁴

Kelly recalled her years as a teacher and noted that when “a child tells you something new to them, you let them.” Further, while some kids will shut their classmate down, saying, “everybody knows that!” it’s kinder and more productive to let people share their excitement with you. In Kelly’s words, “The alternative is to end a conversation with someone to score points.”

I believe that the principle of charity ought to apply until proven otherwise, and that it’s more likely that the person we’re talking with is acting not out of malice or arrogance but out of enthusiasm. It’s a simple matter to give alleged mansplainers a chance to demonstrate that they want to be friendly instead of condescending. For example, after I told Hans that it was my third time on that particular trail, I pointed at a mountain and said, “I think that’s Breithorn?” (Note: I knew it was Breithorn.)

The wide peak in the center is the aptly-named Breithorn (“breit” means “wide”).

And then we changed the subject. If Hans had insisted on lecturing me once he knew I knew something about the topic, it might have been a different matter, but in fact he was just sharing interesting information with me to keep me company as I caught my breath.

Of course, it may be somewhat deflating for men to think that we women are just being patient and forbearing with them. Luckily, I think we can go further, to appreciating mansplaining as a positive, helpful trait. In order to explain what I mean, I need a quick digression. A few years ago, the American Psychological Association issued a notorious declaration that traditional masculinity, “marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression,” was “harmful” and dysfunctional. While most people will agree that the latter two traits are bad, I would argue that in many situations stoicism is a better response than reactivity, rumination, and the nursing of grievances. As for competitiveness, well, if we humans weren’t competitive, we’d likely still be hunched around the fires in our caves instead of, say, hunched over our phones reading illuminating essays like this one. Moreover, the APA’s tendentious list neglects to mention such other features commonly associated with traditional masculinity as protectiveness, intrepidity, and problem-solving. Or, as I said when I first read about the declaration, “Um, what about firemen?”⁵ Am I really saying mansplainers are like firemen? (And am I really femsplaining traditional masculinity?) Why yes I am.

For more about the Australian Firefighters’ Calendar (and more photos), see here.

Hans was actually being protective when he stayed with me as I gasped for air on that rock. His mountain-naming was an attempt to distract and entertain me. When we resumed the hike, he stuck with me the rest of the way to the summit, checking to see that the pace was ok for me and that my footing was sure. (Again, hooray for Swiss hiking culture!) He also offered suggestions for trails in other cantons. The only distinction between his mountain-naming and the trail suggestions—both stemming from a helpful impulse—was that while I already knew about the mountains, the trail suggestions were new to me. It hardly seems fair that Hans should be denounced for mansplaining when he was in fact looking out for me, and when part of what he told me was indeed useful and appreciated.

Sociobiologists argue (for example, here) that men have evolved to be protective of vulnerable members in their community, to explore new frontiers in the hopes of improving their lot, and to solve problems that endanger the group. One way to protect others, explore, and solve problems is to seek out and share information. Our culture reinforces these traits through socialization. We raise our sons to take responsibility, learn about the world, and apply that knowledge to fix things that are broken. Is it any wonder that men might deliver the occasional lecture about something cool they’ve learned?

And speaking of socialization, I think that dad jokes are another good way to think about mansplaining. Our culture teaches men to communicate through humor, and we usually feel genuine affection for dad jokes, dopey as they are. When a man tells us a dad joke, it would be churlish to stifle him, to say, “That’s dumb” or “Why are you telling me this?” or “Yes, yes, I’ve heard that one before.” No. We roll our eyes indulgently and even laugh a little, because we understand that dad jokes are a way for men to connect with us and maybe even cheer us up.

On that note, please enjoy this video, which offers the densest onslaught of dad jokes I have ever heard; I predict that you will be amused by the sheer accumulation of groaners!

Truce?

So can we call a truce? I think we can do better on both sides. On the one hand, even if your interlocutor has more (or fewer!) X-chromosomes than you, or more (or less!) melanin, or less (or more!) money, it doesn’t mean that s/he is an ignoramus. If we start with the assumption that the person we’re talking with has knowledge and experience to offer, our conversations will be more interesting and informative. But on the other hand, if we start with the assumption that the person we’re talking with is sharing information not to insult or demean us, but rather to connect with us, our conversations will be warmer and more meaningful. In any case, if it seems as though someone is mansplaining, a better solution than griping about them online or behind their backs is to tell them directly how we feel. My guess is that they will appreciate it, and we will be better off.

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How about you, readers? What are your feelings about mansplaining? And have you ever realized that you were wrong about something? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

The Tidbit

And now, let me share some cool facts with you that I recently read online. Apologies in advance for mansplaining to readers who already knew these facts!

Knitters, pianists, and fast typists (I am all three!) will be amazed to learn that there are no muscles in our fingers. Their motion is controlled by muscles in our palms and arms.

Alaska is the most eastern, western, and northern US state.

The world’s biggest producer of tires is LEGO, which makes some 306 million tires per year.

You could fit the entire population of the world that has ever lived inside the Grand Canyon.

Dinosaurs existed for so long that there were dinosaur fossils from previous eras while dinosaurs still lived. T-Rex walked over Stegosaurus fossils.

There are more plastic flamingo lawn ornaments in the US than there are wild flamingos in the entire world.

The predator with the highest success rate (90 percent) is the dragonfly. Rather than chasing their prey, they plot intercept courses and head their prey off at the pass.

1. I was like, Dude, I have known what that word means since I was ten, because it was the title of my sixth-grade textbook.

2. Briefly, the gene for a cat’s color is on the X-chromosome. Because there are almost no genes on the Y-chromosome, all animals whose sex is determined by X or Y-chromosomes need only one X-chromosome, and so, during the embryonic stage in female animals one X-chromosome in each cell randomly shuts down. In tortoiseshell and calico cats, the X from the mother and the X from the father carry genes for different colors, and all the cells that develop from each cell with the random remaining X-chromosome will carry the gene for that particular color. It’s especially cool that you can tell how early in embryonic development the cat’s X-chromosomes shut down by the size of her patches. Cats whose chromosomes shut down earlier will have larger patches. About one in three thousand calico cats are male, but they almost always have an extra X-chromosome and are sterile. This article gives a fuller explanation for readers who are interested.

3. All names have been changed.

4. Jason may be thinking of Simon Baron Cohen’s work, in particular on autism and the “extreme male brain.”

5. Yes, I know that women are firefighters too. And they are awesome badasses! For the purposes of this discussion of masculinity, though, I will talk about firemen instead of firefighters.