Mansplaining
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About
Mansplaining is an Internet slang term used to describe the act of explaining something, usually by a man to a woman, in a manner that is patronizing or sexist under the presumption that the female audience is uninformed on the subject matter or topic at hand. Online, the behavior is most frequently exhibited by male newbies on female-oriented discussion forums.
Origin
The concept of "mansplaining," a portmanteau of the words man and explaining, is widely believed to have originated from a Los Angeles Times op-ed article titled "Men Who Explain Things" written by Rebecca Solnit and published on April 13th, 2008. While Solnit didn't explicitly coin the term "mansplaining" in the article, she explained her personal experience of getting patronized by a male friend. On May 21st, 2008, the earliest known mention of "mansplaining" was posted in the comments section of an article titled "Women Who Hate Dean Hating Women Hating… wait" on LiveJournal user Fandom_Wank's blog. The comment read:
Spread
Later that same week, on May 24th, LiveJournal user BigBadWolf released a collection of forum profile icons, some of which featured references to "mansplaining." On the following day, the term appeared in the text of another LiveJournal blog post titled "You're Such a Special Little Snowflake, It's a Wonder You Don't Melt in the Laundry Room…" in describing an argument the writer had with another woman in the laundry room.
"Maybe I'm not explaining myself well," I swear this woman sounds like she's trying to 'mansplain' something to me, "people who are doing more than 2 or 3 batches of clothes should leave one washer and dryer free so other people can use the machines."
The word continued to spread across the blogosphere, however, "mansplaining" remained largely obscure outside of LiveJournal community until April 2009, when the first definition entry of the term was submitted to Urban Dictionary. On February 4th, 2011, the word was highlighted as the Urban Word of the Day.
To explain in a patronizing manner, assuming total ignorance on the part of those listening. The mansplainer is often shocked and hurt when their mansplanation is not taken as absolute fact, criticized or even rejected altogether. Named for a behavior commonly exhibited by male newbies on internet forums frequented primarily by women. Often leads to a flounce. Either sex can be guilty of mansplaining.
-Splaining
On October 28th, 2011, an entry for the term "Splaining" was created on Geek Feminism Wikia[19], defined as:
Splaining or 'Splaining is a form of condescension in which a member of a privileged group explains something to a member of a marginalised group -- most particularly, explains about their marginalisation -- as if the privileged person knows more about it.
As the concept of "mansplaining" continued to seep into the mainstream media in the United States during the latter half of 2012, mostly in the context of online debates concerning feminism and gender politics, the root word of the neologism (-splaining) soon made its way into online discussions about racial relations and identity politics at large through its derivative terms, including "whitesplaining,"[13][15] "blacksplaining,"[14] "geeksplaining,"[16] "ablesplaining,"[18] and "femsplaining"[17].
Whitesplaining: The act of a caucasian person explaining to audiences of color the true nature of racism; a caucasian person explaining sociopolitical events and/or history to audiences of color as though they are ignorant children; a caucasian person explaining to audiences of color that what they think will benefit themselves and their families and communities will in fact harm them, and vice versa.
Blacksplaining: The act of a black person explaining away negative facts or statistics about black people (e.g. crime rates, test scores, illegitimacy rates, net worth), or negative acts of black people, as primarily the fault of white people, racist power structures, slavery, and colonialism.
Ablesplaining: A patronizing "explanation" of any aspect of disability from someone who does not have the lived experience of being disabled. An ablesplainer's opinion is often shared without request and with a grossly inflated sense of entitlement. Don't be an ablesplainer.
Geeksplaining: In geekdom, a geeksplain is when person A explains something to person B from first principles despite A not knowing B's expertise level, or even if A knows that B is an expert.
Femsplaining: The tendency of some women to mistakenly believe that they automatically know more about any given topic than a man does and who, consequently, proceeds to explain to him, correctly or not, things that he already knows.
Notable Examples
Privilege Denying Dude
In November 2010, an advice animal image macro series called "Privilege Denying Dude" (shown below, left) began circulating on Tumblr, which satirized the typical white male’s patronizing viewpoint on a range of politically sensitive issues like racism, homosexuality and feminism.
"Not Intended to Be A Factual Statement"
In April 2011, the United States government stood still on the verge of shutdown as the Congress struggled to reach a compromise in budget plans. During the debate on Senate floor, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl put forth a false statistics that Planned Parenthood, a non-profit maternal and child health service organization, spent 90% of its budget towards abortion-related activities.
"Everybody goes to clinics, to hospitals, to doctors, and so on. Some people go to Planned Parenthood. But you don't have to go to Planned Parenthood to get your cholesterol or your blood pressure checked. If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that's well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does."
The congressional debate was nationally broadcast via C-SPAN and several political blogs quickly reported on its inaccuracy, citing the organization's 2009 budget chart which shows only 3% of services performed were abortions. In response to news media inquiries, Senator Kyl's office then released an ethically questionable statement saying that his remark was "not intended to be a factual statement".
Ryan Gosling's "Hey Girl" Blogs
Several instances of Ryan Gosling's "Hey Girl" single topic blogs have been brought up as examples of mansplanation, including the Feminist Ryan Gosling as well as Hey Girl, It's Paul Ryan, a spin-off blog based on the 2012 Republican vice presidential candidate.
Todd Akin's Sexual Assault Gaffe
In August 2012, Republican congressman William Todd Akin was interviewed by the St. Louis television station KTVI-TV during his campaign for a seat in the U.S. Senate. During the interview, Akin was questioned about his position on abortion in cases where the woman was impregnated due to sexual assault, to which Akin replied that he believe the female body is able to prevent itself from being impregnated in cases of “legitimate rape.” Following the broadcast, Akin's remark became widely ridiculed on the Internet.
Mansplaining Paul Ryan
In October 2012, Time Magazine published a series of Paul Ryan's photographs for his runner-up position as Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2011, which featured Ryan sitting on a workout bench while performing bicep curl exercises. Coinciding on the same day with the highly anticipated vice presidential debate, Ryan's workout photographs soon led to the launch of Mansplaining Paul Ryan, a single topic blog that pairs up Ryan's workout photos with patronizing or patriarchic commentaries on key election issues like economy and women's rights.
"Binder Full of Women"
"Binders Full of Women" is a direct quote said by the former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney while answering a question from an audience member during the second round of the 2012 United States presidential election debates held in October 2012. Immediately after Romney's remark went on-air, a variety of image macros poking fun at Romney’s "mansplanatory" response began surfacing on social media, as well as the launch of parody blogs like Binders Full of Women on Tumblr and novelty account @RomneysBinder on Twitter.
Search Interest
External References
[1] Urban Dictionary – Mansplain
[2] Los Angeles Times – Men who explain things
[3] LiveJournal – Fandom Wank
[5] LiveJournal – A woman's born to weep and fret
[6] AlterNet – Why Mansplaining is Still a Problem
[7] Salon – Must Men Be Patronizing?”
[8] Fandom Wank – FandomWank Icons
[9] Tumblr – GraceBello
[10] TerrorWare – Mansplaining
[11] FandomWank Wiki – Oh, gosh, thank you so much for mansplaining this to us!!
[12] Red Light Politics – TODAY’S MANSPLAINING COURTESY OF DAVID FOSTER WALLACE AND APPLE’S THESAURUS
[13] Urban Dictionary – Whitesplaining
[14] Urban Dictionary – Blacksplaining
[15] Urban Dictionary – Whitesplaining
[16] Geek Femenism – Geeksplaining
[17] Urban Dictionary – Femsplaining
[18] Urban Dictionary – Ablesplaining
