Have you ever had to suffer through a man trying to explain something to you that they don\u2019t understand themselves? Perhaps you have encountered a know-it-all male who thinks they know your area of expertise better than you? If so, chances are you have run into someone mansplaining. This post unpacks the meaning and origin of this expression.<\/p>\n
The act of mansplaining means to explain something in a manner that assumes the listener is less than intelligent. Typically, the listener or audience is female and the man doing the explaining makes a point of oversimplifying their explanations. The phrase mansplaining is pejorative and is always used in a manner that is negative. There is no good way to \u201cmansplain\u201d something to a woman.<\/strong><\/p>\n Mansplaining is always done in a way that is overconfident, condescending, and usually in a manner that is inaccurate. This patronizing manner of speaking is due to cluelessness on the part of the main which is paired with an uncanny amount of overconfidence that has no basis.<\/p>\n \u201cJohn spent most of the night mansplaining the law to one of the highest-paid lawyers in the room\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is so cringy to see a man mansplaining woman\u2019s bodies and emotions\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t bother mansplaining the book to be, after all, I am the actual author of the book you are trying to dissect\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is always amusing to see an Alpha male try mansplaining a topic to a room full of highly educated women\u201d.<\/p>\n The word mansplaining started off being the root of an assumption about male dominance. While verbal condescension between the sexes was always around, it became more prevalent during modern times. The phrase has been used to explain the behavior of men speaking in a condescending tone to people of all ages and sexes regardless. In 2010, mansplaining was named the most creative new word by the American Dialect Society.<\/p>\n The verb explain has been around for 200 years, and its colloquial origins can be traced back to Late Middle English times. Eventually, it became a standard part of the English language. Mansplaining came to be thanks in part to an essay that was penned by Rebecca Solnit. In this essay, which was published in 2008, she went on to detail verbose explanations performed by men who are not always on par with facts. She created the term due to an interaction at a party with such a man. She was in the midst of speaking about Eadweard Muybridge and the books written on the topic. The person who cut her off was unaware that she in fact wrote the bestselling book on the subject as he was simply trying to detract from her part of the conversation.<\/p>\nExample Usage<\/h2>\n
Origin<\/h2>\n