mansplaining

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I work in male-dominated fields, and have most of my life.

I usually only get mansplanations ONCE from a guy at work, because most times I can demonstrate that I know more about the topic than he does. For the most part, once I've established myself in a workplace, I get treated as an equal. Unfortunately, this pisses off most of the other women in my workplace, who apparently LIKE to be treated like princesses. The few men I encounter in the workplace who insist on treating me like a brainless twit don't get much respect from me, and I ignore them if I can, avoid interacting with them as much as possible if I can't ignore them. It doesn't seem to bother the ones I ignore, so it's a win-win. It's harder to ignore the women, because they get even more offended if I do that, and have a tendency to gang up on "outsiders."

In my personal life? Rarely do I get treated as an equal by men. My late fiance was one of the rare exceptions to this. Initially, I had to "prove" that I could keep up with him in conversations about technical things (he was an aerospace engineer), but once I did, he accepted that I was as intellectually capable as him, and he loved it.

FWIW, I think all the women who have posted in this thread have a lot to offer. May I suggest you stop reading the posts of the men who attempt to rattle your cage? It takes some practice, but you get to where ignoring certain people is a breeze. Learning to do this has literally saved my sanity. Maybe someday I will learn the trick of successfully ignoring certain women, too.

^ this for me too.

Also it is helpful to remember that some men just can't help themselves half the time. Being a know it all is who they are. And since more than half of the planet still operates on the principle that women are lesser people, it's really a wonder anyone treats us with respect. I work in an environment that is meant to be very progressive and egalitarian and yet the sexist crap I hear on a regular basis puts to shame my local garage with pin up calendars on the walls. Equally, when I was part of a theatre group, they all got very stressed out whenever I tried to set up scenarios which didn't reenact known gender stereotypes. For example, if I tried to set up a scene where a young pretty girl was the clever one and the older man was the stupid one, people would feel uncomfortable and start telling me I was doing it wrong.

This world is still 98% nuts you know.

A few years back I lived in a church property and one winter, during a long period of extremely cold weather, the water pipes in the kitchen froze. I thawed out the pipe under the sink, but still no water. The house was built on the side of a hill so I knew that there was a large space under the kitchen floor, and it was the part of the pipe under the floor which was frozen. So, I phoned the Church's property man, told him that the pipe was frozen under the floor and asked if there was an access hatch.

He turned up, with two other men - the Three Wise Men. They turned on the taps - no water - and informed me that the pipe must be frozen, because it was so cold outside.

They then decided to put an electric heater in the cupboard under the sink - to thaw the pipe which I had already thawed out, and which I again told them I had thawed out. The Three Wise Men were also deaf, it seemed. They got the heater and put it in the cupboard. I told them that if they put an electric heater on in an enclosed space like that, it would cut out. The Three Wise, and deaf, Men switched the heater on, closed the cupboard door and left, satisfied in their manliness. The heater cut out.

When they got over their amazement that an electric heater would cut out in an enclosed space, they returned with a blow torch, and one of them lay on the kitchen floor for almost an hour, "thawing" the pipe which I had already thawed. To his astonishment, there was still no water when he turned the tap on.

Then, he turned to me, and pronounced. "I know what the problem is. The pipe is frozen under the floor! Do you know if there's an access hatch!"

I thought mansplaining was something guys only did with other guys to offer (helpful and positive) insight into things about women.

Maybe I'm thinking wrong

I'm my experience some guys innately "get it" and some others can never hope to fill in the 50 mile wide gap in understanding.

^^I agree.

My ex-husband was apparently constitutionally incapable of hearing anything I said. He would ask me a question, I would answer, and two seconds later he would ask the same question. I remember once he was cooking something that was one of my "specialties" and he kept asking me questions about how I did this, how I did that, how much of what spice to put in when, etc. I was standing in the kitchen with him at one point and he asked me how I did one particular step of the process. I told it (and it was a really simple explanation, maybe 4 or 5 words, something like "put the mushrooms in last"), and he turned right around and did it the wrong way, i.e., he put the mushrooms in first. Frustrating as hell. I think that was the point at which our marriage officially ended.

In contrast, my late fiance was always jokingly telling me that he never listened to a word I said, but, in fact (and sometimes much to my chagrin), he remembered every single conversation, every single word, and could "play" them back to me weeks or months later.

I actually don't get mansplained at much, maybe because I'm usually the one doing the explaining.

It occurred to me while reading Rebecca's piece that maybe the biggest problem is that she's an academic. I've never met people so anxious to have an intellectual pissing contest as academics, and academics are notoriously horrible to each other all the time. Which might explain why my very smart historian and economist friends are so reluctant to correct me when I advance some half-assed notion that's obviously deeply wrong. They just go "well um" and change the subject. I totally wouldn't mind being schooled by someone who actually knows something, but maybe they've had it beaten out of them.

My ex tried doing it a while back -- he was trying to tell me about the nature of science, of all things (him: ex-pianist librarian, me: science writer). Almost everything he was saying was wrong. He wasn't normally given to doing that kind of thing, but I didn't think of it as "mansplaining", I thought of it as bizarre, groundless argumentativeness. Eventually I beat the argument into submission and we were done. Apart from that...uh, my dad tried it 25 years ago or so, wanted to explain to me what I did for a living and what I did and didn't know how to do. Again, bizarre -- he hadn't any clue, had no idea what I did for work, because he doesn't listen. It ended when I made a scene in the faculty dining room, which shocked him.

Apart from that, though...mm, see, I dunno, I don't usually have these authority battles. Am devotedly amateur in my work, have no stake in professional anything. I assume people are insane and that not only will they mishear most of what I'm saying, but that there's no way I'll ever have the social skills to pull people around to seeing what I see in any contentious matter.

This sort of stuff happening to me as well as having my ideas stolen by men in an office setting (I was a systems software developer) are why I became feminist. I realized we were never going to get fair treatment if we did not FIGHT for it. Decades later it still happens and now they are actually organizing their oppressive nature as a group and teaching each other how to do this. It bugs me but the fight must go on until we get treated as actual human beings.

Aaarrrrrrrggggghhhh workmen! They are, without exception, lazy, bad at their jobs, misogynist and condescending. I've had workmen try to say that its fine to replace brickwork with expanding foam, and expecting me to believe it. I have to avoid being near them in the house, as I would constantly be saying "Are you not going to sand it first?" "The primer needs to dry thouroughly" etc haha. Instead, the situation/ their responses are so threatening or dismissive that I've reverted to playing the nice young girl, as usual, accepting their stupidity as the norm; as something I just have to put up with. I usually just do it all myself, when alone (even though i'm overwhelmed), because at least I trust myself to do it to a safe standard.

But, now that I've discovered AS, and I know that I am not childish, stupid or a failure, I will present myself as the homeowner, their BOSS. I'm paying them, but only if they're going to do it right, and I'm going to check their work BEFORE they leave. I have the DIY/building knowledge, so I shouldn't let my gender or looks make me feel uncomfortable in letting them know i'm not clueless.

I was also an "everyone-ist", until I became a feminist. I don't believe in positive discrimination but maybe its the only thing that'll undo everything the men have already done!? My partner always described himself as a feminist, but even he mansplains sometimes... (and cant seem to do his own clothes washing for some reason). Its as a result of spending time with more stupid men who think theyre great for being "blokey", but if said "blokes" laughed at rape, I know he'd go ape, so I'll accept some of his annoying traits if he doesnt realise what he's doing. Men are generally more selfish and it is usually their mother's fault for being weak. If I have kids i'll teach them that women need to be treated with respect, and I will never stick up for their bad male traits. I'll tell them what is totally unnacceptable! I'd probably always be on their girlfriend's side in arguments ha.

Last year I decided to build a garden fence from the old house beams that were still in the garden. I constructed the entire thing by myself, in a day, and it cost me nothing. I'm small in stature, but Im very strong for my size and I was quite proud of what I'd achieved. But, that was the day I realised the world was STILL full of misogynists, as everyone who walked past looked at me like I was mad for doing manual labour; many of them asked why my boyfriend wasn't doing it, criticised my work before I'd even done it, or offered help like "a saw with bigger teeth is quicker". Well OBVIOUSLY, but I'm using this one because this is the one I have. Genuinely nice people even said "Wow, you've done this by yourself? well that's just brilliant! Well done you, little lady" I didn't get one comment that I think would have been aimed at a man in the same situation! They wouldn't engage him in conversation at all really. They'd just think "theres a man moving wood around", and look away.

My fence is lovely by the way, but slightly unfinished in one small corner panel (typical of me). I'm dreading going out to finish it this year, and having to listen to all that sexist tripe again!