Fun New Term of the Month.... Mansplaining

I've come across this word mostly on blogs and it's a current favorite. "Mansplaining" is defined on Urban Dictionary as

"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."

Blogger Karen Healy adds the following ;

"Mansplaining isn't just the act of explaining while male, of course; many men manage to explain things every day without in the least insulting their listeners.

Mansplaining is when a dude tells you, a woman, how to do something you already know how to do, or how you are wrong about something you are actually right about, or miscellaneous and inaccurate "facts" about something you know a hell of a lot more about than he does.

Bonus points if he is explaining how you are wrong about something being sexist!"

You can also be a "whitesplainer", or a "douchesplainer". This suggests to me Connell's idea of hegemonic masculinity; the authority assumed by the mansplainer over women, or other men. I'm sure there are many men out there who have been "splained" to, and I wonder what we might call that? "Alphasplaining"? These bloggers have noticed a particular character to the "mansplaining" they have witnessed or experienced.

Which reminds me, I must watch the rest of the first season of Mad Men....


Zuska, at http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/2010/01/you_may_be_a_mansplainer_if.php
Karen Healy at http://karenhealey.livejournal.com/781085.html