Women Share Stories Of The Times They Were Mansplained To
For those of you who haven't heard the term before, mansplaining is a phenomenon where a man will, without any prompting, take it upon himself to condescendingly explain something to a woman. Often times, they'll even interrupt the woman in order to do so.
A TikTok trend had women share their most ridiculous experiences with mansplaining and the stories made my jaw drop.
No Uterus, No Expertise!
"We were dating and I went to see him twice in the week before he left. He wanted to get physical but I told him I was on my period. When I saw him three days later, he tried again but I said I was still on my period. He told me I was lying because 'periods only last 1–2 days' and 'I shouldn't even be getting a period because I'm on birth control.'"
The Way He Assumed She Was An Idiot
"While eating at my college dining hall, a guy from my Feminist Economics class came up to me unprompted and said, 'Yeah, I don't know if you know this, but when the professor talks about 'structures' she's talking about institutional systems, not physical buildings.'
"As if I didn't already know that. We'd never spoken before."
Even If She Looked Young, This Is So Rude
"I got a job working as an attorney straight out of law school, then moved to a corporate position a few years later. A business partner asked what I'd done prior to my current role, and when I said I was an attorney, he said, 'Oh, you mean a paralegal.'
"I corrected him about me being an attorney and, in the most patronizing way possible, he responded, 'Oh honey, the assistants are called paralegals.'"
Dude, Just Shut Up
"When I was pregnant with my daughter, a man at a dinner party asked how far along I was. I was at 14 weeks, so I said I'd just started my second trimester. He (incorrectly) argued that you start counting from the moment you find out about the pregnancy, so I actually had to be in my first."
bUt wOMen dOn'T KNoW sPoRTs
"While working at a bar, a guy came up to me with and asked about the Yankees hat I was wearing. He starting asking me Yankees trivia because he assumed that, as a woman, I had to be a fake fan. He ended up asking a question about a famous historical player and I finally informed him that the man he was talking about was my grandfather."
Yeah, Let's Tell Women How To Breastfeed Properly...
"I'm a NICU nurse and I was helping a mother breastfeed her child. The male neonatologist said I was explaining it all wrong. In response, I asked him to show me how to breastfeed a child based on his own breastfeeding experience. Naturally, he said, 'I can't breastfeed a child, I'm a man.'
"I said, 'So what makes you qualified to explain breastfeeding to this woman?'
"He walked away."
She Really Was Just Minding Her Own Business
"I owned a diesel vehicle and was filling it up at the gas station when some random man came up to me and said, 'You know, putting diesel instead of gas into your car will ruin it.'"
They're Both Professors At The Same School
"I'm a college professor and I was teaching a lecture on immunology with notes all over the board. The physics professor after me saw a word on the board from my lecture and proceed to mansplain everything 'I should know on the topic' as if I didn't just do a lecture on it."
Everyone Knows The Difference Between A Lemon And A Lime
"I was a server at Red Lobster and an elderly man asked for a water with a lime slice. I started taking his wife's order, but he interrupted to say, 'You know what a lime is, right? The green one, not the yellow one!'"
She Wrote It, Dude
"In college, I wrote a lot of poetry and sometimes would read some poems in front of audiences at art events. I once had a guy approach me after the event to explain my own poem to me, and then when I told him he'd misunderstood it, he tried to convince me that his interpretation was correct."
Revoke His Medical License!!!
"I was explaining to a doctor some of my intense symptoms—light-sensitive migraines, vertigo, nausea, and chronic pain and fatigue—and he laughed it off as just 'the stress of motherhood' and said I should just 'take a Tylenol and a vacation.'
"By the time I got a second opinion, I was diagnosed with multiple autoimmune disorders and was in kidney failure."
I Would Have Hung Up On Him
"I just before buying a house, I called to get a quote for a home insurance policy before closing. He asked how many doors I had that had deadbolts. I had only been able to view it a few times due to social distancing, so I paused for a second to mentally count the doors and he patronizingly said, 'A deadbolt is the thing that keeps it locked.'"
That Logic Is So Juvenile I—
"I'd been working in IT for about 6 years when I got into an argument on Reddit with some guy who threatened to find my house using my IP address. I told him that an IP address isn't enough to find someone's home, to which he replied, 'Of course I can. That's why it has address in the name!'"
I Think She's The Expert Here, Bro
"I'd just moved into a new building and was meeting my neighbors when a woman asked how to pronounce my name, so I naturally explained. Another man on the floor had the audacity to tell me I was saying my own name incorrectly."
He Got Angry?!??!
"I had a boy sleeping over at my place and, in the middle of the night, my period came. When we woke up and saw it, he was pissed off wondering why I'd 'stayed up all night free bleeding in bed.' I told him that my period started in my sleep and he said, 'That's not how it works—girls don't bleed in their sleep.'"
I Know... I Have Eyes
"I once had a man unsolicitedly start explaining what was happening in a movie that we were both watching for the first time as if I hadn't seen the exact same scenes that he had."
I Think The Person With The Medical Degree Is Right
"When I was in high school, I had to go to a psychiatrist and, because I was under 18, I needed my father to come with me. The female psychiatrist diagnosed me with generalized anxiety, to which my father responded, 'No, she doesn't have anxiety; she's just nervous about moving away for college."
It's Her Own Family History And You're Arguing?
"I had a man tell me that, because I had red hair, I had to be Irish and, when I said I wasn't, he responded that I simply must not know my own heritage."
Didn't Even Consider She Was In First Class
"I was waiting to board a plane when the guy behind me tapped my shoulder and said that this line was just for first class. I assured him that I was in the right place and he proceeded to condescendingly explain how waiting in a line works."
He Didn't Even See The Irony
"I was talking to a female friend who had heard the term 'mansplaining' but wasn't sure what it was. I began to tell her when a guy nearby interrupted and started explaining mansplaining in the exact same words I had been using."