Gender and Disarmament Platform meeting, 14 September 2017. On the slide: a photograph of the sculpture Classmates by Paul Tadlock, which has been called the "mansplaining sculpture"[1] and "Mansplaining The Statue"[2] by people on the internet.
Mansplaining (a blend word of man and the informal form splaining of the gerund explaining) is a pejorative term meaning "(for a man) to comment on or explain something, to a woman, in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner".[3][4][5][6]
In its original use, mansplaining differed from other forms of condescension in that it was said to be rooted in the assumption that a man is likely to be more knowledgeable than a woman.[7] However, it has come to be used more broadly, often applied when a man takes a condescending tone in an explanation to anyone, regardless of the age or gender of the intended recipients: a "man 'splaining" can be delivered to any audience.[4]
In 2013 Dictionary.com said it was adding both mansplain and the suffix (libfix) -splain to its dictionary.[8] Its announcement read in part: "In addition to being creative, this term, particularly the -splaining part, has proven to be incredibly robust and useful as a combining form in 2013." Mansplaining has also engendered parallel constructions such as womansplaining, whitesplaining, rightsplaining,[9] and goysplaining.[10]
As the word became more popular, several commentators complained that misappropriation had diluted its original meaning.[11] Joshua Sealy-Harrington and Tom McLaughlin wrote in newspaper The Globe and Mail that the term has been used as an ad hominem to silence debate.[12]
^Anon (2018). "Classmates, San Antonio, Texas by Paul Tadlock". atlasobscura.com. Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 27 June 2021. What was meant as an innocent piece of art has earned a reputation as the 'mansplaining sculpture.'
^Salazar, Albert (28 May 2015). "UIW Statue Gets National Attention Thanks To Feminism And Twitter". San Antonio Current. Archived from the original on 27 July 2021. Retrieved 27 June 2021. The bronze statue is called 'Classmates,' and was sculpted by SA artist Paul Tadlock, according to the Times. But it's now known as 'Mansplaining The Statue,' thanks to people on the internet […].
^"mansplain". Dictionary.com. [T]o explain something to a woman in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner, typically to a woman already knowledgeable about the topic[.]
^ ab"History of Mansplaining". Merriam-Webster.com. It's what occurs when a man talks condescendingly to someone (especially a woman) about something he has incomplete knowledge of, with the mistaken assumption that he knows more about it than the person he's talking to does.
^Steinmetz, Katy (18 November 2014). "Clickbait, Normcore, Mansplain: Runners-Up for Oxford's Word of the Year". Time. Retrieved 24 November 2014. [T]o explain something to someone, typically a man to woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing.
^Zimmer, Ben (5 January 2013). "Tag, You're It! "Hashtag" Wins as 2012 Word of the Year". Visual Thesaurus. Retrieved 30 October 2014. [W]hat happens when a man condescendingly explains something to female listeners[.]
^Jaschik, Scott (16 October 2012). "Calling Out Academic 'Mansplaining'". Inside Higher Ed. [S]ome men explain things to women with condescension, frequently ignoring the reality that the women may already understand whatever is being explained (in many cases, better than do the men).
^Solomon, Jane (6 December 2013). "Word Watch 2013: -splain". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 24 November 2014. The possibilities are seeming endless on the -splain front. This gives Dictionary.com reason to believe that -splain is not just a temporary fad, but rather a stable new addition to English along with its libfix cousins like -gate, -pocalypse, and -zilla.
^Zimmer, Benjamin; Carson, Charles C. (2013). "Among The New Words". American Speech. 88 (2): 196–214. doi:10.1215/00031283-2346771.(subscription required)
^Marcus, Marcus (30 March 2015). "The Art of Goysplaining". The Forward. Goysplaining is an outgrowth of people thinking that they know a lot about Judaism. […] The people who goysplain think that because they went to the trouble of reading an article, watching a documentary, or Googling something, they now understand an entire faith and should be congratulated for it.
^Hart, Benjamin (20 October 2014). "RIP "mansplaining": How the Internet killed one of our most useful words". Salon. Retrieved 30 October 2014. But along the way, mansplaining has morphed from a useful descriptor of a real problem in contemporary gender dynamics to an increasingly vague catchall expression that seems to be inflaming the Internet gender wars more than clarifying them.
^McLaughlin, Tom; Sealy-Harrington, Joshua (15 April 2014). "Arguments should not be silenced because of their author's race or sex". The Globe and Mail. The use of terms such as 'mansplaining' (and its racial counterpart, 'whitesplaining') can cause disengagement. […] Without such engagement, these terms become unconstructive ad hominem attacks that sidestep meaningful debate when an opponent conveniently possesses privilege.
mansplaining. I'm enjoying it." Mansplaining goes further into political digital spheres amongst regular citizens as well. People being mansplained,...
25 August 2019. Gupte, Masoom (10 May 2018). "Shobana Kamineni says mansplaining exists in boardrooms; men can be forgiven for ignorance, not arrogance"...
Term "Mansplaining"". The New Republic. Retrieved March 21, 2017. Staff, MPR News (December 19, 2016). "Do we need a different word for 'mansplaining'?"...
the Term "Mansplaining"". New Republic. New Republic. Retrieved 19 October 2014. Staff, MPR News. "Do we need a different word for 'mansplaining'?". Retrieved...
between the percentage of women to whom mansplaining happened (54%) and men who were accused of mansplaining (24%)." The authors analyzed information...
referring to someone whose posts were perceived as annoying, rude, or as mansplaining. In 2020, Twitter released a feature to allow users to limit who can...
in control of their own lives and more than anything, they hate to be mansplained. Thank God, they aren’t treated like deities with pure thoughts and leading...
by 2009. Oxford compared this trend to man- prefixes (e.g., man cave, mansplaining, manscaping) but noted that the bro portmanteaux subset refers to a smaller...
Look up condescend or condescension in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Mansplaining Paternalism Patrick Hanks, Lexical Analysis: Norms and Exploitations...
Cathy Young wrote that terms using "man" as a derogatory prefix, such as mansplaining, manspreading, and manterrupting, are part of a "current cycle of misandry"...
providing commentary through popular characters. Don Draper mansplaining about mansplaining, Luke Danes monologizing about a lack of independence while...
May 24, 2018. Retrieved March 26, 2021. "Jason Bateman Apologizes for "Mansplaining" to Arrested Development Co-Star". InStyle. Retrieved March 26, 2021...
Today". Sony Music. April 18, 2023. Retrieved June 7, 2023. "Is It Still Mansplaining if You're in Drag? with Delta Work". YouTube. Retrieved June 25, 2023...
2021. Jones, Isabel (May 24, 2018). "Jason Bateman Apologizes for "Mansplaining" After Defending a Co-Star Accused of Harassment". instyle. Retrieved...
Secretary‑General António Guterres on 22 October 2019. Fifield was accused of "mansplaining" by the Australian senator Katy Gallagher during a debate in a Senate...
2023. "OMG 2 Review: Akshay Kumar, Pankaj Tripathi and a Whole Lot of Mansplaining". www.filmcompanion.in. 8 August 2023. Archived from the original on...
motherhood. The title of the series is a pun on the commonly used term "mansplaining". Bell later had the leading role in the Netflix comedy-drama film Like...
more serious behavior towards women. Transport portal Manterrupting Mansplaining Misogyny Fitzsimmons, Emma G. (20 December 2014). "A Scourge Is Spreading...
their own hashtag #YesAllWomen. YesAllWomen – Online feminist movement Mansplaining – Pejorative term Toxic masculinity – Social sciences concept Patriarchy –...
Brooks: 'I Totally Failed'". Spin. "Deconstructing: Dead Girlfriends, Mansplaining, And When Being An Ally Goes Wrong". Stereogum. July 31, 2013. "Default...
intersectional feminism as a "framework for bigotry" and the use of the word mansplaining as being sexist. Also in 2017, Persson tweeted that "It's okay to be...
Senate. In 2016, Gallagher accused fellow senator Mitch Fifield of "mansplaining" during a debate in a Senate committee hearing regarding social services...
writing is only doing them once and may not repeat this… The opposite of mansplaining is where Antigone, Medea, Elektra, Louise Glück, Sylvia Plath … Joan...
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