this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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Probably bait, but I’ll take it anyways.
Mansplaining is when you make an assumption that a woman doesn’t know something basic and fundamental about a topic, and then explain it to them like they’re an idiot or a child. You may not even be aware you’re doing it as a man, because misogyny is ingrained into our culture and social conditioning. Such is the nature of microaggressions; you do them without realizing, because it’s a bias that has become so baked into your worldview as to become subconscious.
It’s easy to avoid doing, though. Anytime you’re about to explain something, to a woman or otherwise, simply first ask if they are familiar with ‘x topic’. If the answer is yes, proceed without explanation, if the answer is no, explain as you would to anyone else without condescension. It’s literally that easy.
“Doesn’t know something basic and fundamental”?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansplaining
He didn’t know she was the author. I mean, that’s a pretty simple mistake to make. I wouldn’t assume someone I’m casually speaking to at a party is the author of the particular book on the particular subject we are chatting about. What are the odds?
But somehow this is extrapolated to any time any man monologues. And implicitly that only men do this, and only to women. Let me blow your mind: sometimes men bloviate to other men. And sometimes women do this to men.
Funny, you cut off the important bit right before that quote where the man cut her off as she was about to explain her most recent book. Here’s a bit of context:
“She began to talk about her most recent, on Eadweard Muybridge, whereupon the man cut her off and asked if she had "heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year"—not considering that it might be (as, in fact, it was) Solnit's book.
See how the context changes the situation? She was already speaking, and the man cut her off, assuming she was unaware, and explained to her something that he would have learned to be unnecessary if he had simply treated her as a conversation partner to be listened to, rather than something to be narrated at.
I can already tell I’m not going to be able to convince you, though. In order to support your point (and, perhaps, avoid any self-reflection) you’ve ignored nuance - generally bad practice when talking about the intricacies of social interaction. Certainly, men monologue to men, men monologue to women, women monologue to men, and women monologue to women, but much like when people equivocate the fear of sexual assault to the fear of false accusations, the thing being ignored is the amount that these things happen; they are not equivalent.
To be absolutely clear: I am a man. An autistic man, even. One who loves to learn, loves to info-dump, and has more female friends than male. In all my time info-dumping to my female friends, I have never once been accused of mansplaining, because I ask before I explain to ascertain their knowledge, and I actually listen when they speak.
Funny how that works.
I genuinely don’t understand what difference it makes. She began to explain, implying she hadn’t said she was the author of the book he had locked and loaded. He cut her off. This could either be excitement on the topic they both had interest in or a slightly rude faux pas.
If she said “yep, heard of that book — I wrote it” and he said “you can’t be the author — you’re a woman” the misogyny would be obvious.
The fact that one person cut another off in one conversation doesn’t mean every time a man opens his mouth he’s “mansplaining”. Or maybe it does, since the definition seems to mean whatever the speaker wishes it to be. Bringing me back to my first post.
Cutting her off was definitely rude, but I agree that it's silly to ask everyone you meet if they wrote each book you want to discuss with them.
If you had something like
Alice: I've been researching a guy recently, do you know anything about him?
Bob: I recently read a book about him, have you heard of it?
Alice: I wrote that book.
Bob: Wow, cool to meet you. I really liked your work!
Bob still assumes that Alice didn't write the book until told otherwise, but he doesn't cut her off, and this conversation is perfectly pleasant.