Have you ever faced any instance of mansplaining you wouldn’t want to experience? Here are 15 such experiences shared by women all around the world.
1. He Berated A Stranger At The Store About Their “Inaccurate” Shirt
I have a shirt with the constellations on it. It’s not an accurate sky map by any means, but I like it. I wore it to the store one day and a man behind me started telling me that the stars were inaccurate and did not form a map of the sky. I turned back to him and explained that the front of the shirt was summer stars and the back of the shirt was winter stars so no, they do not form a continuous map. He stopped talking after that.
2. He Didn’t Think They Were Capable Of Driving Their Own Car
I was taking my car in to get the winter tires off. I was between services (and couldn’t be bothered to do it myself) so I was getting it done at one of those drive-thru places.
One of the guys that work there comes out and tells me that he will drive the car in. Then slowly, like I’m an idiot, mansplains that I would have to drive my car just so to get it over the hydraulics and that there are big holes in the floor for getting under cars that aren’t raised up. His mansplaination was that it would be hard for a little woman like me to drive my car into the shop.
So, they finish up with the guy ahead of me pretty quickly (we were the only two there). About ten minutes pass and they haven’t brought my car in. I look out the waiting room window and see all six guys that are working there crowded around my car outside.
Now, I started to get really nervous thinking something is wrong with my car. But I opt not to bother them, figuring that they will come to tell me what’s wrong when they’ve got it figured out.
Another 15 minutes pass and someone pulls up behind my car. That’s when the guy that originally explained to me how an auto shop works finally comes into the waiting room. It’s been 25 minutes since the guy before me left, so I brace myself for awful news delivered in a mansplaination.
But no, buddy politely asks me if I could drive my car onto the hydraulics for them. Turns out of all 6 dudes, not a single one knows how to drive a standard.
So, after mansplaining to me that it would be hard for me to drive my car into the shop, they waited almost half an hour to tell me that not one guy in the shop could even drive my car.
3. He Told The Project Manager They Weren’t Qualified To Speak In A Meeting
The time when a data analyst explained to me, the main engineer on the project, that I wasn’t qualified to comment on anything in the meeting because I was new and didn’t know anything. His boss (who later became one of my good buddies) was STUNNED.
He also asked me to stay behind and “help” him on something after the meeting and after everyone left he started explaining to me how he hadn’t wanted to intimidate me and he could tell he had (no, I hadn’t been, his boss had actually told him to listen to me before I could calmly destroy his ego), and how he knows it’s difficult to be a female engineer and how he wants to be supportive because he has daughters and he’s afraid how the world will treat them in the future.
4. He Interrupted A Classmate’s Speech To Explain What They Were Talking About
I was giving an informal speech at school and one of my classmates in the audience kept interrupting my speech to explain to me what I was talking about.
And I’m like “Thanks, I know what I’m talking about. That’s why I’m up here.”
5. He Mansplained The Concept Of Mansplaining
This happened to a colleague of mine, not me. On Facebook, she posted a link to an article about mansplaining. A man then commented on the post to clarify to her what mansplaining actually is, and how it actually works. He mansplained mansplaining.
6. He Tried To Teach The Tech Person How To Set Up The Tech
Years ago when I had a different career, this guy was delivering some audiovisual equipment to my office for review. He asked if I knew where “they” wanted it and evidently missed me pointedly saying where I wanted it put. He then started trying to explain how to hook it up. I made a slightly obnoxiously knowing comment about cables and mentioned that I was the tech editor, which shut him up…
7. He Tried To Show A Personal Trainer How To Lift Weights
I was in session as a personal trainer working with a woman who was training to compete in high-level weightlifting competitions. A guy walks over to us, smiling a vulpine grin.
He then, without any prior discussion or anything, wants to know if “we ladies” wanted him to show us how to lift weights. Then, before we can respond, he starts in on how to do certain exercises that he can lift. He asks if we want to watch him for a while so we can get a better idea of it.
And then, to top it off, he tells me he is a personal trainer and, if we want, he will give us some free sessions.
Being one of the three personal trainers at the gym at the time, I was quite surprised he wanted to claim to be a personal trainer. I was even wearing a shirt that said “Personal Trainer”.
8. He Tried To Teach Them How To Tune And Play the Guitar
So this was quite a few years ago. I was at a party at someone’s house and there were some guitars floating around. I wanted to play one and this guy started mansplaining to me about how to tune a guitar and how to hold a plectrum and how I should try Nirvana’s Come As You Are as it’s one of the easiest songs to play even though I hadn’t asked how to tune a guitar or said I couldn’t play. Then he started playing Under The Bridge by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, badly, just strumming some rough chords for the intro.
So I asked if I could have a go and proceeded to play an absolutely perfectly rendered version of Under the Bridge.
9. He Explained The Stock Market To Someone With A Finance Degree
My friend’s boyfriend explained how the GameStop stock market manipulation happened (and the general basics of the stock market).
I graduated summa cum laude with a finance degree from one of the top business schools in our state. (With a few minors, including economics)
He got a general business degree from that same college with much worse grades than I did, and I helped him with his homework. (So he knows that I have a degree in the field)
I just absentmindedly nodded along until he stopped talking.
10. He Ran Through The Entire Plot Of A Movie They Just Watched
There was one time when I was telling my dad how I saw the movie adaption of Les Mis. He responds by telling me about the plot… of the movie I just told him I saw.
11. He Suggested Using “Positive Thinking” To Treat Chronic Illness
The most infuriating example was when my “supervisor” tried to tell me that I could get over Endometriosis and chronic migraines with “the power of positive thinking”, and I looked him dead in the face, said “that may work for you, but I’ve had these issues since I was 12 years old. I have tried literally everything including ‘positive thinking, which is a toxic thing to say to a sick person, by the way, and I know exactly what works for me by now and what doesn’t. So don’t ever say that to me again. Are we clear?” And for some background info, we’d been discussing my issues, and he cut me off and said “I never even get a cold, you have to rely on the power of positive thinking”.
12. He Told His Daughter About Women’s Opinions And Flaws
Sometimes, I don’t like to assume a man is “mansplaining” because he may be the type to over-explain everything to everyone–men included. So I try to only assume it in situations where a man is telling me about LADY STUFF.
My father has a tendency to tell me what women believe. He generalizes to a laughable degree and tells me, his Master’s educated feminist daughter– about women’s overall opinions and flaws. So, not only is he being sexist, but his “mansplaining” is inaccurate.
13. He Tried To Tell Them How To Add An Email Signature
I was sitting in a lecture about a year or two ago and was shooting off a few quick emails on my laptop. At the end of the lecture the guy behind me says “So, I was watching you write your emails…” GREAT way to start a conversation, btw” and I noticed you didn’t have an automatic signature.” He then tries to tell me how to add a signature to my emails.
The class was for people who are computer science majors or the very least highly tech-literate… he thought I was an idiot.
14. They Explained A Sport To Someone Who Played It For 10 Years
I’ve had a group of guys explain the offside rule in soccer to me in the most condescending way ever. Some stupid metaphor that took place in a shoe store where the high heels I want are the ball or some bullsh*t like that. Surprisingly enough I neither wanted nor asked for an explanation. I played for over 10 years myself. I know the f*cking rules.
15. He Told Them Where Their Car’s Gas Tank Is
My boyfriend was driving my car and drove it over a tall curb. So we pulled over to a gas station and I got out to check my car for damage, got out and started looking at the undercarriage. A guy drove past me and yelled out his window, “The gas tank is on the side of the car!!!”
