First of all, let’s start with the definition of this word: MANSPLAINING comes from the union of “man” and “explaining”, and it was coined in 2008 thanks to Rebecca Solnit’s book “Men explain things to me”. This term is used to indicate the habit that some men have of explaining to women things that they already know. We are talking about UNSOLICITED and PATRONIZING explanations that come from the assumption that women are less intelligent and need men’s help.
The journalist Lily Rothman defines mansplaining as “Explaining without regard to the fact that the explainee knows more than the explainer, often done by a man to a woman”. It has become such a big of a problem that in Sweden has been opened a hotline to report cases of mansplaining in the workplace.
The idea behind it is that “I, as a man, am better than you, a woman, but I’m also merciful because I help and explain you things, it doesn’t matter that you are an expert on the field”.
Two important things must be clarified:
* It’s useless to begin with the rant “not all men…”, in America they laugh so much about this phenomenon that they even created a hashtag #notallmen. Every time something negative about men’s behavior is mentioned, there is always someone that comes up saying this. Of course, everyone knows that not all men are the same, but we still need to consider the issue of responsibility: if a colleague of yours mansplains a woman, it is his fault, but if you don’t do anything and let it go, it becomes also your responsibility.
* Secondly, if a university professor explains something to a female student, he’s clearly not mansplaining, he’s doing his job since it is a situation where he knows more than the student; but if a man takes the trouble to explain to a female colleague something that she knows because it is related to her job, that’s mansplaining.
How to answer to someone that is mansplaining? The Swedish gender expert, Christina Knight suggests this as the best answer “Right now you are treating me like a child because you are telling me something that I already know, so I’d appreciate if next time you started the conversation asking me if I’d like to know more about it, if I need clarifications or if I already know what I need to know”.
How should an employer deal with mansplaining? It’s important to implement structural solutions:
Establish procedures for work meetings that require EACH PERSON to share their point of view. Research experiments in fact show that it is not enough to simply extend the amount of time for questions or discussion, with the hopes that women will speak up more or men will run out of things to say.
Give instructions to the meeting leader to SHUT DOWN MANSPLAINING and support women who are speaking.
Adapt performance evaluations to SANCTION MANSPLAINING and to reward listening and building on the ideas of other team members.
Create SAFE SPACES, like the Swedish hotline, where women are taken seriously and can report cases of mansplaining.
In general, it’s fundamental that employers stop giving women advices on how to deal with the discriminations they face and start putting actual effort into changing the behavior of perpetrators, in order not to lose valuable female employee. Women shouldn’t be asked to “handle” mansplaining; ORGANIZATIONS SHOULD HANDLE IT FOR THEM.
Author: Francesca Asja Trento
Feminism at the Workplace 