Mansplaining, another way of underestimating women

Despite the fact that we are in the 21st century and that the struggles against machismo have been moving the balance towards a much more balanced point in the search for equality, many of us continue to encounter sexist behavior which, precisely because it is more subtle, goes more unnoticed: We refer to mansplaining.

Do you want to know what it is about and find out if it has ever happened to you? We will tell you.

Mansplaining, another form of machismo

Surely if you are a woman, on more than one occasion you have felt treated unnecessarily paternalistic by a man who insists on explaining certain things to you, as if your understanding were that of a little girl while her wisdom is immeasurable.

Another peculiarity that must be added is that this "gentleman" has taken the liberty of doing it without anyone having asked him to do so. No one. And more specifically, you have not asked him to show his supremacy to you because it is absolutely unnecessary.

Is this situation familiar to you? If your answer is yes, you can say that you know what mansplaining is first hand.

How would we define it?

It is a neologism of the English language in which the words "man" and "explain" are combined.

Mansplaining is used to define this type of propensity of some men when it comes to explaining certain topics to them women, doing it in such a condescending way as if they were people with little capacity for understanding, even in aspects in which her interlocutor may have a knowledge superior to the of the.

To be understood, an example

Let's put a perfectly doable mansplaining case:

We meet a young woman, graduated in Industrial Technical Engineering in the specialty of Chemistry, who has been selected Among other candidates due to her personal profile, training and experience of several years in a similar position, to work in a laboratory of quality control and lead a team of four men, older than his age, with qualified training but less than that of her. Are we situated?

Well, now imagine that every time she tries to comment on a topic related to their results, she has to bear with him explain her arguments to her in the same way as if you were receiving a visit from a group of elementary school children who want to know what their job.

That is mansplaining and yes, unfortunately it is common in everyday life, in many jobs and quite systematic in professional fields that until recently were exclusively male.

How does the term appear?

The first time this word is used is in 2014, with the publication of the book Men explain things to me by Rebecca Solnit. Since then the term has become popular with astonishing speed, probably due to how common it is to recognize this behavior in the daily lives of many women.

In her book, this well-known writer and activist in the fight for women's rights, she was inspired by her own experience of her personal of her where, ironically, a man tried to explain a book that she had written precisely (data that he did not know). Come on, the last straw.

What is not considered mansplaining: let's qualify

eye! That this macho attitude is common does not mean that now we begin to perceive mansplaining where there really is none. One thing that makes sense is to have the ability to apply good judgment in detecting this attitude to avoid unnecessary susceptibilities and unfair judgments.

The peculiarity of mansplaining is not that a man treats or opines on certain topics related to feminism or women.

Nor is it true that in certain work or social contexts a man (or several) offer certain explanations to a woman on a certain topic, of whatever nature, with which they expand the vision and knowledge that she may have on that theme.

The problem is when this happens in a systematic way, when it is erroneously assumed that because she is a woman she is more inexperienced or incompetent, when the condescension is so pronounced that it is degrading, because in all this you perceive that this man grants himself a superiority over her that does not really exist.

There, yes, when a competent woman is treated as a girl unaware of what she could be an expert, we can affirm that it is a mansplaining case.

To understand us...

The issue of mansplaining is a complex issue both for its subtlety, and for how the margins of the deal can be blurred between equals and the ease that can be when detecting this form of machismo when perhaps there is not in reality.

In any case, in those situations where mansplaining is clearly an evidence, perhaps unconsciously and due to the cultural prevalence of patriarchyWhat is certain is that it pursues the purpose of underestimating, making invisible, even nullifying women, as if this were a "normalization" task.

But what is undoubted in this case is the power of words, because thanks to the popularization of this term, many women have found a way to put a point of attention on something they suffered Y went unnoticed by society.

Now that we have a name for this quiet contempt, let's hope to move to the next level soon; that mansplaining ceases to be tolerated by men and women until it becomes a fact of the past.