MANSPLAINING

Mansplaining is a blend word of "man" and the informal form "splaining", a pejorative term meaning of a man commenting on or explaining something to a woman in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate and oversimplified manner. Some women use this gendered term to express frustration with sexist communication norms.

It doesn't just happen when men explain things to women in a condescending way, but actually when a man explains something to a woman despite the fact that there is a strong indication that the woman already knows this and the man is ignoring it, due to the patriarchal assumption that men know more than women.

This often happens to me when a man explains something very basic about psychology to me even though I have a degree in psychology. And it does happen to all of us quite often.

The term mansplaining was inspired by an essay, "Men Explain Things to Me: Facts Didn't Get in Their Way", written by Rebecca Solnit. In the essay, Solnit told an anecdote about a man at a party who said he had read a lot about the subject she had just did a presentation and tried to explain her the contents of her own book not knowing she was the author.