The word ‘mansplaining’ will officially join the ranks of dictionary-defined words as the Macquarie Dictionary has named it its 2014 Word of the Year.
In case you’ve missed its rise to fame over the last twelve months, ‘mansplaining’ is when a man explains a concept to a woman in a condescending manner that assumes she is either ignorant or stupid.
One factor that makes mansplaining particularly egregious is when the woman involved is considerably more knowledgeable than the mansplainer, as was the case with the term’s creator, author and historian Rebecca Solnit.
The word was coined by Solnit after a conversation she had with a man who was seeking to describe to her the life of photographer Eadweard Muybridge and referred to a book about the photographer to illustrate his point.
Solnit did not need the man to explain to her what the book argues – because she wrote it.
Mansplaining is an attempt – wilful or otherwise – on the part of a man to undermine a women’s authority, even when the woman in question is an indubitably an expert and deserving of the authoritative voice in the discussion – as in Solnit’s case.
Perhaps the defining feature of mansplaining is that a man’s compulsion to enlighten a woman is impervious to evidence that his efforts are misplaced and unnecessary. Like when a man tries to explain a concept to a woman even though the woman has written an entire book on the subject.
Or when Clementine Ford started the#QuestionsforMen hastag and despite it being very clear the questions were meant only to illustrate a point about everyday sexism and were, in fact, rhetorical, men on Twitter still insisted on answering the questions with condescending explanations of various societal phenomena they assumed the women asking the questions couldn’t possibly have considered.
So to honour Macquarie Dictionary’s decision to bring mansplaining into the linguistic hall of fame, we’ve come up with the three worst examples of ‘mansplaining’.
1. Shhh! Rand Paul mansplains tax reform to CNBC reporter Kelly Evans
Earlier this week US Senator Rand Paul physically raised his index finger to his lips and shushed a journalist interviewing him about tax legislation. He then explained that she needed to “calm down a bit”.
The presidential hopeful explained that the questions reporter Kelly Evans was asking about a tax bill he is co-sponsoring were “full of distortions” and “mischaracterised”.
He then went on to charitably teach her about the elements of the bill she had clearly been completely ignorant about previously, because journalists very rarely do any research whatsoever.
2. Steve Santagati mansplains sexual harassment to Amanda Seales
When a video of a New York woman being subjected to very serious sexual harassment went viral last year, CNN held a discussion panel with comedians Amanda Seales and Steve Santagati about street harassment.
First, Santagati explained that Seales just doesn’t understand that harassment is complimentary and women should be appreciative (very original). But it gets worse – when discussing the impact of sexual harassment on women, Santagati actually told Seales “I’m more of an expert than you, and I’ll tell you why – cause I’m a guy”.
Is it really possible a man thinks he knows more than a woman about how it feels to be sexually harassed?
3. Clive Palmer mansplains politics to Lenore Taylor
The Guardian’s Lenore Taylor interviewed Clive Palmer last year about his party’s stance on carbon pricing. Palmer became very upset with Taylor when she asked persistent and complex questions about the subject.
Complicated political issues such as this happen to be an area of expertise for Taylor, who has been a political reporter for 25 years.
This fact apparently has no import whatsoever in the eyes of Palmer, who told her: “You are very naïve when it comes to politics, my girl”.
Do you have any mansplaining stories? We’d love to hear them.