Men Can't Stop Mansplaining Long Enough To Learn What Mansplaining Is

Video attempts to show how prevalent mansplaining is, men show up to mansplain that mansplaining isn’t a thing

Nothing brings more mansplainers out of the woodwork than a video about what a problem mansplaining is. You may be unfamiliar with the term, but chances are you’ve experienced it. It’s basically the act of a man explaining something to a woman in a very condescending, patronizing manner. It usually involves talking over her. On the internet, it often involves insulting her.

ATTN: released a video with the simple caption, “It’s time to stop talking over women.” Here it is:

There’s a reason the video has been viewed nearly five million times and shared nearly 100,000 times in less than 24 hours. Women are sick of being talked over, not listened to, and patronized. If you’ve never experienced this type of behavior, congratulations. You’re a unicorn.

Studies have shown time and time again that women are interrupted in conversation way more than men. In one recent study, Kieran Snyder, a tech startup CEO who also holds a PhD in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania, decided to observe gendered speech patterns in the tech industry.[related_post]The New York Times explains, “Over the course of a four-week period, she sat in on dozens of meetings in her office, observing a total of 900 minutes of conversation. She tallied 314 interruptions–an average of one every two minutes and 51 seconds–and discovered that men not only interrupted twice as often as women, but were nearly three times as likely to interrupt women as they were to interrupt other men.”

[shareable_quote]These men fail to see the irony of showing up on a video about women being interrupted, patronized, and not listened to — to interrupt, patronize, and not listen.[/shareable_quote]

We’re not imagining this. Not only are we more likely to be interrupted and less likely to be vocal at work, we’re also negatively perceived if we try to speak up. A 2015 study showed that women were judged more harshly when speaking up assertively: “Women’s perceived competency drops by 35 percent and their perceived deserved compensation by $15,088 when they are assertive or forceful.” Well, that’s comforting.

Mansplaining and constant interruptions are not something women are making up. This didn’t stop men from flocking to the video to mansplain that mansplaining isn’t actually a thing, and women just need to get over themselves.

When a group of people collectively agree that something limiting and frustrating is happening to them — in this case, dealing with being interrupted or patronized — why is it so hard for people not in that group to just, oh, I don’t know… LISTEN? These men fail to see the irony of showing up on a video about women being interrupted, patronized, and not listened to — to interrupt, patronize, and not listen.

This is why we can’t have nice things.