Mansplaining

Mansplaining

I had no idea this was a contentious idea until I wrote it in a male dominated group. A D&D group on facebook. I put a shout out to my fellow female DM's about dealing with mansplaining, asking their advice.

Apparently my word was so hateful, so awful, so gendered and terrible I warranted death threats. I was a whore, a femin-Nazi, an attention seeker, an idiot, a liar, the ruiner of all good things.

Mansplaining is a short hand. It is the condensing of the experience of being an expert at something and having someone who is much less knowledgeable than you, "correct" you, repeat your answer as their own, wince, wrinkle their nose or simply just talk over you until they feel you have been firmly and justifiably put in your place.
It is an assumption that your grasp on any given subject is less, and predominately it is because of your gender.
I remember watching my mum when the kingpin broke on our Citron 2 CV on the motorway (we were lucky we didn't die) and while we waited for the tow truck three different men stopped and asked if she needed help with her tire.
I remember how sweet she was about it the first time. "Thank you but no, it's not the tire, kind of you to stop. Just fine..."
The programming of "stay safe, be polite" or "smile and nod" wears pretty thin, and as the thundering 18 wheelers kicked the standing water into a spay around us my mother found it increasingly difficult to stay polite. By kindly white middle-aged guy number three she had sort of resorted to yelling "it's fine" over and over while looking like she might shove him under the next lorry.

That's the thing, it an erosive and corrosive form of social violence. One that is almost always has the threat of violence behind it. The first time it happens that day your ability and patience are tested but it is an accumulative thing. Six "well meaning" assholes later it is much less easy to "shrug it off". It's a power play. When someone baby's you, it puts them in a position of authority. If you try and stay "adult" it can flip the conversation, but in terms of gender it usually goes that the man doesn't want to leave that position of power, and will do almost anything to maintain it.
This does a couple of things, firstly women learn to "be nice". You have to play along at least enough so this person doesn't violently erupt, because you can never tell which man will, and which won't. It also makes women use their "child" status much like a naughty toddler, twisting their "uselessness" into a weapon.

This is why I suspect me even voicing it's existence was met with such resistance. The hidden violence and pretence of kid glove sexual power was replaced by the real sexual violence.  (Fuck off and die).
I was told (thank you for mansplaining, mansplaining) that being patronised happens to everyone. Which is true, mainsplaining is not just about being patronised.  So if mansplaining is now a trigger word, one that makes this violence explosive, how can we ever talk about it? How can we unpick it enough to heal this power play? Undermining social verbal violence or  U.S.V.V. is a more gender neutral wording and it removes the idea that only men behave in this way (women do too, but it is not often backed by the majority and the threat of physical violence)  because the threat of dominating social physical violence D.S.P.V. is always present.

 Mansplaining is not being patronised. It is an undermining social kind of violence, one, that at anytime could explode into verbal and physical violence. It is a way to control conversations and power within a conversation, meeting or on-line thread. It is a "nice" form of gendered power play right up until the moment it isn't.