From Medium

What We Talk About When We Talk About Mansplaining

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash. (Image description: A woman sits at a conference table while a man leans over her, pointing to her laptop. The woman does not look amused.)

I liked this week’s newsletter so much that I put it up on Medium, too. It was inspired by a tense conversation in a private group I’m in, and I couldn’t not take it on at more length when I had time to write about it:

Earlier this week […] I found myself having to clarify — not for the first time, either — that yes, mansplaining is a real thing and no, we can’t just write it off to someone being an asshole, and yes, lots of people “-splain” but no, that doesn’t mean mansplaining isn’t its own, specific thing. Over the course of the conversation, this flowchart was brought up, first as an explainer of mansplaining and then with the argument “but anyone can be guilty of doing this,” which is a fair point. Yes, the chart outlines behavior that’s rude and condescending regardless of who it’s coming from. What’s missing is an initial question: would you feel compelled to offer this explanation if you were talking to a man?

Want to read the rest? You’ll find it here.