this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
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The term "mansplaining" is not just about a man being pedantic. It is a man being pedantic or overexplaining to a woman either about something she is likely more knowledgeable on than he is or about something that is such common knowledge it should be assumed that she knows these facts as well as he does. It is a demonstration of misogyny through the assumption that you, a man, knows better than her, a woman, despite all liklihood to the contrary and yet you condescend to her anyway. It's the arrogance and gender bias that is the problem, not the pedantry itself.
The thing I don't like about the mansplaining accusation is it makes lots of men out to be sexist/misogynistic when they are really just pedantic twits that very well could have commented the same stupid thing to a man. But because it was to a woman someone has to accuse them of being sexist too.
Don't get me wrong there are a lot of sexist assholes, but just assuming it to be the case off a single comment irks me.
Sure, but being an arrogant prick that thinks they're smarter than anyone else, regardless of gender, is already a thing that should be derided. Having only a single or few instances of this behavior being aimed at women as an example of his arrogance may mistakenly lead one to attribute that to misogyny instead of a general prickishness behavior, sure. But that's a perfectly understandable assumption to make in that situation and the mistake of calling them the wrong kind of asshole, I feel, is less of a concern than him, indeed, being an asshole.
So you prefer defaming people just in case? I'm sorry but that's dumb.
At this point most people explaining things to others, assuming they're not knowledgeable, can be called racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic...
I feel like falsely calling out someone makes you a bigger asshole than someone thinking they're smarter. In a way, you think you're smarter and believe they only say these things because they're discriminating.