50 Times Guys Humiliated Themselves By Mansplaining Things To Women
If you are a woman, the chances are you’ve experienced mansplaining at least once at some point in your life. Whether at work or university, with friends, at a gym, or while getting your car repaired, it seems like no place is free from overconfident and condescending men who think that they know things better than you. So they explain it without being asked to do so—hence the rise of the relatable mansplaining meme, which captures these moments with humor and accuracy.
Not only is it super annoying, but mansplaining is demeaning, too, so it is by no means an innocent practice. So this time, we’re taking a look into what mansplaining experiences women witness time and again, as shared in these online threads.
Scroll down through the stories below, and be sure to share your thoughts about delusional men talking down to women in the comments.
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I was taking my car in to get the winter tires off. I was between services (and couldn't be bothered to do it myself) so I was getting it done at a one of those drive-thru places it might have been a Jiffy Lube.
One of the guys that works there comes out and tells me that he will drive the car in. Then slowly, like I'm an idiot, mansplains that I would have to drive my car just so to get it over the hydraulics and that there are big holes in the floor for getting under cars that aren't raised up. The jist his mansplaination being, that it would he hard for a little woman like me to drive my car into the shop.
So, they finish up with the guy ahead of me pretty quickly (we were the only two there). About ten minutes pass and they haven't brought my car in. I look out the waiting room window and see all six guys that are working there crowded around my car outside.
Now, I started to get really nervous thinking something is wrong with my car. But I opt not to bother them, figuring that they will come tell me what's wrong when they've got it figured out.
Another 15 minutes pass and someone pulls up behind my car. That's when the guy that originally explained to me how an auto shop works, finally comes into the waiting room. It's been 25 minutes since the guy before me left, so I brace myself for awful news delivered in a mansplaination.
But no, buddy politely asks me if I could drive my car onto the hydraulics for them. Turns out of all 6 dudes, not a single one knows how to drive a standard.
So, after mansplaining to me that it would be hard for me to drive my car into the shop, they waited almost a half an hour to tell me that not one guy in the shop could even drive my car.
Bought my standard last year. Salesperson couldn't drive stick, so I had to wiggle it out of the odd spot they had it parked on the lot. Only person at the dealership I encountered that could drive it confidently (1 guy revved the engine while trying badly & couldn't get it in reverse) was also the only woman working in the service department.
I was weeding stinging nettles at my work and this guy came up behind me and explained how you have to pull up the roots for it be effective (I am obviously already doing that and I was literally at work). So I asked him to show me and dumbass grabbed the biggest stinging nettle and got stings all over his arm and face. I was very happy.
One of my husband's friends explained PTSD to me. He is an IT dude. I am a therapist specializing in trauma.
Bored Panda reached out to Nicole Froio, the feminist writer and researcher, who argues that mansplaining is one of many daily aggressions women go through in a sexist and misogynistic society. “It has to be understood as a part of a larger system of oppression rather than an isolated incident.”
According to Froio, mansplaining comes from the assumption that women and other non-men don't have the intelligence to understand the topic at hand, which is a sexist and misogynistic assumption. “The mansplainer will explain something that the woman probably knows already, usually in a condescending and infantilizing way,” Froio noted.
This happened to my work wife, not me. On Facebook, she posted a link to an article about mansplaining. A man then commented on the post to clarify to her what mansplaining actually is, and how it actually works. He mansplained mansplaining.
So this was quite a few years ago. I was at a party at someone's house and there were some guitars floating around. I wanted to play one and this guy started mansplaining to me about how to tune a guitar and how to hold a plectrum and how I should try Nirvana's Come As You Are as it's one of the easiest songs to play even though I hadn't asked how to tune a guitar or said I couldn't play. Then he started playing Under The Bridge by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, badly, just strumming some rough chords for the intro.
So I asked if I could have a go and proceeded to play an absolutely perfectly rendered version of Under the Bridge. His face was a picture.
A white dude explained Chinese New Year to me. I'm Chinese.
I have had African American culture explained to me by non African Americans. I am African American.
“When this happens in a professional setting, this can result in the woman in a professional setting feeling disrespected and/or inept for doing their job, they could feel like they've been publicly humiliated in front of their colleagues and feeling a general loss of respect for her expertise,” she explained.
“What I usually say to men trying to not be mansplainers is that asking can go a long way—instead of assuming a person doesn't know about a certain topic, why not ask 'Do you know how this works?' or 'I'm not sure if you're familiar with this, but if you do, feel free to stop me?' These are simple ways to correct behavior that might accidentally harm someone.”
Guess that was a debate I had with some colleagues on a project or something, I don't remember, it was about the Thai boys that got stuck in a cave. I voiced my opinion and said that there is only way to ensure the rescuers' safety, it's by knocking the boys unconscious, tying them up, strapping a mask around them and pulling them out like a bag of sand. I then got laughed at some dude started to explain how scuba diving with "oxygen bottles" (yes indeed) works and that it's so easy, boys can learn that, they are brave boys... Well, I am an advanced diver with close to 300 dives which he had no idea about. I know how panicked swimmers or divers react. Btw, the boys were rescued exactly as I had said.
The absolute worst thing that can happen is the panic of an inexperienced person flailing and drowning themselves and their rescuer... then in addition to that tragedy, you have corpses blocking other rescue divers and the people they are rescuing... this is so much more dangerous in a flooded cave bc of the confinement. The divers already have so much to focus on with equipment and navigation; sedation was the safest option.
During my first few months as a registered architect working for my dad, an engineer told me to call my daddy since he wasn't satisfied with my answer.
He literally said, "Call your daddy about it."
I took a deep breath, and tried not to clobber him. He was an old man, the same age as my dad.
I called my dad on loudspeaker, and he answered the same thing. He also told them to listen to me.
Hah.
A man once tried to tell me what women on tinder want. When I argued with him he told me I didn’t know what I was talking about then he linked me a YouTube video of another man saying what women on tinder want.
I know what women want because I watched a youtube video on them. Even though The last time I was in a 6ft radius, I was with my mum.
While Froio would not classify mansplaining as one of the worst things experienced by women in a patriarchal system, she would say that “it is wrong because it rectifies the gender structure on an interpersonal level.”
“For example, you might be a woman in a male-dominated industry where your expertise is already undervalued because that field is male-dominated, and then one of your colleagues mansplains a simple concept everyone in the office is familiar with.”
Froio argues that “this can lead to things like imposter syndrome and an unwelcome work environment for women, where people's suspicions about the woman's supposed lack of expertise is rectified by the mansplaining.”
argued with my boyfriend that though it was discovered awhile ago, it was only recently discovered what clitoris does… he said, and i quote, “but it’s been around since the 1800s.” he deadass told me the clit had only been around since the 1800s.
Sooo it's only been around for the last 200 years and still half the male population still can't find it 😕
A guy I was dating lost his work iPad. I told him to use the Find My app and he went on a tirade about how he couldn't use that. I rolled my eyes and though, "Fine. Have fun explaining to your boss that you lost a brand new iPad."
He calls me back later and tells me that Assistant Male Boss is a genius! It was Assistant Male Boss' idea to use Find My app and they found the iPad. What a miracle!
He then procceded to mansplain how the app works.
I had a man try to tell me that women's vaginas can't stretch to accommodate anything bigger than a strictly average sized penis, therefore it was a waste of time for any manufacturer to make any dildo bigger than 5 inches(!).
I think he might have had some insecurities going on in the trouser department.
Moreover, mansplaining is one of the many social phenomena that work to rectify a system of subjugation, and Froio would say that's the reason it is wrong.
When asked about the best ways to react if you are being mansplained to, Froio said that personally, she finds being assertive quite important when responding to mansplaining.
“I usually respond by saying things like 'Thanks for explaining, but I already knew that' or even interrupting the mansplainer and saying 'Sorry to interrupt, but I already know that, so we can move onto the next topic instead of wasting time.'"According to the writer, your response doesn't need to be overtly about gendered dynamics.
“It can just be a gentle nudge to the fact that you are knowledgeable and that you don't need an explanation,” Froio concluded.
I wrote a process that was used at our work. 25k people in this business. A guy explained my own process to me, showing it to me with my name written at the top.
He'd invited me to the meeting .....
I don't know if it counts as mansplaining, but sometimes I'll say something and a man will say the exact same thing back to me as if he's making a new point and when I say "that's literally what I just said" they just lose it. Just. Why.
You only want one example...? The most infuriating example was when my “supervisor” at BioLife tried to tell me that I could get over Endometriosis and chronic migraines with “the power of positive thinking”, and I looked him dead in the face, said “that may work for you, but I’ve had these issues since I was 12 years old. I have tried literally everything including “positive thinking”, which is a toxic thing to say to a sick person, btw, and I know exactly what works for me by now and what doesn’t, so don’t ever say that to me again. Are we clear?” And for some background info, we’d been discussing my issues, and he cut me off and said “I never even get a cold, you have to rely on the power of positive thinking”. Meanwhile I was on my way to a hysterectomy bc of endometriosis and cervical cancer, but I didn’t mention the cancer bc it was caught very early with routine screening, thankfully, and it wasn’t everyone’s business.
I'm sorry you went through this. Most of us with chronic health issues are well used to people making supposedly helpful suggestions that imply that if only we made more effort then we'd be cured. Like the time a male friend told me that I just needed to meditate in a certain way to heal my fibromyalgia and ME. When I was sceptical he went on to say I was ill because of my failure to take responsibility for getting better. Apparently he knew this one girl he met online who had used meditation so therefor he knew more about it than all the healthcare professionals and more than me, after being too ill to work for 10 years and have spent much of that time researching as much as I can.
We also spoke with Priscilla Kavanaugh, the writer, designer, and content creator who runs the blog “Bonjour Bitches Blog.” She previously went viral for this illuminating Twitter thread on mansplaining. Bored Panda wrote about it in this previous article, so you may want to check it out. According to Kavanaugh, we have a long way to go because “men are more threatened by women than ever.” She believes that it's going to take a long time to untie this knot and we have to be prepared for that.
I was giving an informal speech at school and one of my classmates in the audience kept interrupting my speech to explain to me what I was talking about.
And I'm like "Thanks, I know what I'm talking about. That's why I'm up here."
The pronunciation of my own name.
I was in the sprinkler aisle of the Home Depot looking for the correct replacement head for my system. And a dude just sidles up and starts explaining to me the different parts of a system and how water pressure is so important, and how complicated it is. I kept trying to cut him off telling him I knew and didn’t need his help, he just wouldn’t take a hint. I finally got shitty with him and told him I didn’t need his help because I was a plumbing engineer.
Kavanaugh also doesn’t think that mansplainers understand that their behavior is damaging. She believes that in many cases, they don't particularly care. In order to fight mansplainers, Kavanaugh argues, we have to stop being afraid of making mansplainers uncomfortable.
“There are a lot of great articles about how to respond when you're being mansplained. Find an approach that's comfortable for you, whether it's making a joke or saying something more direct like ‘I just explained that, Jim,’ ‘I think my explanation was more than adequate,’ or ‘I don't think we need to further reiterate what I've been saying but thank you for chiming in.’”
A mechanical engineer, my ex-boyfriend's brother, explained how medical genetics works to me. It's fine though, I'm only a medical geneticist who's been working in the field for 5 years.
A dude went on to explain how i could hold in my period. He really believed you could do that
Got in an argument with a dude who was suggesting that cellulite was rare, and that only overweight women have it (based on his experiences browsing Instagram and checking out women at the beach - literally, he said this). I pointed out that it was so common as to be a secondary sex characteristic for women.
When he started fighting with anecdotal evidence, I in turn pointed out that I, a borderline underweight woman, had cellulite - and that a close friend of mine, who is literally a salaried model, also had cellulite.
His closing argument was that, as a dude, he more closely examines women's bodies than I do (note: I hadn't divulged my sexuality at any point), and that I was invalidating his lived experiences as a man.
Moreover, we as a society need to rewrite the narrative from day one. “Instead of teaching girls to be polite and passive, we need to empower them and teach them that their input has value; and boys need to be taught that girls are their equals,” Kavanaugh concluded.
How to breastfeed.... With my second child.
How the heck is he going to know how to breastfeed anyway? A) it's her second child. B) he's a guy, who DOES NOT have the ability to produce milk in order to breastfeed a child. Idiot.
In my country an article about women in gaming was making a lot of noise at the time. It was about the sexism in every aspect of the community : female characters too sexy, women players & sexual harassment, babes in bikini at game cons etc.
For me and my female gamer friends it was old news. We spoke about the article and added our own experience to it.
Men decided to explain to us how the article was wrong because **they** never saw sexism in video games and cons, never. So we were lying and making up stories.
Sure enough they finished by saying they were not sexist and never had been.... 🙄
Edit : conjugation. Sorry english isn't my first langage.
My boyfriend's colleague (in a completely non-medical job) told him I was not having a miscarriage while it was happening; boyfriend then explained it to me, believing every word. He didn't enjoy my response to that.
A miscarriage is hard enough in itself (been there, done that). Having a supposed loved one not trusting your experience must be horrible! I feel for you. <3
Man: it’s hailing.
Me: (looks around) huh, yeah.
Man: It’s frozen water falling from the sky.
Me: 👀🙄
The time when a data analyst explained to me, the main engineer on the project, that I wasn't qualified to comment on anything in the meeting because I was new and didn't know anything. His boss (who later became one of my good buddies) was STUNNED.
He also asked me to stay behind and "help" him on something after the meeting and after everyone left he started explaining to me how he hadn't wanted to ~intimidate me and he could tell he had (no, I hadn't been, his boss had actually told him to listen to me before I could calmly destroy his ego), and how he knows it's difficult to be a female engineer and how he wants to be supportive because he has daughters and he's afraid how the world will treat them in the future.
A dude explained to me how dinosaurs are extinct. Thank god he did or otherwise I would've never found out.
I had some white guy from Sweden tell me I'm wrong about my own language when he wanted me to translate something from a korean series that apparently wasn't translated in the subtitles that he watched on netflix.
He told me he's hearing 좋아 in some interaction in the series, I told him that sounds wrong because it doesn't make sense in that context.
I started the series on netflix myself and found the interaction he was talking about, the word he inquired about was 저하, not 좋아. I told him what they were actually were saying means.
He insisted he was hearing 좋아 even though I told him he's wrong. They were saying 저하. He still insisted he was hearing 좋아 and said I was wrong.
Why? Because that's what it sounded like to him. Nooo, don't trust the person who actually speaks the language natively but think you are getting it right just by listening as a non-speaker of the language.
Playing Overwatch.
I asked him what rating he was at, I couldn't queue with him on my main account because I was too high rating. I switched to a new account I was lvling at the time to just play some quick play with him instead.
He then started explaining to me what I have to do and so on.
He was silver, almost bronze. I was diamond on my main account, almost master.
He never asked to play with me again after I just destroyed the games.
Sometimes, I don't like to assume a man is "mansplaining" because he may be the type to over explain everything to everyone--men included. So I try to only assume it in situations where a man is telling me about LADY STUFF.
My father has a tendency to tell me what women believe. He generalizes to a laughable degree and tells me, his Master's educated feminist daughter-- about women's overall opinions and flaws. So, not only is he being sexist, but his "mansplaining" is inaccurate.
My father has spent most of his life around mostly women and even he doesn't explain woman stuff to me.
Earlier this year I had a man a few years younger than me explain how the female orgasm is achieved. I have had it figured out for about 25 years now, so I told him that and he kept going with his instructions. He also just can't understand why I have no interest in a sexual relationship with him.
I also had one of my brothers explain how to change a diaper to me, while I was in the middle of changing my 3rd babies diaper.
I get a lot of guys trying to tell me "what women are like" and "what women want."
Last time I checked, I was a woman. And they are always so, so wrong..
Dude I was on a date with started explaining why my office might be warm… 10 minutes after I told him I was an HVAC engineer. I just let him dig that hole, staring him down until he trailed off. Then he quietly added “uhh I guess you know all that”, to which I nodded.
At least he had a hint of illumination at the end. Not always the case.
I have a shirt with the constellations on it. It's not an accurate sky map by any means, but I like it. I wore it to the store one day and a man behind me started telling me that the stars were inaccurate and did not form a map of the sky. I turned back to him and explained that the front of the shirt was summer stars and the back of the shirt was winter stars so no, they do not form a continuous map. He stopped talking after that.
Ok Picture the scene
I am best in my country at the sport I do, and top 20 in the world.
We have very specialized equipment requiring a lot of care.
I was taking a look at my best friends equipment (she is best in her country too), and feeling the edges, and talking about how the edges were really blunt. Like, REALLY blunt. (thats bad)
Dude walks up to us.
Dude has never done the sport before (this was his first day)
he feels my friends equipment without permission (HUGE no no)
"This is actually really sharp for <type of sled> edges."
My friend: Immediately bursts out laughing
Me: Too stunned for words.
Eventually I give him a bit of a berating for pulling that c**p, and told him to never touch someone else's equipment without permission. He was such a douche. Hes quit the sport now (luckily) don't have to see him ever again.
My cousin and I were setting up the Find My Friends app and were told:
"You know you aren't actually tracking each other, you're tracking the phone?"
Ya we know.
My friend’s spouse tried to explain how stocks and options work to me at a party. I have a PhD in finance. He figured he still should tell me how financial markets work.
About how the vagina gets enormously big and sloppy if you have sex with many penises, big dildos or have babies. Only 1 smallish penis is acceptable ever.
Multiple men have mansplained this to me, and it's not even correct. A vagina is not made of memory foam!
One sent along a photo of someone's vagina with a very severe prolapse, saying that is what happens to all women after they give birth (I am a mother and certainly did not have a prolapse). And then he asked me if the "carpet matches the curtains", like his type always do to redhead women.
A dude who had admittedly never ridden a horse before explained the theory behind modern day horseback riding to me at the bar. He was a stranger. I am a horse trainer
On one of my work calls, this male employee was explaining to a female manager what her subordinate was "intending".
The manager replied saying "Yes, Dave. I know what she said. I asked her to convey it to you"
A professor of my university, whose seminars I hadn't taken, as he had a reputation of dismissing women, and especially women in teacher's studies (here, the seminars are mixed, so if you are in a history seminar, you'll see aspiring historians and history teachers), tried to explain Robert Burns' gothic poems to me. I had just written a thesis about this. Which I had been asked to present in his seminar. By him. Who didn't know jacksh*t about Burns or his poetry, because he was focusing his research on American gothic literature and only wanted me to present Burns in a "yeah, and the British did it, too. Now you know." kind of way. Needless to say, I blatantly told him he was wrong and left. It was my last day at university anyways as I had just been given my diploma a few hours prior.
One of my friend’s boyfriend explained how the GameStop stock market manipulation happened (and the general basics of the stock market).
I graduated summa cum laude with a finance degree from one of the top business schools in our state. (With a few minors, including economics)
He got a general business degree from that same college with much worse grades than I did, and I helped him with his homework. (So he knows that I have a degree in the field)
I just absentmindedly nodded along until he stopped talking.
Some guy tried to explain the biology behind depression to me. My major is literally called psychobiology.
So many of these women's specialities are so facinating. I'd be in heaven listening to a woman talk about psychobiology. I would too if it were a man it's more that I can't imagine needing to hear myself talk rather than taking the opportunity to listen to someone share their field if they were so inclined.
When men find out I don't masturbate, they feel like they need to "fix" me and give some sort of advices. A man explained to me how a vibrator works. I know how a vibrator works. I just don't want it and frankly don't need it.
A guy also tried to explain to me how a tampon works. I just don't use it cause I don't want it. I prefer pads.
How the hell would this even come up in a conversation? How many men ? Good grief 😁
I’m a licensed RN and my brother tried to explain to me what nursing was all about.
Oh and another one. Years ago when I had a different career, this guy was delivering some audiovisual equipment to my office for review. He asked if I knew where "they" wanted it and evidently missed me pointedly saying where I wanted it put. He then started trying to explain how to hook it up. I made a slightly obnoxiously knowing comment about cables and mentioned that I was the tech editor, which shut him up...
Started at a gym recently, a man was showing me a baseball move but told me to pretend I was moving a laundry basket. Little did he know I played softball for 12 years…he ASSumed wrong :)!
I posted a selfie on Instagram with a caption about the fact that I'd had a panic attack a few hours earlier. A man told me that actually I couldn't have had a panic attack if I was posting a selfie with lipstick and fancy editing, and I wouldn't have been able to type. Therefore, I was just looking for attention.
Douche. A doctor (luckily a specialist for physical issues) didn't believe I am on antidepressants because of my sense of humor.)
Some random guy walking on a trail decided to tell me, a cyclist, that there was a hill ahead- okay sure, already knew that but whatever. He then, completely unprompted, started trying to explain that I should gear down for the hill and how to gear down.
I told him I already knew and biked off, but what the f**k? All of that was completely unprompted. I had stopped my bike to ask a different person if she’d seen my cycling buddy up ahead, because I wasn’t sure if they’d gone left or right, and this random guy decided that that meant I didn’t know how to use my own goddamn bike.
Oh god today I was mansplained too. My boyfriend was driving my car and drove it over a tall curb on accident. So we pulled over to a gas station and I got out to check my car for damage, got out and started looking at the undercarriage. A guy drove past me and yelled out his window, “The gas tank is on the side of the car!!!” ......... groundbreaking.
Some of these aren't mansplaining, but they do give off the same 'women are / women can't/ women want--' assumptions vibe. As if we are another breed entirely. As if we aren't individual human beings with a diversity of skills, knowledge, and experience.
I guess it doesn't count as mansplaining when it's directed at me, but gotta say the dude who tried to correct me on Finnish history on this site got me kinda p*ssed off. I commented that Finland used to be a part of Sweden (it was for centuries, google it if you don't believe me) and he felt it necessary to comment that, no Finland used to a part of Russia (well yeah, for a lot less time) and Norway part of Sweden. I'm a Finn and have sat through countless of hours of Finnish history in school, but I guess you know better random internet guy.
A foreign guy on Facebook claimed that Finland once banned Donald Duck for not wearing pants. I corrected him with facts and attached an URL to back me up. He didn't change his mind and wanted an "official source", whatever it means, I don't know. But hey did you know that our goverment has deleted the information because they didn't want the world to ridicule and shame us? He told me so, so it must be true. I'm just a woman who was born in Finland and have lived here for all my life, 41 years, what could I possibly know about Aku Ankka?
Load More Replies...So many of these are lame attempts to chat up a woman. Man wants to feel manly and impress the weaker sex.
For once it would be nice to see a man utilize the helpless tactic and ask us for advice or help. If men just treated women as fully developed humans, it might help them get laid. They just need to check their inflated egos.
Load More Replies...Some of these aren't mansplaining, but they do give off the same 'women are / women can't/ women want--' assumptions vibe. As if we are another breed entirely. As if we aren't individual human beings with a diversity of skills, knowledge, and experience.
I guess it doesn't count as mansplaining when it's directed at me, but gotta say the dude who tried to correct me on Finnish history on this site got me kinda p*ssed off. I commented that Finland used to be a part of Sweden (it was for centuries, google it if you don't believe me) and he felt it necessary to comment that, no Finland used to a part of Russia (well yeah, for a lot less time) and Norway part of Sweden. I'm a Finn and have sat through countless of hours of Finnish history in school, but I guess you know better random internet guy.
A foreign guy on Facebook claimed that Finland once banned Donald Duck for not wearing pants. I corrected him with facts and attached an URL to back me up. He didn't change his mind and wanted an "official source", whatever it means, I don't know. But hey did you know that our goverment has deleted the information because they didn't want the world to ridicule and shame us? He told me so, so it must be true. I'm just a woman who was born in Finland and have lived here for all my life, 41 years, what could I possibly know about Aku Ankka?
Load More Replies...So many of these are lame attempts to chat up a woman. Man wants to feel manly and impress the weaker sex.
For once it would be nice to see a man utilize the helpless tactic and ask us for advice or help. If men just treated women as fully developed humans, it might help them get laid. They just need to check their inflated egos.
Load More Replies...