Mansplaining

What is mansplaining, and why are millennial women complaining about it all the time? Cristen and Caroline unpack its origin, meaning and why you don't have to be a man to be guilty of it.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never Told You from how stupp
works dot com. Hello and welcome for the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we are tackling one
of our most requested topics, man splaining. Yeah, actually, well

(00:26):
can I can I just explain something? Yeah? Okay, I
mean you might not be aware of this, probably not
I am a woman. Um, but uh, you know, men
have always explained things to women as if they don't
understand them. Uh, but it wasn't until recently actually, that

(00:48):
we even got the term man splaining. How's that for condescending?
Was that good? That is very good and and that
also hits on the sweeping generalizations that can sometimes come
up with man splaining, to say that men have always
condescend yes, no women, as if it is just a
one way street exactly, and so very good point. Thank

(01:11):
you for saying that. Actually, just kidding, UM, I'm done
with that. UM. I think it is important to note
at the top of the podcast right away that at
the root of man splaining, what is called man splaining
is condescension, and that is in no way limited to men.
It is in no way limited to a conversation between
a man and a woman. I if you look at

(01:34):
the way we talk about what we refer to as
man splaining, which is basically, uh, condescendingly explaining something to
someone else as if you understand it better, when in
reality the other person either understands it just fine or
actually knows more than you do. Um. I have done that.
I have done that to my boyfriend about what what

(01:56):
have you? Caro splained to him, Well, I'm trying to think,
um politics, um, and he's man splained political things right
back to me. So we have man splained at each other. Uh.
And by that I mean we have just issued statements
as if they are completely true and we know so much,

(02:18):
and the other one has been like are you sure?
Are you sure? Or come back and said well actually
and well actually Uh. That definition is missing one key
ingredient two of overconfidence. Yes, arrogance, arrogance. Yes, you have
some hubris plus some condescension. Mix it all together and

(02:40):
you have some splaining to do, like Lucy did, y'all
and I love Lucy joke for anyone ever ever watches
Nick and Knight. Huh um, Caroline. That reminds me though
of when I Beyonce splained to my dear husband when
he was my fiance. Not that that's relevant at all.

(03:00):
M And I only realized that once I saw a
look of bewilderment coming across his face, as I had
been just monologueing for you know, a solid who knows
how long, because I can really monologue about Beyonce for
quite a while, like I'm starting to do right now.
Uh Andy interjected, and um, and let me know that, Hey, hey,

(03:21):
you don't have to you don't have a base plain
to me boo. And I was like, yes, let's do
get married. Um, but before we go any further, can
we share one of my favorite examples of man splaining
that has happened on the stuff Mom Never Told You
Facebook page? Oh please, So, as I was telling Caroline

(03:42):
yesterday when we were just chatting about this topic, I
try to use man splain sparing ly. Yeah, I mean,
you don't want to be dismissive when an actual conversation
is happening. Not every instance of a man talking to
a woman is man splaining. Yeah, And and there are
other reasons that I try to use it sparingly that

(04:03):
we'll get into more later in the podcast. Um. But
but This comment that popped up on our Facebook page
was such a perfect, perfectly imperfect example of man splaining
that I straight up screenshot at it and put the
guy on blast, because, you know what, sometimes there is

(04:24):
a utility to holding people accountable to what they say
in public forums like Facebook. So if you don't like
things that you say with your name attached to them
then being seen by other people, maybe it, don't say it.
So this was in response to an article that we
posted about the author Chimamanda Negozi Adici just casually saying

(04:50):
in an interview that she had opted to not have
a quote unquote public pregnancy. You know, she's a public
figure at this point, and she uh really didn't let
anyone know that she was pregnant because she, in the
way she put it, didn't want to have to perform
pregnancy for other people, which is something that I feel
like is very understandable and should be very understandable for

(05:13):
our fabulous Minty listeners. Oh yeah, Well, it started like
a huge debate in the comments section of women who
had been pregnant and some who obviously had not, like you,
and I um coming at it from both sides, and
it was a really rich discussion until until a fellow

(05:33):
named Adam. I will not reveal your last name in
this forum. Adam, if you're listening, I would be surprised
if you are. But then Adam chimes in, and uh
says and and when he says, another person what I'm
about to read. He's referring to Chimamanda Negozi Adici. So
he says, oh good, another person saying, look at me,

(05:57):
I'm a victim because I'm going through a normal process.
He's talking about pregnancy, and people notice. Just because people
notice or have an opinion about your pregnancy doesn't mean
you're performing pregnancy. It means everyone has an opinion on childcare,
and everyone has a vested interest in future generations. So yes,
if someone sees you doing something that could potentially hurt

(06:18):
your unborn child, they may say something to you about it.
Having things said to you doesn't make you a victim.
This world is full of people who will judge you
for the decisions you make, so you can choose if
your other's opinions or to live unapologetically as yourself, and
hiding information about yourself doesn't exactly make you seem like

(06:38):
you're comfortable in your own skin. Wow. So he just
explained to her presumably her own decision about how she
wanted to handle her own self and her own body
during her own pregnancy, and how people who are pregnant
should feel about the public intrusion on their body is

(07:00):
that often comes with being pregnant. And you can hear
in my voice, listeners, that I am fired up again
because that that right there is man splaining no, no
two ways about it, Because that man has a lot
of hubris to come on interject himself into a conversation
that was being largely had by people who do have

(07:21):
a direct vested interest in this, as people who might
become pregnant at some point. And uh, keep following me, listeners,
because I'm not stopping to say that if you don't
have a uterus, that your opinion is invalid, but to
then go and explain how the world is from your

(07:42):
sis white male perspective. Uh and and just um overconfidently
just lay out the way that you should live your
life and feel about your life. That is where he
just drives off the cliff. Yeah, And I mean I
think that it's a perfect example of how you know,

(08:04):
let's take something that has always existed, which is people
always injecting themselves into conversations where perhaps they don't have
a place to tell others how they should think or feel.
But the Internet, uh gives people an incredible forum, an
incredible opportunity to do just that and to leave a
paper trail of their hubrists and arrogance. And also also

(08:28):
also to refer to someone who merely in this case
with chim Amanda was speaking to the Financial Times. I
believe it was on an article like an interview about
her pregnancy. It was like an offhand comment that she made.
She was super chill about it too. Then take that

(08:49):
and suddenly label her a victim for having opinions about
her own body and the way she wants to conduct
her herself in her private life because she has a
very public life as well. Is also like, who are
you like? That is so so much assuming going on?
And I will go ahead and read you my response

(09:10):
because I did copy and paste all of this and
then share it on Twitter, which all of you enjoyed. Uh.
So I responded to him, well, said white dude, who
will never experience what it's like to a be a
female in a public space. Be be a pregnant person
in a public space and see be an award winning
author in the public eye who would rather not have
her baby bump monitored by the press. You're really the

(09:32):
quote unquote victim here since you have to endure so
many women saying things that challenge your worldview. Seek shelter
young man. Nice, Thank you, I was proud of it. Nice.
So that's man splaining. Yeah, right there, that is man splaining.
And obviously, like we said, it can take many forms, um,

(09:55):
and many people can do the splaining. You and I
have to watch ourselves a lot in terms of things
like white splaining, yes, sis explaining, straight splaining, um, and
we have done it. We are guilty of doing all
of those things, but we definitely try to be vigilant

(10:16):
to to not do that. Yeah. And I think awareness
is critical awareness awareness, awareness of how you're speaking, to
whom you're speaking, um, what you are speaking about. Because
I think that if you are a smart person, male
or female, UM, you hopefully can acknowledge that maybe you're

(10:38):
not an expert and that other people might very well
no more than you. And so I think it's so
I think it's so interesting culturally, I know so many
people side I I know so many people are fed
up with all of our man centric portmanteau that are
coming into the lexicon. Uh ma, interrupting, man spreading, man splaining,

(10:59):
broke opriating. Um, but if you can't laugh, you're just
gonna cry. That kind of thing. Like, it's almost like
you've got to come up with a joke about the
stupid stuff that you have to endure so often, especially
when you are a public figure. Yeah. I mean there's
a reason why all those portmanteau's have caught on because

(11:19):
they are a quick and lighthearted way of identifying something
that previously was more of just a feeling. Yeah, And
it is like kind of a bat signal to other
people to say like, hey have you have you felt this?
Have you gone through this? And it's such a bright
bat signal that man splaining was literally just an answer

(11:43):
on Jeopardy, although not to be confused with a bright
bart signal, in which case run run and yeah. Um,
so the clue was this twenty one century word happens
when a male patronizing lee tells a female about a
topic she already understands. And I think that's hilarious At
first I saw that on Facebook and I thought it
was a joke, but yeah, it was really on It

(12:06):
was really on Jeopardy. What do you think that maybe
that was someone on the Jeopardy staff kind of putting
it to Alex Strubec like struvek. Yeah, we don't know
what Trebek is like behind the scenes. Uh. Well, listeners
who have requested this topic are probably wondering when we're
going to mention Rebecca Soulnet, because she is really the

(12:32):
godmother of man's planning. O can't we say, like really,
she's credited with starting this whole conversation with an essay
that then developed into a whole book called Men Explain
Things to Me? And if you haven't read it, it's fabulous. Yeah.
So in in two thousand eight, her essay uh called

(12:55):
men Explain Things to Me appeared in the l A Times,
and it was basically critique ging men's arrogance in conversations
with women hashtag not all men, uh and the silencing
effect that it can have on women, you know, in
basic conversations day to day, but also on a much broader, bigger, global,

(13:15):
dangerous scale. And uh, she did not use the term
man explain that would not emerge, like we said, until
some people around live journal combined man and explaining UM.
But she really captured the essence that we've been discussing,
so basically what happened UM. As she explains in UM
a more recently released I Think It was UM more

(13:38):
recently released introduction to that past essay, she explains that
her friend had encouraged her to pursue her idea of
a men explained Things to Me essay because quote, young
women needed to know that being belittled wasn't the result
of their own secret failings. It was the boring old
gender wars. In other words, you know, you can't blame

(14:03):
yourself or feel stupid if you are interrupted or explained over,
or you know, have someone a man explaining something to
you in a condescending way. It's not your fault. You're
not stupid. It's the failing of the person on the
other side of the conversation. And since she's a writer, UM,
it also reminded me of conversations that we've had on

(14:23):
the podcast too about this issue coming up in the
literary world where it's not necessarily UM. Well, perhaps maybe
like uh, Jonathan Franzen to Jennifer Weiner exchange but um
more broadly hitting on this idea that you know, men

(14:44):
create serious art and literature, whereas women's work is more
trivial and domestic. Um, and that guys are ultimately like
the arbiters of culture. And what is important to know
oh um and oh man, Like what happens in this

(15:05):
essay is something that has probably happened to a lot
of women, regardless of like whatever kind of field you
work in or even what age you are. Yeah. So
she tells the story of her and her friend being
at this party and she had recently released a book
about innovator Edward Moybridge, and this older gentleman at the

(15:30):
party was like, hey, hey, I want to talk to you,
like when people leave, like I, you know, I want
to talk to you. And she's like, okay, great and
so um he asks her, you know, you know she's
a writer. He asks her what she wrote about. She said, well,
you know, I just put up this book about this guy.
And he was like, oh, well, let me tell you,
and he proceeds to tell her about this very very

(15:55):
important other book about Edward Moybridge that had been really
least and had she heard about it. Oh, he couldn't
believe she hadn't heard about it. It's so important. And
keep in mind he had not read the book. He
had just read about the book in the New York
Times book review. And also keep in mind too, she
had before this point in the conversation, mentioned how she

(16:16):
had published I think it was seven or eight books
by now. Yeah, so he was like, oh, you're basically like, oh,
little girl, you're a writer. And yeah, she was like,
actually everten several well, actually, um, and you know, she
she writes in the essay like, oh gosh, you know,
I've been so wrapped up in my world in my book.

(16:39):
I've had my head in the sand, so to speak,
for so long. It's entirely possible someone else did write
a book about this obscure Edward Moybridge, and I just
didn't notice. You know, what are the chances? But still
I guess there's a there's a slight percentage of a
chance that that could have happened. And as the man
is droning on and on and explaining to her this book,

(17:00):
in its subject matter and how important it is, her
friend pipes up and says, that's her book. Man keeps talking,
that's her book. Man keeps talking. Finally, around the third
or fourth time that Soulnett's friend pipes up and says,
that's her book. The man finally stops, and, as Sonnett says,
goes ashen because his entire worldview for a moment is shaken,

(17:27):
because wait, no, this is a very important book about
an interesting innovative figure in history. Well he made himself
look like an ass. I I don't know, I don't
know that like suddenly he was like, wait, my perception
of genders challenged more than like, oh well, I just
made myself look like a dumb dumb in front of
the two women. But she said that he kept going

(17:49):
on like that, he didn't necessarily stop, So I'm sure
it's both. It's like, oh wait, do I look stupid?
Well now I need to keep talking. Just dig your
heels in to cover that up. Yeah, which is like
such an aspect of the condescending arrogance of man explaining
that was like a time in Queens when I, uh,

(18:12):
I was talking to you, this very nice fella, and
I told him about the show stuff. Mom never told
you that you were listening to right now, dear listeners,
um saying you know, like, yeah, I have a feminist podcast,
And he spent the next twenty minutes explaining feminism to me. Yeah,
And I just sat there just drinking my beer and

(18:33):
not really saying much because I just wanted to see
how how long he would go and why did he go?
Was he explaining theory or everything? You know? And the
importance of intersectionality, like saying it would have been a
good conversation if if, if there were a conversation right right, um,
instead of manalogue. So the way though that soul Knit

(18:59):
disc ribes essentially man splaining in that original essay is
really really important to for us to just directly quote
and emphasize, so she wrote, though I hasten to add
that the essay makes it clear man splaining is not
a universal flaw of gender, just the intersection between over

(19:20):
confidence and cluelessness where some portion of that gender gets stuck.
And it's such a such a good way of putting it,
of just like of gender just kind of like getting
stuck in the mix where it's like not not everyone
being horrible human people, but that element of a certain

(19:42):
brand of normative masculinity that mixes together with overconfidence and
cluelessness that breeds what we call man splaining. Yeah, and
coming from people who are perhaps used to their worldview
being the one that is dominant, the one that has

(20:04):
heard above all others, the person who's used to being
heard and taken seriously, and then feels the need to
perhaps talk over other people that he feels maybe don't
have a right to have their voice be the dominant voice. Right,
And again I think, like so much of this is
subconscious and socialization, because that right there reminds me of

(20:26):
our conversation recently on failure and how uh. One study
found that women tend to wait until they are one
percent qualified to apply for a um some kind of
job promotion, whereas men will go ahead and apply for
it when they're sixty qualified, because there is there is

(20:49):
a bit of gendered over confidence. Research has shown, yes, exactly.
And so you know I mentioned earlier I kind of
set a big statement and then didn't follow it up
with anything. Which is that so? And it talks about
how the concept that we call man splaining can have
a much larger, almost global, dangerous effect. And the reason

(21:10):
that she put that forth is that she says that
this apparent presumption that you know, women don't know what
they're talking about when they talk about something, and in
the inherent assumption that men do silence as women and
and this can have real and negative effects on women
around the world. She says that it keeps women from

(21:33):
speaking up and from being heard when they dare. It
crushes young women into silence by indicating the way harassment
on the street does, that this is not their world.
It trains us in self doubt and self limitation, just
as it exercises men's unsupported over confidence. And what happens,
she says, when doubt is sown, either self doubt and

(21:56):
yourself because you've been shouted down so much, or others
doubting that you are smart enough to carry this conversation
or understand what you're talking about, is that your credibility suffers.
And there are very real, again, consequences of credibility suffering.
I mean, look at every conversation Kristen and I have
had about rape culture. You know, not believing survivors of

(22:19):
domestic violence or sexual assault, of stalking of the importance
of having credibility in the eyes of the law in
order to get a restraining order. You know, the bar
is so high for so many people to be able
to even get a restraining order or a conviction, or
to be taken seriously by police, and so Soulnett rights.

(22:40):
Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever
the punitive topic is, and one simply for the right
to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged, to be
in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to
be a human being. Well, in this conversation and everything
that Solnet is writing about is so oh timely for

(23:01):
this election because there has been a lot of that
in terms of just watching that issue of women's credibility
being questioned, and while that might seem tangential to this
issue of man explaining, it is all connected, and especially
in the case of women survivors not being believed, that

(23:25):
is something that I've also witnessed. We've seen it on
our Facebook page of stuff I've never told you, of
men and women alike coming out to say, she's just
making it up, They're opportunistic, that's not really assault. Get real,
this is the way the world works. And and just
dismissing it and just invalidating other people's experiences and the

(23:50):
sense of violation and trauma that they have no clue about,
which is then tied into the issue of reporting, right,
because if a woman's credibility is suffering internally or from
external sources, Hello, that addresses the whole question of like, well,

(24:10):
why are these women just now coming forward, Because in
the cases of people like Cosby or Trump, power in numbers, right,
I mean, that's almost the only power a lot of
these women who have been silenced have at this point. Yeah,
And it is something like you you said earlier, Caroline. This,
this issue of man explaining in a lot of different

(24:31):
contexts does tend to spike around elections because Hello, women
have not exactly had much of a public voice or
political rights to speak of, even for all that long, Like,
public discourse for most of American history has been uh

(24:55):
dominated and established and maintained by men. And it veers
into this issue of benevolent sexism as well, where it's like, ladies, ladies, ladies,
we're not street harassing you, We're just complimenting you. You
know that kind of that kind of uh A line

(25:16):
of thinking. So it comes up a lot of course
during the suffrage era, where you have someone um like
theologian Liman Abbott writing in the Atlantic in nineteen o three,
because yeah, there were still think pieces and I think
pieces back then, And really the title of his essay
alone sums it up why women do not wish the suffrage.

(25:38):
I feel like words are left out of that, don't you. Yeah,
but no, I did double check and that really was
the title. Um. But Abbott basically launches into this explanation that, um,
these women, these suffragists who are getting up and speaking
on podiums and on platforms, they just don't get it.
They don't get true femininity like the silent majority of

(26:01):
women do. Um, they don't understand how important our existing
social structure is. And he said that basically, he's speaking
for all those silent women who don't get to give
speeches at podiums, all of those women who want to
stay home without the vote, rather than stepping back like
six hundred feet and thinking, oh, eight silent women, why

(26:26):
are they silent? Perhaps I don't have a platform. Stop
at your logic, ng me to death. My my eye
spasm is going at full speed. But this is also
something that was repeated again during the Carter Reagan election
in nineteen eighty when this was the year that the

(26:47):
Republican Party thanks to a lot of work from old
Philish Lafley, who if you want to know more about her,
we've got an episode all about all about her that
listeners have have both loved and also hated because m
she's she's a lot to handle. Um. But this was
the year that the Republican Party officially took the Equal

(27:11):
Rights Amendment off its platform. Um, And you have during
a presidential debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Reagan
who is really parenting Philish Laughley, so in a way,
he's kind of Slaughley explaining, which is hard to say. Um,
but you have this very benevolent sexist response of why

(27:34):
you know, women don't need the e r A. According
to Reagan because quote, it would be used by mischievous
men to destroy discriminations that properly belong to women, respecting
the physical differences between the two sexes, and labor laws
that protect them against things that would be physically harmful
to them. So basically saying like, we know what's best

(27:55):
and we know what you don't want to do, so
we don't need the legislation, and of course, there were
women out there who were all about Shlafley, who were
all about the idea that the r A would be
um harmful, even though all of their arguments for not
passing the R E r A have now just come

(28:16):
to pass via individual legislation, like women um being allowed
to like the government being allowed to draft women, and
the thing is too Caroline. In this Ronald Reagan argument
and the mischievous men, it also reminds me of a
lot of conversations around why we shouldn't allow all gender bathrooms,

(28:38):
you know, because mischievous men are gonna get in there
and do things. There's always this weird pivot politically when
it comes to this kind of legislative man explaining where
it's a slight of hand of oh, hey, you know, ladies, Uh,
we're not trying to restrict you and tell you how
to live your lives. We're just trying to protect you
from men who are terrible but don't victimize selves. Yeah,

(29:02):
it's a cycle of it's a cycle of so much
bull honky it's unbelievable. And I think my brain just
broke because I just said bull honkey so old school. Well,
I was, I I um, have so much of a
desire to occur so badly, and so I had to
say something else. But but obviously, again it's worth restating

(29:25):
that not all men are condescending jerks, not all women
are helpless dormats who can't voice opposition and argument. And
this is not just an issue that flows directly from
male gender to female gender, you know, like this can
relate to and go back and forth across all sorts

(29:45):
of identities. Yeah, and and so much of it goes
back to because Kristen, you know, said a lot of
this is subconscious, and she's absolutely right. So much of
it goes back to gender norms, socialization, communication, power dynamics,
just expectations that uh end up falling short of reality

(30:07):
or reality fall short of our expectations and uh linguists
Debora Tannin, whom we've cited a number of times on
the podcast before, cautions people that what we call man splaining,
or the idea of men interrupting women, speaking over them,
condescending to them, it's not as simple as sexism. A

(30:27):
would that it were, because then maybe it would be
easier to combat and raise awareness about. She says, the
inequality of the treatment results not simply from the men's
behavior alone, but from the differences in men's and women's styles.
So we are going to dive into what that means
and what those styles look like, and whether they're entirely

(30:48):
accurate or just a bunch of gender essentialism when we
come back from a quick break. So this half of
the podcast, we're gonna be focusing a lot on rock

(31:09):
star linguist Debra Tannin and all of the research that
she's been doing for decades now on men and women's
communication styles, particularly focused on the workplace. A lot of
these Portmanteau's um are usually contextualized in like workplace situations,
like the man interrupter or the p appropriator who will

(31:31):
snag your idea in the in the meeting and take
it as his own. Um. And I do think that
before we dive into the communication style stuff, that it's
worth noting that this is this is a little bit
away from that core idea of overconfidence and hubris plus

(31:55):
some gender getting snagged in the mix equals man splaining.
But um, it's so helpful to understand more about just
these basic communication styles of how we even talk to
each other. Yeah, because I mean as Tannon explains it, Um,
you know, in every community of people on the globe
that linguists study to understand how they communicate. What's natural

(32:19):
quote unquote for most men speaking a given language is
in a lot of cases different from what's quote unquote
natural for most women. And that's because we tend to
I mean, unless you've got a mess of siblings, or
you do just grow up playing with people of another sex,

(32:39):
we tend to grow up playing like with like. Girls
are in a group playing with each other, and boys
are in a group with each other. I had a
very intersectionally diverse group of imaginary friends. Unicorns, fairies, had
some trolls. Oh so, um, let's dive into Tannin's because again,

(33:04):
Tannon has been researching gendered communication, particularly in the workplace,
since the seventies, so she knows what she's talking about.
She knows what she's talking about. So basically, she says
that girls tend to learn these things called conversational rituals
that focus on the report dimension of relationships. We tend

(33:24):
to play with a single best friend or in small groups,
we spend a lot of time talking um, and we
learn to downplay ways in which one person in the
group is better than others. We tend to emphasize ways
in which we're all the same. And you can see
this and how girls or frankly grown us women police

(33:45):
each other by calling each other bossy or you know
man or boys can call girls bossy as well. She's
a know it all. Yeah, but you you learn as
a girl that's sounding too sure of yourself can make
you unpopular with your years. So therefore, as girls, we
learn to talk in ways that balance our needs with

(34:06):
those of others. So we're not called bossy so that
we are saving face, so that we can still have
a large group of friends and not sound like we're
trying to be ahead or above anyone else. So we
can be likable. Yes, so we can be likable. Whereas
Tannon contends that boys conversational rituals focus more on the

(34:26):
status dimension um, and this is involved with more rough
and tumbled play of guys challenging each other. UM. Usually,
if you have play in larger groups in which more
boys can be included, not everybody is going to be
treated like an equal hashtag lord of the flies. And

(34:51):
when you have like more like higher status boys, they're
going to be expected, Tannon rights to emphasize rather than
downplay your status. They're gonna they're gonna boss people around, probably,
And this is although when I'm like, but there's usually
like that. There's always the sun in the universe of friendships,

(35:14):
you know what I mean, Like, especially like younger groups
of friends tend to orbit around and when when we're
talking about girls in my experience at least tend to
orbit around one or two uh central people, which to
me is very also like status conscious, but I guess um,
on average, boys tend to be more combative and more

(35:38):
interested in status climbing, whereas girls are more tend and
befriend Yeah, and so Tannon says that basically because having
a boss, not someone who's bossy, but someone who's the
boss is expected in these boys play groups. Um, giving
orders is one way of maintaining that high status role.

(36:00):
You want to take center stage and tell your story
because that is also another way, like being the comedian
the class clown is another way of maintaining a high status.
Which that just made me think of Man's plaining of like, oh,
getting center stage telling your story over someone else. That's
showing that you are of a higher status okay, And

(36:20):
it doesn't take a lot of imagination to to project
how this might play out as we grow up and
leave the playground for the wherever wherever it is, we
go the bigger playground called life. That's right. And when
we check in on those high status and low status

(36:42):
boys when they grew up to be men, um Tannon
says that they're still talking in order to cement their
status on the life ladder shoots and ladders, shoots and
shoots and leaves um, and they're using language again to
exert dominance and achieved hagible outcomes, So they're more likely
to speak in ways that maintain that hierarchy. They're more

(37:05):
likely to um try to get in good with the boss,
talk loudly around the boss to get their achievements recognized,
and typically on average. Again, um Tannin indicates that dudes
become indirect with their communication, like women whose motivation is

(37:28):
to not sound bossy again, only when it comes to
admitting fault or weakness. Otherwise they're like, this is how
it is, this is the way of things, this is
my opinion, and it's the best UM until they're wrong
or have a mistake and then it becomes less direct
and meanwhile, what are women doing? Whereas men are on

(37:50):
that life ladder using their communication to maintain a higher
wrung with sliding down the shoots, we we are are
all women are all in the ball pit, hanging out
in the life network, using our communication to like you said,
that sounds fun, tendon befriend. I I'm a little worried

(38:12):
about the germ factor of a ball pit, um, but
I wish I had one as an adult. I feel
like I could let off steam by jumping into it
like Scrooge McDuck. And again, in general, Tannon says that
that grown us women are using their interactions to be
more social, uh, to be more sensitive to not knocking
someone down a peg. We speak in ways that help

(38:33):
others save face. And this is something that Tannon talks
a lot about in one of the papers we read,
because it can get I can get women into some
trouble if their subordinates don't understand the criticism that they're
trying to to offer. So if a female manager is like, hey,
you know, you're doing a great job. I love everything

(38:55):
that you did with that report, but you know, I
saw some mistakes on the second half that didn't need fixing.
She she followed people around their offices for for a
long time and noticed that when women did that two men,
the men didn't realize because the woman was not being
as direct, They didn't realize that she actually legitimately needed

(39:17):
them to fix the whole report. So they only heard
the compliment. They heard the compliment and felt not betrayed.
That's too strong of a word, but they felt sort
of led on that their report was great? What women
are so deceitful? Contouring skills um. One thing though I
was considering while reading this Tannin piece is that it

(39:43):
was published in the Harvard Business Review, And I would
just be curious if you go into that same office
today and follow people around like Tannon did, I'm sure
you would find similar patterns. But I also have a
hunch that some of those general is A actions have
changed as gender dynamics have changed. Oh, I agree, and

(40:08):
and yes, as gender dynamics have changed, Yes, as more
women have come into workplaces. But I also feel, you know,
and you know, I've worked with men. I also feel
that generally that softened approach is appreciated by many people,
not just women, in terms of being like, hey, I

(40:28):
love what you're doing, like it's great, but here's what
you need to fix. But see the funny thing for me, um,
and and and I do think that I can have
a more typically masculine style of communication. Um, I switch
it to where I tend to be more direct at
least an email with women, and softer in my approach

(40:50):
with men. Why is that Because historically I've only had
male managers, So if I have something that I need
to say or a request of some sort, it has
served me better to still be direct. But um, a

(41:13):
soft directness, you know, not like not soft in like
having a huge word count, you know what I mean,
But um, just a little bit more. You use comic
sans I know, at least a lot of emojis, pink
comic sans. Um. Yeah, I mean honestly, it's a way
to uh to manage egos. Whereas with women, I do

(41:36):
feel like I can be more direct and I mean tannin.
Tanna says that a lot of the stuff goes back
to the fact that traditionally offices have been male dominated,
which means that the overarching communication styles that are expected
are more masculine, and that this puts women at a disadvantage,
especially if they are more likely to speak in that

(41:59):
softer tone or softer method uh in general, and she
cites studies that that I feel like have been replicated
more recently that women are more likely to downplay their
certainty by hedging, saying things like just or whatever, um,
and using tag questions you know what I mean? Yes,

(42:20):
I do, I do indeed, And and you know where
this comes into play, is that so basically, back when
Tannon was writing this this piece, um, her whole thing
circles back around to you've got to look at what
the dominant communication style is at the office, and who's
then getting rewarded for playing into those roles in that

(42:43):
way of speaking? And then who's going to get rewarded
for it? Because if women come up with great ideas
in the meeting, but they're appropriated, then who's going to
be rewarded for it, who's going to get the promotion,
and who's going to be punished for speaking in a
way that is not the wout unquote mainstream yeah, I mean.
And ultimately, what what Tannin says, the solution to all

(43:06):
of this is not that women should talk like men
in the workplace, or that men should talk like women,
whatever that is. Again, this is super essentialist language that
we're using UM, but rather that there is a healthy
medium in that where women tend to use more affiliative
language whereas men tend to use that more assertive language,

(43:28):
and both styles can be really beneficial in certain scenarios.
But if we continue to allow the masculine style to
be the norm in professional settings like it has been,
because historically dudes were the first ones in the office,
they were the first ones in business, so they are

(43:49):
the default. If that continues, and we're never going to
solve this problem. Basically, we need to listen to each
other better. We need to listen to each other better
and recognize that it is possible that we just have
different ways of speaking and hearing, and that our expectations
are shaped by socialization. And you know, Tannon does a
lot of talking about these UM ritual conversational behaviors, things

(44:12):
like apologizing that we've talked about so much before, Things
like mitigating criticism with praise, which is a traditionally female
way of speaking, or offering criticism UM. She also points
out that exchanging compliments is a ritual behavior of women,
and you're probably being like, what in the world do
compliments have to do with man's plaining? I myself wondered

(44:35):
this as well. Come along for the ride, fair listeners basically,
and I'm going to try to boil this down as
quickly as possible. But she gives the example of a
of a set of coworkers that she studied, and we'll
call them Cheryl and Bob. And so after presentation that
Bob gave and Cheryl gave one to, Cheryl's like, hey, Bob,
you did a great job, and he's like thanks, and

(44:57):
he doesn't offer any compliment and turn, and because she
feels like this ritual, so to speak, has been upturned,
she's like, well, what did you think of mine? And
because of his and again gender essentialist talking in general
terms here, but because of his socialization, he sees this
question as evidence of uncertainty. Uh. That means that Cheryl

(45:21):
is now down a peg on the life ladder, and
so he then holds forth with a critique. So all
of a sudden, Cheryl feels that she's down a peg
on the ladder and doesn't know why because she's just
trying to exchange compliments because that is her conversational ritual
that she's used to. It's the same thing. It's like hey, girl,
of your dress, or like, hey you did great on

(45:43):
that thing today. It's the same thing. Of course, I
know Christens rolling her eyes now, I'm just I'm rolling
my eyes at fishing expedition. Well, yes, yes, yes, um.
But to me, that was an interesting look at a
potential opening for man splaining if you are doing those
ritual compliments, if you are fishing, and someone sees it

(46:05):
as an opportunity to explain to you all the ways
in which you're whatever presentation, piece of writing, piece of art. Uh,
is not as good as it could have been or
should have been. But how is that just different from
a critique or constructive criticism. I don't see that's where
that's where the argument loses me. That that has anything

(46:27):
to do with gender. Well, Tannon would argue that men
are less likely to ask for feedback from a colleague
after a presentation. Like sure, I'm just saying like as
that a man offering critique, Um, isn't inherently explaining you

(46:48):
know what I mean? Like, to me, that's just Cheryl's
failed fishing expedition really, and so Cheryl needs to maybe
have practice a little more self awareness of that you
of like, okay, you want you didn't hear what you
wanted to hear, So then let's let's step back a
second and ask, well, why is that and what would

(47:10):
what did you want to hear? And then go from there.
And I think it's incredibly valid to argue that again,
not every time a man opens his mouth in response
to what a woman says is it man splaining? Do
certain communication rituals open the door to some of these

(47:32):
abuses of communication? Yes, that doesn't mean that every instance
of that communication is man splanning. And plenty of people
on the internet's women included, are no fans of the
term man splaining, not the practice, but the term. Yeah.
I agree that man splaining and similar to the word

(47:54):
empowerment um, has lost some of its meaning due to
overuse UM. And it can be really lazy, knee jerk
way to just tell a guy to shut up um,
And it can have a negative chilling effect because in conversations,
for instance, around reproductive rights. UM. Do I think that

(48:21):
sis gender men should perhaps tread lightly and really really
listen hard before they talk? Um? Yeah? I do, But
I don't think that men expressing their opinions or forming
opinions on reproductive rights is necessarily man splaining. You know
what I mean. Well, I mean that goes back to

(48:42):
the example you said it earlier, from your own experience
of the man kind of man splaining feminism. To you,
it would have been a totally different bollowax if you
guys were batting the subject back and forth and having
a conversation about it, right, and particularly if you're someone
who does not possess whatever identity is kind of at
stake in the conversation. Um also important to consider your

(49:09):
privilege and consider the platform that you have that is
different from people the people that you are talking about.
So in the case of our podcast, for instance, when
we're talking about the experiences of women of color, we
can quickly get into that if we are not careful
about acknowledging the fact that we are speaking as to

(49:32):
white women. Well, yeah and so, and this is when
you see women of color on Twitter saying can you
please just sit down, just sit down and listen, And
and that's what's going on, that they are tired of
being white splained, just the way that you know, women
at large are exhausted with being man splained right, and
so because of that, I I'm totally cool with the term,

(49:57):
you know when when I see examples like uh Alex
on Facebook hashtag not all Alex's UM, that's man's plaining,
and I'll call it out. And it's a very useful
term when you are identifying the right thing. UM. But
in the same way that I think that UM super

(50:17):
crass comedy is just lazy, like just automatically going blue
to me is boring, UM. Using man splaining as your
knee jerk way to just tell a guy that you
just don't want to hear what he has to say. UM,
I think is is misguided and and useless. But the
discomfort that the word can uh can spark, I think

(50:42):
it is like is really really beneficial. But it's also
that discomfort, ironically, which is what UM some people take
issue with. Where For instance, Leslie Kincel, whom we've stided
before on the podcast UM, She's written a lot of
great stuff, and over at XO J she wrote a
piece saying like, I I hate the word man splaining

(51:06):
because she felt that it was gender essentialists, which valid argument,
but she also seemed concerned that it would make men uncomfortable,
and I'm I doubt that that's really like what she meant,
but that is what I took away from it of like,
you know, like we're always using and this is not

(51:27):
her that I'm trying to pare it right now. I'm
just saying, like there is a general tone sometimes of
you know what, there's so much criticism that goes on
and so much name calling. You know, let's take the
higher ground and not call men man splainers. And it's like, no, no, no,
the discomfort is the point of it, in the same
way that solidarity is for white women, you know, as

(51:50):
a white feminist, Uh, that is of course uncomfortable to hear,
and you want to think, oh, no, am I doing that?
Am I part of the problem. That's awful? And of
course not all white women, you know, but it's so
important and that was such and still is a useful

(52:11):
automatic way to call out and identify these institutional issues. Yeah,
I mean, that's a that's a valid point. And I
am not advocating that we would ever think that men
are too stupid to understand sexism or sexist behavior. That's
that's ridiculous. And that is sexist. Um, but I think
that it is worth acknowledging that whether the splaining you

(52:33):
are doing is the man variety or the white variety
or whatever, there is a degree of implicit bias to
be wrangled with. And that's the utility of these kinds
of words, of being able to immediately spotlight things that
are otherwise invisible. Yeah, and can I can I speaking
of spotlight? Can I spotlight? One other argument that I

(52:54):
thought was kind of silly, of course coming from Kinsel,
but also coming from Liz Cookman over at the Guardian. Um.
They kind of both argue, I think Cookman more explicitly,
but they both kind of argue that like you can't
or you shouldn't, or please don't use man splaining anymore,
the term man's planning, because how would you feel if

(53:17):
someone accused us woman splaining? Yeah, and my comeback to
that is just a blank stare and and blinking helplessly,
because that's not the that's not the point. And also
like you can just tell me if I'm being condescending,
and maybe the cure to that is just awareness. Yeah, yeah,

(53:39):
because what it's getting to is a product of patriarchy. Exactly,
And I mean that goes back to the point about
implicit bias and that if you are splaining from a
position of higher privilege, it's different, um, right. I mean
when you say, and now is where we should invite

(53:59):
our listeners to share all of their thoughts on this,
especially because we are too sis straight, white, able bodied
women who have been sitting here talking about it, UM,
and also how it affects different identities. I am really
looking forward to hearing from our listeners about this issue
and also from guys in the audience of how you

(54:22):
grapple with it and UM, and and how how you
process the concept to UM. Because again, like it's it's
overuse and abuse sometimes does threaten like it's usefulness, UM,
but you know, ultimately it is still useful, it can

(54:44):
be useful. So y'all, now that we've explained quite a bit,
we want to hear from you. Mom Stuff at how
stuff works dot Com is our email address. You can
also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook,
and we've got a couple of messages to share with
you when we come right back from a quick break.

(55:07):
So I have a letter here from Marina in response
to our episode on gender invention and patents, and in
it we had asked about why there's so much more
gender parity in terms of patent holding in former communist countries. So,
Marina Rights, I loved the episode. It hit on every
subject near and dear to my heart because I am

(55:28):
a patent lady lawyer with my area of expertise and
electronics and electrical engineering as it happens, I'm also from
the former Soviet Union. The first reason is that every
country has their own brand of sexism in gender roles.
Russia has its fair share of problems with sexism, but
women in stem fields was never seen as a lady
like or outside of the gender roles for women. I

(55:50):
know many Russian women who were scientists and engineers back
in Russia, and talking to them, I was surprised to
find stories of a whole department of chemists who were
all women, or a whole department of electrical and engineers.
I asked why, and the only response I got was
that they thought there were great jobs for women, without
any specifics. In the US, we don't usually say a chemist,

(56:10):
that's a great job for a woman. We usually talk
about part time retail jobs. Like that because you can
be with the kids during the day. The second reason
is that the Communist Party was the workers party. Therefore
everyone was expected to be a hard worker. Plus Russia
needed every available worker to industrialize after the Communist Revolution.

(56:30):
Every woman in my family, going back to my great
grandmother worked outside of the home. In the US, I
barely know of anyone with a grandmother that was not
a stay at home mom unless they were in some
terrible situation where they had to work. The last reason
was World War Two. While in the US women had
to step up and work manufacturing jobs while their husbands
bought overseas and we're forced to return home after the war.

(56:52):
Russia lost such a huge percentage of the male population
in the war, they needed women to work. Since women
have had parity in the workplace for years, parody in
stem fields and universities. They occupy pretty equal parts in
the R and D departments as inventors who file for patents.
Thank you so much for that insight, Marina, and I

(57:14):
have a letter here from Enez. She says, this morning,
on my way to work, I listen to your podcast
about women inventors and patents. One bit stood out the
fact that the percentage of patents filed by women in
former communist countries is higher than in other parts of
the world. I'm originally from the former g DR German
Democratic Republic, although I have lived abroad for the last
fourteen years, and this actually makes a lot of sense

(57:36):
to me. When I was little, it was completely normal
for women to work, and that also in very technical fields,
like the mom of a friend who was a construction engineer.
In schools, the science and science related subjects were the
very highly valued and the girls can't do math sentiment
didn't really exist. Just look at one of the most
famous former g DR citizens, Angela Merkel, has a PhD

(57:59):
in physical chemistry. I did not know that. I didn't either,
Thank you, anez Um. She continues. It's also not a
coincidence that it was Russia who had a woman in
space in nineteen sixty three, while NASA was still calculating
tampon problems in the nineteen eighties. There was also other stuff,
such as abortion rights were nothing that had to be discussed.

(58:20):
Abortion was simply available and was then quite restricted after
the fall of the Wall. Child care was also available
and affordable. Also very interesting, the pay gap between the
genders is significantly smaller in the German states that used
to make up the g d R compared to the
rest of the country. This doesn't make communism a feminist
paradise at all. Most of the time these things existed

(58:41):
because the countries needed women in the workforce, especially after
the war, and in the g d R because so
many people were fleeing the country. It wasn't about the
equality of women. For example, the political elite was mainly male.
There were exceptions, of course, like Margot Honecker. Also, religion
wasn't super popular with the political leaders, so the church
didn't get to influence people's lives as much as in

(59:03):
other parts of the world. Anyway, I was born in
so I can only retell stories I was told by
my family. But maybe a podcast about feminism in these
countries could be super interesting. It certainly would have looked
quite different than what you guys are used to. Well,
thank you so much for the perspectiveness, and thanks to
everybody who has written into us. Mom Stuff at how

(59:24):
stuff works dot Com is our email address and for
links to all of our social media as well as
all of our blogs, videos and podcasts. With our sources
So you can learn more about man splaining. Head on
over to stuff Mom Never told you dot com. Thanks
for more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

(59:45):
how stuff Works dot com.