Once in a blue moon I have tried confronting mansplaining, by telling the person it is mansplaining. However that inevitably results in them proceeding to mansplain mansplaining to me. 
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Mansplaining mansplaining is our cue to just leave.
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- You assume most people are stupid;
- You explain things whether or not you’ve been asked to do so;
- You consider the situation in which the recipient of your unrequested explanation is female rather than male to be ‘bad luck’.
Why not ask a question or two to gauge both the knowledge level of the intended recipient and the interest in hearing what you have to say? Or is that only the correct procedure when the recipient has the good luck to be male instead?
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Or, you know, what everyone else just said before me?
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I’m just, you know
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So what you don’t understand about mansplaining is…
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“So I says, says I…”
That’s kind of next level…
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Personally, I would have a hard time asking such a question. I hate haggling, too. Seems to confrontational.
My wife accuses my of mansplaining. But I think it’s more “nerdsplaining”; I just so enjoy the sharing of intricate details of some subject, usually technical. Similarly, I like to hear complicated stuff explained by experts.
I can tell I’m going to far when my wife reaches for a pillow. I’ve been told that’s the way she plans to put me down when the time comes.
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If you stopped mansplaining to her maybe she won’t murder you?
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Nerdsplaining is only fun if the listener is a nerd as well. Otherwise, it’s just a lecture on a subject that the listener isn’t even into studying.
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Akshually, I think you’ll find… oh, no, wait, turns out you’re spot-on.
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As we’ve now had confirmed by someone on this very list!
It’s wild to me that someone would think gaging another’s interest or level of knowledge in a topic is “too confrontational,” but launching into a mansplaining monologue which is based on the assumption that the other party is ignorant is somehow less offensive.
Goes to show how varied our experiences in the world are depending on what our “user interface” looks like.
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This is quite simply putting your needs ahead of the other person. You like to talk at length, and you don’t like asking questions & genuinely caring about the answers. This is the point, my friend.
Every dude who mansplains thinks they are doing the other person a favour. They have rationalized their addiction to hearing themselves talk as “I’m just really into the subject matter”, or, “I’m really helping this person out with all this information”.
The act is still selfish, regardless of how you frame it in your head.
You want to have a conversation about a nerdy topic you are super excited about? Great! Have a conversation. Talking at someone before even finding out if they want to talk about this is not conversation. To get over mansplaining tendencies when your heart is in the right place, start with basic conversation skills. Be more interested in what the other person thinks than what you want to say. Focus on listening.
A lot of men seem to think “conversation” means “wait for the other person to finish speaking so I can talk again”.
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I love to share the random stuff that i’ve learned and picked up over the years. My SO is used to this trait of me, and i try to be conscious of not providing info if she’s not looking for that kind of thing. On the plus side my SO has picked up some info that they genuinely liked and even shared with coworkers.
And as @VeronicaConnor mentioned, we usually end up debating and conversating about whatever topic comes up fairly often. Picking my SO’s brain about a given issue or topic is just as interesting to me
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Waiting for your turn to speak. Incredibly common. I find it far more productive to listen, and then you can reply, if you need to, in an informed fashion. The majority of conversations I have are exactly as you describe, people just waiting for their chance to chime in. This has happened to me with conversations with women, also, but not to such a great extent.
Even if you have a killer statement, if the moment has passed, let it pass.
And now I’m worried about this being taken as mansplaining. It’s just my experience.
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Ya, I mean, we all do it at times.
Here’s a fun thing, though. If you’re at an event, try asking your male and female colleagues or friends separately, after they’ve engaged in a conversation, what they learned from it.
Taken on average, the difference in responses pretty handily sums up what we ladies are trying to describe about mansplaining and approaches to conversing.
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Exactly this. I know there are some men who are good listeners, but they tend not to be in the majority.
Picture, as an illustration, four men talking bollocks over beer. In my experience (which in this situation is pretty vast) each and every one of them is simply awaiting their turn to hold court.
I know the frustration of having thought up the killer-line (which I know will generate laughs and therefore kudos) but then the subject veers off before I have the chance to deliver.
It is weirdly frustrating when you discover that in yourself.
I have learnt to let it go. It took decades, to be fair, but then I’m an old git now. The point, I think, is to let go.
I have strayed off-topic, probably, unless this is also 'splaining.
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