I think the insulting part of mansplaining is the assumptive nature of it.
This can all be avoided by a soft check before explaining something, rather than assuming a boy/girl/chimp wouldn’t know the first thing about welding/cooking/crochet/throwing feces.
Whenever I have the urge to info dump about a topic I’ll probe with a, ‘You may very well know more about this than I, please let me know before it becomes tiresome.’ 10 out of 10 it works, and usually both of us learn something.
Take for example the classic tech support situation.
Person with problem: “The remote connection to the device doesn’t work!”
Tech support: “Are you sure the device is turned on?”
Person with problem (getting angry): “Of course it’s on. Do you think I’m stupid?”
Tech support: “Is it the device I see on the background of the video call?”
Person with problem: “Yes”
Tech support: “The lights are not on. Please double check if it’s turned on.”
Person with problem: “Oh, I forgot to plug it in.”
A soft check would have lead the tech support to accept that the device is on, instead of digging further, and it would have lead to potentially hours of wasted time.
The same thing often happens in such situations. The person infodumping does so to clear up potential underlying misunderstandings that a soft check cannot catch. That’s not evil or mean or condescending. It’s done with the clear understanding that the person you are talking to likely knows 95% of the things you are saying, but that the remaining 5% might be an issue and a soft-check fails every single time for that kind of issue.
But it’s also a reverse issue. Many women reflexively assume that any time someone infodumps that person is only doing that to them, because they are women and because that man thinks that women are dumb. Even if that man does the same with other men.
The amount of times i had to explain to phone company customers that their phone line malfunction, which they were reporting from said phone line, was monetary in nature…
I just asume whatever I say is dumb and wrong, so I don’t explain things anymore, I let people find out the hard way, and then act like I didn’t see it coming.
I think the insulting part of mansplaining is the assumptive nature of it.
This can all be avoided by a soft check before explaining something, rather than assuming a boy/girl/chimp wouldn’t know the first thing about welding/cooking/crochet/throwing feces.
Whenever I have the urge to info dump about a topic I’ll probe with a, ‘You may very well know more about this than I, please let me know before it becomes tiresome.’ 10 out of 10 it works, and usually both of us learn something.
That often doesn’t really work though.
Take for example the classic tech support situation.
A soft check would have lead the tech support to accept that the device is on, instead of digging further, and it would have lead to potentially hours of wasted time.
The same thing often happens in such situations. The person infodumping does so to clear up potential underlying misunderstandings that a soft check cannot catch. That’s not evil or mean or condescending. It’s done with the clear understanding that the person you are talking to likely knows 95% of the things you are saying, but that the remaining 5% might be an issue and a soft-check fails every single time for that kind of issue.
But it’s also a reverse issue. Many women reflexively assume that any time someone infodumps that person is only doing that to them, because they are women and because that man thinks that women are dumb. Even if that man does the same with other men.
The amount of times i had to explain to phone company customers that their phone line malfunction, which they were reporting from said phone line, was monetary in nature…
I just asume whatever I say is dumb and wrong, so I don’t explain things anymore, I let people find out the hard way, and then act like I didn’t see it coming.