# Mansplaining > Mansplaining, coined on LiveJournal in May 2008 following Rebecca Solnit's viral essay, describes when a man condescendingly explains something to a woman who knows more. Mansplaining is a blend of "man" and "explaining," describing when a man condescendingly explains something to a woman who already knows more about the topic than he does. The term was coined on LiveJournal in May 2008, weeks after author Rebecca Solnit published her now-famous essay "Men Explain Things to Me." It quickly jumped from feminist blogs to mainstream vocabulary, landing in major dictionaries by 2014 and spawning an entire family of "-splaining" derivatives that are still in heavy rotation across social media. ## Origin The concept crystallized on April 13, 2008, when Rebecca Solnit published "Men Explain Things to Me" on TomDispatch.com, later reprinted in the Los Angeles Times[1]. Solnit recounted an experience at a party in Aspen where a wealthy man asked about her books, then cut her off to tell her about "the very important Muybridge book that came out this year." He kept going even as Solnit's friend Sallie repeatedly tried to interject, "That's her book." Sallie had to say it three or four times before the man registered what was happening[1]. Solnit never used the word "mansplaining" in the essay, but she named the dynamic clearly: "Men explain things to me, and to other women, whether or not they know what they're talking about. Some men. Every woman knows what I mean"[7]. About five weeks later, the word itself appeared online. On May 21, 2008, a user named "phosfate" on the Fandom_Wank LiveJournal community responded to a male fan who was holding forth about misogyny in the TV series Supernatural, despite not having watched the episodes in question. Phosfate's reply: "Oh, gosh, thank you so much for mansplaining this to us!"[2]. Whether phosfate had read Solnit's essay or whether the coinage was independent is unknown[2]. By August 2008, the word was popping up in other LiveJournal conversations. In one exchange, a user named "electricwitch" fired back at someone who was interpreting a piece of performance art she hadn't asked for commentary on: "Wow, thank you so much for mansplaining this art to me! What with my arts degrees, I can't understand it at all!"[2]. The reply perfectly captured the dynamic that would make the word stick: assumed expertise meeting actual expertise. - **Platform:** TomDispatch.com / LA Times (concept essay), LiveJournal (word coinage), feminist blogs / Twitter (viral spread) - **Creator:** Rebecca Solnit (essayist, conceptual inspiration), "phosfate" (earliest documented use, LiveJournal user) - **Date:** 2008 ## Overview Mansplaining refers to a specific flavor of condescension: a man explaining something to a woman in an overconfident, often inaccurate way, without considering that she might already be an expert on the subject[3]. The key ingredient isn't just explaining things while male. It's the underlying assumption that the man is automatically more knowledgeable, regardless of the woman's actual qualifications[5]. A male doctor explaining a diagnosis to a female patient isn't mansplaining. A random guy at a party explaining a woman's own book to her, on the other hand, is the textbook example[1]. The term is a portmanteau, combining "man" with the informal verb "splaining"[4]. While "splain" has existed in English for over 200 years as a colloquial pronunciation of "explain," its modern usage increasingly carries connotations of condescending or verbose explanations[5]. Over time, the word broadened beyond strictly gendered situations. Some people use it whenever anyone explains something with misplaced confidence to someone who clearly knows better[4]. ## How It Spread Mansplaining spread first through feminist blogs and LiveJournal communities in 2008 and 2009[4]. By August 2009, the term was circulating widely enough that a male blogger wrote a self-reflective post about his own mansplaining behavior, describing how he'd once tried to explain gendered beauty standards to a young woman at an academic competition[9]. The word was showing up in Urban Dictionary definitions and gaining traction as a searchable term[4]. Google Trends data shows active searching for "mansplaining" began around 2011[4]. New Zealand author Karen Healey wrote a widely-shared post defining the term with precision: "Mansplaining is when a dude tells you, a woman, how to do something you already know how to do, or how you are wrong about something you are actually right about." She added the memorable advice: "the appropriate thing to do is to roll your eyes and say, 'Oh, please, mansplain to me some more'"[6]. In 2010, the New York Times named it one of its "Words of the Year"[5]. The American Dialect Society nominated it in 2012 for "most creative word of the year"[5]. Dictionary.com added both "mansplain" and the suffix "-splain" to its dictionary in 2013, noting the combining form had "proven to be incredibly robust and useful"[5]. Oxford Dictionaries followed in 2014, adding the word to its online edition[5]. Solnit published "Men Explain Things to Me" as a book in 2014, collecting seven essays on related themes of gender, credibility, and power[5]. The collection expanded on her original argument that dismissing women's knowledge was a symptom of a pattern that "keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare"[7]. ## How to Use Mansplaining is typically called out rather than performed on purpose. The term is used in three main ways online: **As a label in the moment:** When someone is explaining something to a person who clearly knows more about it, observers (or the person being talked at) might say "Thanks for mansplaining that" or "Stop mansplaining." The sarcastic "thank you for mansplaining" format traces directly back to the word's first recorded uses on LiveJournal[2]. **As social commentary:** People share anecdotes of being mansplained to, often with the hashtag #mansplaining on Twitter. Common formats include screenshots of men explaining women's own fields to them, or stories of men correcting women on topics like childbirth, their own names, or their own published work[4]. **As a reaction or meme caption:** The mansplaining statue photo, "Don't confuse your Google search with my master's degree" memes, and similar images often get captioned with variations on the concept[3]. The term works best when there's a clear gap between the explainer's assumed authority and the listener's actual expertise. A man explaining period cramps to a gynecologist fits. A man explaining how an engine works to someone who just asked how an engine works doesn't[4]. ## Cultural Impact Mansplaining jumped from internet slang to institutional recognition faster than most web-born words. The New York Times "Word of the Year" nod in 2010 gave it mainstream legitimacy just two years after coinage[5]. Its addition to Oxford Dictionaries in 2014 and Dictionary.com in 2013 formalized it as standard English[5]. The term changed how people talk about gendered communication patterns. Before "mansplaining" existed, the behavior it describes was hard to name concisely. Lily Rothman, writing in The Atlantic, defined it as "explaining without regard to the fact that the explainee knows more than the explainer, often done by a man to a woman"[5]. Having a single word made the pattern visible and debatable in ways it wasn't before. The Australian Senate exchange between Gallagher and Fifield in 2016 showed the word had entered formal political language[5]. Multiple U.S. presidential campaigns saw candidates labeled as mansplainers in major outlets[5]. Psychologists picked up the term for formal study. Research published in the journal Psychology of Language and Communication in 2024 examined the cognitive biases behind the behavior, finding links to overconfidence bias and interpretation gaps between speakers and listeners[3]. The Journal of Management & Organization published a 2022 study on mansplaining in workplace settings[3]. ## Fun Facts - Rebecca Solnit's party anecdote involved a man who hadn't actually read the "very important Muybridge book" he was lecturing her about. He'd only read about it in the New York Times Book Review[1]. - The man at the party had to be told "That's her book" three or four times by Solnit's friend Sallie before it registered. Then, "as if in a nineteenth-century novel, he went ashen"[7]. - One blogger wrote a self-reflective post in 2009 about mansplaining feminism to a young woman at a quiz bowl competition. Her response to his recommendation of "The Beauty Myth" was: "I don't read that dykey stuff"[9]. - The German translation "herrklären" is a blend of "Herr" (Mr./gentleman) and "erklären" (to explain), mirroring the English portmanteau structure[5]. - The verb "splain" predates the internet by over 200 years, originally as a colloquial pronunciation of "explain" in Late Middle English[5]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is mansplaining? Mansplaining is when a man explains something in a condescending way to a woman, typically assuming she knows less about the topic regardless of her actual expertise[3]. ### Where did mansplaining come from? The concept was defined by Rebecca Solnit in her April 2008 essay "Men Explain Things to Me," and the word itself first appeared on the Fandom_Wank LiveJournal community in May 2008[2]. ### What does mansplaining mean? It describes a specific pattern of condescension rooted in gendered assumptions about knowledge and authority. The man assumes he knows more simply because of the woman's gender, not based on her actual qualifications[5]. ### How do you use mansplaining? The term is usually applied to call out the behavior: "Stop mansplaining" or "Thanks for mansplaining that to me." It's used both in real-time conversations and in online commentary about gendered communication dynamics[6]. ### Is mansplaining still popular? The term is a permanent part of the English language, listed in Oxford Dictionaries and Dictionary.com. Psychological research on the behavior was still being published in 2024[3]. ### Who coined the word mansplaining? The earliest documented use is by LiveJournal user "phosfate" on the Fandom_Wank community on May 21, 2008, about five weeks after Solnit's essay was published[2]. ### Did Rebecca Solnit invent the term mansplaining? No. Solnit wrote the essay that inspired it but never used the word herself. She described the behavior; the internet named it[1]. ### What was the original mansplaining incident? Solnit's essay describes a man at a party in Aspen who lectured her about "the very important Muybridge book" without realizing she was the author. Her friend had to tell him "That's her book" multiple times before he understood[1]. ### When did mansplaining enter the dictionary? Dictionary.com added "mansplain" in 2013, and Oxford Dictionaries added "mansplaining" online in 2014[5]. ### What is the mansplaining statue? A 2006 bronze sculpture called "Classmates" by Paul Tadlock at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. It went viral in 2015 when a photo was tweeted showing what looked like a man condescendingly explaining something to a seated woman[2]. ### Is mansplaining only about men talking to women? Originally yes, but usage has broadened. Research shows the underlying behavior is about perceived social power rather than gender alone, and it can occur across any power dynamic[3]. ### What are examples of -splaining words? The "-splain" suffix has been combined with whitesplaining, femsplaining, ablesplaining, rightsplaining, and goysplaining, among others. Dictionary.com recognized "-splain" as a standalone combining form in 2013[5]. ## References 1. [Mansplaining - Wikipedia]() 2. [What Is Mansplaining? The Origins (And Misuse) of the Term]() 3. [When Does Explaining Cross the Line Into "Mansplaining"? | Psychology Today]() 4. [Mansplaining]() 5. [Mansplaining - Urban Dictionary]() 6. [Urban Dictionary: Mansplain]() 7. [Urban Dictionary: White-'splaining]() 8. [Urban Dictionary: blacksplain]() 9. [Urban Dictionary: femsplaining]() 10. [Urban Dictionary: ablesplaining]() 11. [Urban Dictionary: Whitesplain]() 12. [mansplaining — Wordorigins.org]() 13. [Men who explain things - Los Angeles Times]() 14. [Must men be patronizing? - Salon.com]() 15. [Mansplaining – the reality tunnel]() 16. [You're Such a Special Little Snowflake, It's a Wonder You Don't Melt in the Laundry Room...: liz_marcs — LiveJournal]() 17. [Red Light Politics — Today’s mansplaining courtesy of David Foster...]() 18. [A woman's born to weep and fret: karenhealey — LiveJournal]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/mansplaining Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library