Mansplanations

Mansplain. v. To explain in a patronizing manner, assuming total ignorance on the part of those listening. The mansplainer is often shocked and hurt when their mansplanation is not taken as absolute fact, criticized or even rejected altogether.

A friend of mine fell victim to a hip-intellectual's mansplanation tonight. The scene of the crime - a house party in my favourite brownstone in gentrified Brooklyn. I had encountered the manalyst myself a few moments earlier - he seemed to enjoy saying obvious things using unnecessary words and hand-gestures - many of them. I had wanted to excuse myself for another drink, but my cup was full. Also, I had premium real estate right by the food table - it was too scrumptious. I resigned to a few minutes of his mansplaining the importance of clean drinking water while stuffing my mouth - making sure to always have just enough food in it to make it impossible to respond to anything.

I wasn't too bothered really; after all, a few moments earlier a well-intentioned lady had asked me which South African Tribal Languages I speak, and which Tribe I belong to. She asked me not really to know what languages (because that’s what I call them) I speak, she had already prepared to forget the answer. It was to confirm her knowledge of Tribal Africa. This kind of thing bothers me sometimes - on another day I might have said something snarky about her blouse or started a shouting match. But today I wasn’t moved. I was drinking something sweet and surprisingly potent out of a red plastic cup. Now, my friend was angry about her mansplaining situation - so three of us pulled off to the side to say to each other some very unkind things about the manalyst. (We rubbished everything from his poor posture to his occupation). It was therapeutic.

When I first arrived here in New York, and at my school, it took me a while to get used to how people speak sometimes. Self-assured, assertive, and confrontational on a really thin knowledge base about the topic at hand. I remember one conversation with a school mate in which he impressed upon me that The Economist is really not a good publication to read. It is so UK-centric. Unless I feel beholden to my former colonizer, I should really switch to the New York Times or something like that. I was not ready for that, I was floored.

I almost duelled with a lawyer the other day who proclaimed that he had never discovered culture as patriarchal as African culture. People know more about us than we know about each other, it seems. Africa has over 2000 languages and just over 50 countries. Who can talk about African culture? Certainly not me.

When I first arrived, conversation seemed at times like mental arm-wrestling - it was suddenly possible to win or lose them. I tend(ed) to lose them. Manalysts and their mansplanations really crept under my skin. They don't so much anymore. I don't know why. I think I have given up, or turned into one. Ok, I don't really think I have turned into one. I hope not. 

But if you think I have, feel free to pull two friends to the side and say unkind things about me to each other.