If you are a woman, the chances are you’ve experienced mansplaining at least once at some point in your life. Whether at work or university, with friends, at a gym, or while getting your car repaired, it seems like no place is free from overconfident and condescending men who think that they know things better than you. So they explain it without being asked to do so—hence the rise of the relatable mansplaining meme, which captures these moments with humor and accuracy.
Not only is it super annoying, but mansplaining is demeaning, too, so it is by no means an innocent practice. So this time, we’re taking a look into what mansplaining experiences women witness time and again, as shared in these online threads.
Scroll down through the stories below, and be sure to share your thoughts about delusional men talking down to women in the comments.
#1
I was taking my car in to get the winter tires off. I was between services (and couldn’t be bothered to do it myself) so I was getting it done at a one of those drive-thru places it might have been a Jiffy Lube.
One of the guys that works there comes out and tells me that he will drive the car in. Then slowly, like I’m an idiot, mansplains that I would have to drive my car just so to get it over the hydraulics and that there are big holes in the floor for getting under cars that aren’t raised up. The jist his mansplaination being, that it would he hard for a little woman like me to drive my car into the shop.
So, they finish up with the guy ahead of me pretty quickly (we were the only two there). About ten minutes pass and they haven’t brought my car in. I look out the waiting room window and see all six guys that are working there crowded around my car outside.
Now, I started to get really nervous thinking something is wrong with my car. But I opt not to bother them, figuring that they will come tell me what’s wrong when they’ve got it figured out.
Another 15 minutes pass and someone pulls up behind my car. That’s when the guy that originally explained to me how an auto shop works, finally comes into the waiting room. It’s been 25 minutes since the guy before me left, so I brace myself for awful news delivered in a mansplaination.
But no, buddy politely asks me if I could drive my car onto the hydraulics for them. Turns out of all 6 dudes, not a single one knows how to drive a standard.
So, after mansplaining to me that it would be hard for me to drive my car into the shop, they waited almost a half an hour to tell me that not one guy in the shop could even drive my car.
Image source: GingerDryad, Benjamin Brunner
#2
I was weeding stinging nettles at my work and this guy came up behind me and explained how you have to pull up the roots for it be effective (I am obviously already doing that and I was literally at work). So I asked him to show me and dumbass grabbed the biggest stinging nettle and got stings all over his arm and face. I was very happy.
Image source: Madgerine, Paul Morley
#3
One of my husband’s friends explained PTSD to me. He is an IT dude. I am a therapist specializing in trauma.
Image source: monkeylion, Sigmund
#4
This happened to my work wife, not me. On Facebook, she posted a link to an article about mansplaining. A man then commented on the post to clarify to her what mansplaining actually is, and how it actually works. He mansplained mansplaining.
Image source: Sara_Shenanigans, Joshua Hoehne
#5
So this was quite a few years ago. I was at a party at someone’s house and there were some guitars floating around. I wanted to play one and this guy started mansplaining to me about how to tune a guitar and how to hold a plectrum and how I should try Nirvana’s Come As You Are as it’s one of the easiest songs to play even though I hadn’t asked how to tune a guitar or said I couldn’t play. Then he started playing Under The Bridge by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, badly, just strumming some rough chords for the intro.
So I asked if I could have a go and proceeded to play an absolutely perfectly rendered version of Under the Bridge. His face was a picture.
Image source: [deleted], Jacek Dylag
#6
A white dude explained Chinese New Year to me. I’m Chinese.
Image source: cecikierk, Tong Su
#7
Guess that was a debate I had with some colleagues on a project or something, I don’t remember, it was about the Thai boys that got stuck in a cave. I voiced my opinion and said that there is only way to ensure the rescuers’ safety, it’s by knocking the boys unconscious, tying them up, strapping a mask around them and pulling them out like a bag of sand. I then got laughed at some dude started to explain how scuba diving with “oxygen bottles” (yes indeed) works and that it’s so easy, boys can learn that, they are brave boys… Well, I am an advanced diver with close to 300 dives which he had no idea about. I know how panicked swimmers or divers react. Btw, the boys were rescued exactly as I had said.
Image source: schwarzmalerin, Bobbi Wu
#8
During my first few months as a registered architect working for my dad, an engineer told me to call my daddy since he wasn’t satisfied with my answer.
He literally said, “Call your daddy about it.”
I took a deep breath, and tried not to clobber him. He was an old man, the same age as my dad.
I called my dad on loudspeaker, and he answered the same thing. He also told them to listen to me.
Hah.
Image source: anon, Pedro Miranda
#9
A man once tried to tell me what women on tinder want. When I argued with him he told me I didn’t know what I was talking about then he linked me a YouTube video of another man saying what women on tinder want.
Image source: megsie72, Good Faces Agency
#10
argued with my boyfriend that though it was discovered awhile ago, it was only recently discovered what clitoris does… he said, and i quote, “but it’s been around since the 1800s.” he deadass told me the clit had only been around since the 1800s.
Image source: cass_ew, Julia Taubitz
#11
A guy I was dating lost his work iPad. I told him to use the Find My app and he went on a tirade about how he couldn’t use that. I rolled my eyes and though, “Fine. Have fun explaining to your boss that you lost a brand new iPad.”
He calls me back later and tells me that Assistant Male Boss is a genius! It was Assistant Male Boss’ idea to use Find My app and they found the iPad. What a miracle!
He then procceded to mansplain how the app works.
Image source: FueledByFlan, Kelly Sikkema
#12
I had a man try to tell me that women’s vaginas can’t stretch to accommodate anything bigger than a strictly average sized penis, therefore it was a waste of time for any manufacturer to make any dildo bigger than 5 inches(!).
I think he might have had some insecurities going on in the trouser department.
Image source: MadamKitsune, Tim Gouw
#13
I wrote a process that was used at our work. 25k people in this business. A guy explained my own process to me, showing it to me with my name written at the top.
He’d invited me to the meeting …..
Image source: Mustardly, Medienstürmer
#14
I don’t know if it counts as mansplaining, but sometimes I’ll say something and a man will say the exact same thing back to me as if he’s making a new point and when I say “that’s literally what I just said” they just lose it. Just. Why.
Image source: ancient_emergency
#15
You only want one example…? The most infuriating example was when my “supervisor” at BioLife tried to tell me that I could get over Endometriosis and chronic migraines with “the power of positive thinking”, and I looked him dead in the face, said “that may work for you, but I’ve had these issues since I was 12 years old. I have tried literally everything including “positive thinking”, which is a toxic thing to say to a sick person, btw, and I know exactly what works for me by now and what doesn’t, so don’t ever say that to me again. Are we clear?” And for some background info, we’d been discussing my issues, and he cut me off and said “I never even get a cold, you have to rely on the power of positive thinking”. Meanwhile I was on my way to a hysterectomy bc of endometriosis and cervical cancer, but I didn’t mention the cancer bc it was caught very early with routine screening, thankfully, and it wasn’t everyone’s business.
Image source: JenMcSpoonie, Towfiqu barbhuiya
#16
I was giving an informal speech at school and one of my classmates in the audience kept interrupting my speech to explain to me what I was talking about.
And I’m like “Thanks, I know what I’m talking about. That’s why I’m up here.”
Image source: JoJoRumbles, Product School
#17
The pronunciation of my own name.
Image source: pennyherb
#18
I was in the sprinkler aisle of the Home Depot looking for the correct replacement head for my system. And a dude just sidles up and starts explaining to me the different parts of a system and how water pressure is so important, and how complicated it is. I kept trying to cut him off telling him I knew and didn’t need his help, he just wouldn’t take a hint. I finally got shitty with him and told him I didn’t need his help because I was a plumbing engineer.
Image source: Internal_Use8954, Oxana Melis
#19
A mechanical engineer, my ex-boyfriend’s brother, explained how medical genetics works to me. It’s fine though, I’m only a medical geneticist who’s been working in the field for 5 years.
Image source: Simple_buteffective, Lucas Vasques
#20
A dude went on to explain how i could hold in my period. He really believed you could do that
Image source: anon
#21
Got in an argument with a dude who was suggesting that cellulite was rare, and that only overweight women have it (based on his experiences browsing Instagram and checking out women at the beach – literally, he said this). I pointed out that it was so common as to be a secondary sex characteristic for women.
When he started fighting with anecdotal evidence, I in turn pointed out that I, a borderline underweight woman, had cellulite – and that a close friend of mine, who is literally a salaried model, also had cellulite.
His closing argument was that, as a dude, he more closely examines women’s bodies than I do (note: I hadn’t divulged my sexuality at any point), and that I was invalidating his lived experiences as a man.
Image source: ramence
#22
How to breastfeed…. With my second child.
Image source: anon, Dave Clubb
#23
In my country an article about women in gaming was making a lot of noise at the time. It was about the sexism in every aspect of the community : female characters too sexy, women players & sexual harassment, babes in bikini at game cons etc.
For me and my female gamer friends it was old news. We spoke about the article and added our own experience to it.
Men decided to explain to us how the article was wrong because **they** never saw sexism in video games and cons, never. So we were lying and making up stories.
Sure enough they finished by saying they were not sexist and never had been…. 🙄
Edit : conjugation. Sorry english isn’t my first langage.
Image source: CuteHoodie
#24
My boyfriend’s colleague (in a completely non-medical job) told him I was not having a miscarriage while it was happening; boyfriend then explained it to me, believing every word. He didn’t enjoy my response to that.
Image source: bopeepsheep
#25
Man: it’s hailing.
Me: (looks around) huh, yeah.
Man: It’s frozen water falling from the sky.
Me: 👀🙄
Image source: tvbookpastaworm
#26
The time when a data analyst explained to me, the main engineer on the project, that I wasn’t qualified to comment on anything in the meeting because I was new and didn’t know anything. His boss (who later became one of my good buddies) was STUNNED.
He also asked me to stay behind and “help” him on something after the meeting and after everyone left he started explaining to me how he hadn’t wanted to ~intimidate me and he could tell he had (no, I hadn’t been, his boss had actually told him to listen to me before I could calmly destroy his ego), and how he knows it’s difficult to be a female engineer and how he wants to be supportive because he has daughters and he’s afraid how the world will treat them in the future.
Image source: deleted, Headway
#27
A dude explained to me how dinosaurs are extinct. Thank god he did or otherwise I would’ve never found out.
Image source: Eveedes
#28
I had some white guy from Sweden tell me I’m wrong about my own language when he wanted me to translate something from a korean series that apparently wasn’t translated in the subtitles that he watched on netflix.
He told me he’s hearing 좋아 in some interaction in the series, I told him that sounds wrong because it doesn’t make sense in that context.
I started the series on netflix myself and found the interaction he was talking about, the word he inquired about was 저하, not 좋아. I told him what they were actually were saying means.
He insisted he was hearing 좋아 even though I told him he’s wrong. They were saying 저하. He still insisted he was hearing 좋아 and said I was wrong.
Why? Because that’s what it sounded like to him. Nooo, don’t trust the person who actually speaks the language natively but think you are getting it right just by listening as a non-speaker of the language.
Image source: Jinro_f, yeonhee
#29
Playing Overwatch.
I asked him what rating he was at, I couldn’t queue with him on my main account because I was too high rating. I switched to a new account I was lvling at the time to just play some quick play with him instead.
He then started explaining to me what I have to do and so on.
He was silver, almost bronze. I was diamond on my main account, almost master.
He never asked to play with me again after I just destroyed the games.
#30
Sometimes, I don’t like to assume a man is “mansplaining” because he may be the type to over explain everything to everyone–men included. So I try to only assume it in situations where a man is telling me about LADY STUFF.
My father has a tendency to tell me what women believe. He generalizes to a laughable degree and tells me, his Master’s educated feminist daughter– about women’s overall opinions and flaws. So, not only is he being sexist, but his “mansplaining” is inaccurate.
Image source: TehFuzzy
#31
Earlier this year I had a man a few years younger than me explain how the female orgasm is achieved. I have had it figured out for about 25 years now, so I told him that and he kept going with his instructions. He also just can’t understand why I have no interest in a sexual relationship with him.
I also had one of my brothers explain how to change a diaper to me, while I was in the middle of changing my 3rd babies diaper.
Image source: purplebadfish
#32
I get a lot of guys trying to tell me “what women are like” and “what women want.”
Last time I checked, I was a woman. And they are always so, so wrong..
Image source: anon
#33
Dude I was on a date with started explaining why my office might be warm… 10 minutes after I told him I was an HVAC engineer. I just let him dig that hole, staring him down until he trailed off. Then he quietly added “uhh I guess you know all that”, to which I nodded.
Image source: Internal_Use8954
#34
I have a shirt with the constellations on it. It’s not an accurate sky map by any means, but I like it. I wore it to the store one day and a man behind me started telling me that the stars were inaccurate and did not form a map of the sky. I turned back to him and explained that the front of the shirt was summer stars and the back of the shirt was winter stars so no, they do not form a continuous map. He stopped talking after that.
Image source: unscrewthestars
#35
Ok Picture the scene
I am best in my country at the sport I do, and top 20 in the world.
We have very specialized equipment requiring a lot of care.
I was taking a look at my best friends equipment (she is best in her country too), and feeling the edges, and talking about how the edges were really blunt. Like, REALLY blunt. (thats bad)
Dude walks up to us.
Dude has never done the sport before (this was his first day)
he feels my friends equipment without permission (HUGE no no)
“This is actually really sharp for <type of sled> edges.”
My friend: Immediately bursts out laughing
Me: Too stunned for words.
Eventually I give him a bit of a berating for pulling that c**p, and told him to never touch someone else’s equipment without permission. He was such a douche. Hes quit the sport now (luckily) don’t have to see him ever again.
Image source: anon, Bill Alexy
#36
My cousin and I were setting up the Find My Friends app and were told:
“You know you aren’t actually tracking each other, you’re tracking the phone?”
Ya we know.
Image source: throwRAstarly667, Sebastian Hietsch
#37
My friend’s spouse tried to explain how stocks and options work to me at a party. I have a PhD in finance. He figured he still should tell me how financial markets work.
Image source: algebragoddess, Nick Chong
#38
About how the vagina gets enormously big and sloppy if you have sex with many penises, big dildos or have babies. Only 1 smallish penis is acceptable ever.
Multiple men have mansplained this to me, and it’s not even correct. A vagina is not made of memory foam!
One sent along a photo of someone’s vagina with a very severe prolapse, saying that is what happens to all women after they give birth (I am a mother and certainly did not have a prolapse). And then he asked me if the “carpet matches the curtains”, like his type always do to redhead women.
Image source: LittlePurrx
#39
A dude who had admittedly never ridden a horse before explained the theory behind modern day horseback riding to me at the bar. He was a stranger. I am a horse trainer
Image source: pnwhorsetrainer
#40
On one of my work calls, this male employee was explaining to a female manager what her subordinate was “intending”.
The manager replied saying “Yes, Dave. I know what she said. I asked her to convey it to you”
Image source: __potpourri
#41
A professor of my university, whose seminars I hadn’t taken, as he had a reputation of dismissing women, and especially women in teacher’s studies (here, the seminars are mixed, so if you are in a history seminar, you’ll see aspiring historians and history teachers), tried to explain Robert Burns’ gothic poems to me. I had just written a thesis about this. Which I had been asked to present in his seminar. By him. Who didn’t know jacksh*t about Burns or his poetry, because he was focusing his research on American gothic literature and only wanted me to present Burns in a “yeah, and the British did it, too. Now you know.” kind of way. Needless to say, I blatantly told him he was wrong and left. It was my last day at university anyways as I had just been given my diploma a few hours prior.
Image source: IamasimpforObi-Wan
#42
One of my friend’s boyfriend explained how the GameStop stock market manipulation happened (and the general basics of the stock market).
I graduated summa cum laude with a finance degree from one of the top business schools in our state. (With a few minors, including economics)
He got a general business degree from that same college with much worse grades than I did, and I helped him with his homework. (So he knows that I have a degree in the field)
I just absentmindedly nodded along until he stopped talking.
Image source: samplethrowaway234
#43
Some guy tried to explain the biology behind depression to me. My major is literally called psychobiology.
Image source: eggofreddo
#44
When men find out I don’t masturbate, they feel like they need to “fix” me and give some sort of advices. A man explained to me how a vibrator works. I know how a vibrator works. I just don’t want it and frankly don’t need it.
A guy also tried to explain to me how a tampon works. I just don’t use it cause I don’t want it. I prefer pads.
Image source: Acel32
#45
I’m a licensed RN and my brother tried to explain to me what nursing was all about.
Image source: Horseshoesandsneaks
#46
Oh and another one. Years ago when I had a different career, this guy was delivering some audiovisual equipment to my office for review. He asked if I knew where “they” wanted it and evidently missed me pointedly saying where I wanted it put. He then started trying to explain how to hook it up. I made a slightly obnoxiously knowing comment about cables and mentioned that I was the tech editor, which shut him up…
Image source: deleted
#47
Started at a gym recently, a man was showing me a baseball move but told me to pretend I was moving a laundry basket. Little did he know I played softball for 12 years…he ASSumed wrong :)!
Image source: ltentr1
#48
I posted a selfie on Instagram with a caption about the fact that I’d had a panic attack a few hours earlier. A man told me that actually I couldn’t have had a panic attack if I was posting a selfie with lipstick and fancy editing, and I wouldn’t have been able to type. Therefore, I was just looking for attention.
Image source: iamthewethotdog
#49
Some random guy walking on a trail decided to tell me, a cyclist, that there was a hill ahead- okay sure, already knew that but whatever. He then, completely unprompted, started trying to explain that I should gear down for the hill and how to gear down.
I told him I already knew and biked off, but what the f**k? All of that was completely unprompted. I had stopped my bike to ask a different person if she’d seen my cycling buddy up ahead, because I wasn’t sure if they’d gone left or right, and this random guy decided that that meant I didn’t know how to use my own goddamn bike.
Image source: stupidgoddamnwebsite
#50
Oh god today I was mansplained too. My boyfriend was driving my car and drove it over a tall curb on accident. So we pulled over to a gas station and I got out to check my car for damage, got out and started looking at the undercarriage. A guy drove past me and yelled out his window, “The gas tank is on the side of the car!!!” ……… groundbreaking.
Image source: deleted
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