What if we flipped the narrative on this meme?
Usually it shows the woman saying something untenable and the man smugly getting her to “be honest.” It comes across sexist.
If we surround ourselves with examples of men being know-it-alls and women being dishonest, it perpetuates the behavior and assumptions.
Don’t get me wrong, I want to feel like I know something, and I want to share my knowledge, and not just to feel good about myself, but that’s part of it if I’m being honest. It’s embarrassingly easy to climb up on a high horse in this situation.
When someone calls me out on mansplaining, I have to resist the urge to be defensive. They are doing me a service to retrain me on basic social skills. And they are taking a risk of backlash to improve the situation.
To be fair, it’s not ALWAYS along gender lines, but 95% of the time it is men doing the mansplaining. Why?
I think it’s learned role play more than anything. There are so many examples around us that we end up expecting it to happen and fall into these deep structure patterns without thinking about it. It’s not an excuse for the behavior. Somehow, we got here, so some of it has to be inherent weakness.
I need to be brave and self-reflective to change my patterns. Everyone has something to teach me, and it doesn’t have to be painful or embarrassing to learn from someone. If I can tap into basic respect for all people as equals, maybe it gets a little easier to evolve.
#equality #respect #selfreflection #primitivespark
