This post is in honour of international women’s day, I hope by talking about this and sharing some thoughts it will make us all more able to stand up for ourselves and support others in moments like the one below, when we encounter the mansplainer in their natural habitat.

I was at a conference last week, and I was struck yet again by the number of questions that were asked that were commentary and not indeed questions. I paid attention, and, in this case, 100% of those undertaking this behaviour were older men. The reason I started to pay attention was because the first session I attended was filled with a panel of young female scientists. The Chair of the panel, however, was an older man, and when this commentary occurred from one of the attendees, instead of shutting it down, he actively participated and even exacerbated the issue. Not only that, but the commentary was also inherently incorrect and was not even helpful. I must admit I found myself becoming pretty infuriated and later found other women who’d been in the room who found it equally maddening. So this week I thought I would channel some of that science rage into a productive place and talk about survival in the world of the mansplainer.

NB please note I recognise that there are also some women that exhibit these behaviours routinely (and we probably all do periodically). In this post I talk about mansplaining as the behaviour and not linked to gender, unless I’m recounting specific personal experiences.

In the interests of full disclosure, I’ve also had a fair amount of men recently lecturing me about what it is I do and do not know, as well as some ‘interesting’ comments on my blog. I therefore may not be feeling as balanced about this topic as I would otherwise. The thing is, it’s not like it is as unusual as it should be, and you would think, therefore, that I should be less bothered by it. In fact, the opposite is true. Now I’m aware and see it happen to others. I’m even less tolerant. I’m pretty fortunate that it only happens to me 3 or 4 times a year to a level that irritates me. It happened less when I became a Consultant, and I suspect that it will happen less (to my face) now I’m a Professor. Even so, with all of these benchmarks of knowledge and experience, it still happens. So here are my thoughts on living in the world of the mansplainer and how we might all work together to make it more tolerable.

Don’t worry little lady

Let’s start with talking about some classic mansplaining that has happened to me. I’m partly starting out with this because I had a really lovely male boss who just didn’t believe that these things happened as no one had talked to him about it. By putting it down here prior to talking about what we can do in response, I hope to contextualise some of what it’s like for any allies out there who have experienced it less as individuals.

My all-time ‘favourite’ example of mansplaining that has happened to me was an email sent to myself and a female colleague that actually started with the words ‘don’t worry little ladies’. The email in question was sent in response to a query about engineering standards. Now, these days I would respond with ‘that’s Professor Little Lady and I am worried so please explain………and what you are going to do about it’. At the time, though, I was completely thrown by how 4 words could effectively minimise my years of experience, my authority to ask the question, and impact my feelings about my ability to follow up. In my defence, I did follow up and insist on further information and a review, but something so small could actually have impacted my ability to do my job and would never have been undertaken with my male consultant boss. These comments, therefore, are not insignificant when, especially in healthcare, they could lead to a reduction in safety. That said, did I escalate? No, did I forward the email to his boss and explain? Also, no. It’s so normal that it never even occured to me. I suspect if I had, it would have just been called ‘banter’ and waved off.

One of my other favourite things (not really) is when I’m called into a room to have a technical discussion, and when it becomes apparent I’m not convinced by the argument, the room full of men call in yet more men, not to enhance or bring more information to the discussion, but because they somehow believe that having more men in the space repeating each others words will somehow intimidate me or force me into conceding that their science is suddenly correct. I do not enjoy conflict and I generally believe it’s bad form to point out the flaws in someone’s argument in front of others, in a way that could be seen as aggressive or embarrassing for the individual. However, if you pull >20 men into a room to lecture me on, for instance how HPV works, when you are neither a microbiologist or have any experience with viral loading or kill, and think that calling in a further 10 will change the underlying fact that I have just finished writing about it for my thesis, my argument is unlikely to change. All that will happen is that I will cease trying to cover up my level of knowledge in order to play nice and I will quote papers and research at you until you let me leave.

Have you thought about?

One of the other scenarios I’ve found where some interesting male commentary occurs is on some of my blog posts. Now, don’t get me wrong a) most of the commentary I receive on my blogs is super supportive and is what gives me the impetuous to continue to write them and b) I acknowledge that by writing and (over)sharing the way I do I also invite engagement and discussion of the content I put out. Every now and again I get a comment that I don’t approve for public sharing and just leave in the archives as I’m not sure that they are part of the discussion I want to have.

When I posted earlier this year about being overwhelmed and shared some tips that have helped me to get through I received some comments from various male subscribers. These comments were very different from those of my female subscribers, who shared how grateful they were that we were talking about the fact that everyone has days when they struggle and that coping mechanisms are key. These comments all came from a place which I assume was kind and supportive, but ran along the lines of ‘if you feel overwhelmed maybe you should have spent the extra time working and clearing your emails rather than writing this blog’.

On the surface I kind of get it, but also a) it is my right to choose how I spend what free time I manage to have for myself, without commentary from others as long as I’m breaking no laws and hurting no one b) blog writing, for me, has become a method of processing my work load and stress levels and therefore suggesting I abandon it would be removing a key coping strategy I utilise c) the blog post was about sharing experiences and methods to move through feeling over whelmed, not a pity party post about how it sucks, therefore the suggestion that I focus my time on not supporting my community is against the ethos of what this blog is about and frankly kind of sucks and finally d) the assumption that I wouldn’t have considered doing less and not over stretching myself probably doesn’t give me very much credit in terms of self reflection or self awareness. So, I suppose my point is this, sometimes by stating the obvious and your opinion about it, it can come over as pretty patronising, as if it wouldn’t have occured to me and I haven’t done the thinking myself. That said, intent matters, and I don’t believe that these are often meant with any ill intent, so I leave them as unapproved and a source of future consideration and move on.

If you look for it, you will see it

Frankly, some of this is insidious, as I discussed in the intro, I only really started paying attention at the conference because there was such an extreme version of it that it drew my attention and I became deliberately aware of it. Sadly, when I posted about it on twitter the almost universal response was ‘only one’ to my retelling of the male commentator. It’s so universal as a stereotype that we laugh about it, but my thinking is also what can we do to challenge it or support others when we see it.

Summary.   

Role incredulity is a form of gender bias where women are mistakenly assumed to be in a support or stereotypically female role — an administrative assistant, nurse, wife, or girlfriend, for instance — rather than a leadership or stereotypically male role, such as CEO, professor, lawyer, doctor, or engineer. While this slight or mistake might seem innocuous, it can have real ramifications for women. Women must expend extra energy and time to assert and prove their role. Their words may lack the credibility and authority inherent in their position. And when women are not seen as a leader, they may be less likely to be hired into male-dominated roles or to be considered for promotions.

While the real issue of role incredulity is systemic, there are steps organizational leaders, workplace allies, and women themselves can take to prevent and correct it., including setting organizational norms, being an ally, owning your mistakes, and, if you’re a woman, proactively identifying your role.

https://hbr.org/2021/12/when-people-assume-youre-not-in-charge-because-youre-a-woman

I suspect there are few women amongst us who haven’t been asked to ‘sort the coffee’ despite being one of the most senior people in the room, or who haven’t had their bank card saying Dr handed back to their partner. These are little things, and I for one am completely OK with getting coffee, but not because I’m a woman, but because I think we should all take our turn and hierarchy shouldn’t remove us from that. I find it hard therefore to know when to draw the lines over such things, I’m a team player and want to do my part, but I also don’t want to sustain a stereotype that might negatively impact others. Honestly, even thinking about these things in the moment and having that constant dialogue with yourself can be pretty exhausting when it happens over years or decades.

Do these things actually matter?

Even though I feel that I own my place and have so much more strength than I did when I was younger, these comments, decisions, and moments still take up cognitive space. I may rebound more quickly but I still go through the ‘experience-self recrimination spiral-replay’ cycle in order to process it and decide where fault may lie with me or where the learning is.

“What we found was that women largely had negative outcomes as a result of being mansplained to, whereas it didn’t affect men as much,” said Briggs, whose research was published in the Journal of Business and Psychology. “They tended to register that their competence was being questioned more than men did, and to attribute this to a gender bias – so, maybe this person doesn’t think highly of me or doesn’t like me because of my gender.”

This feeling wasn’t shared by male volunteers who were given a condescending explanation by a woman. “Maybe they perceived it as ‘this person is being rude to me’, but they didn’t perceive it any differently if it came from a man or woman, and they didn’t attribute it to a gender bias,” Briggs said.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/feb/03/let-me-mansplain-studies-reveal-negative-impacts-of-behaviour?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

It may be therefore that we have to acknowledge the role we play in how we receive the information and the fact that some of the behaviour we experience really does not have any ill intent. However, that also doesn’t mean that those undertaking such behaviours don’t equally have a responsibility to understand how their behaviour impacts others, and in some cases leads to the active detriment of the women who are the recipients. Especially if this behaviour is endemic in institutions/settings or originates from the same individual over protracted periods of time.

So, how do we handle it?

I’ve previously posted about how I learnt to own the place I found myself in with some tips on managing this as individuals. I do think that dealing with direct interactions rather than our own imposter syndrome needs a different set of skills, ones that may indeed help with how we see the world over all. It all starts with being conscious of ourselves in the moment, where do we sit, what do we say when we introduce ourselves, how do we respond in the moment and how do we let our view of ourselves drive these dialogues?

Below are some areas of thinking that have helped me and I hope might also help you in traversing the particular challenge.

Decide which truths to believe

I am often considered over emotional because I wear my heart and values on my sleeve. It’s a running joke within my team that I have absolutely no poker face, and the time to be concerned when in a room with me is when I stop being expressive, as it probably means I have become coldly annoyed.

For a long time, I thought that this was the biggest weakness. I had many a person (male and female) explain to me that I couldn’t be successful as I was and that to proceed I really needed to change and fit the stereotype of what a boss/consultant/professor should be. Well, frankly, screw that. Hiding who we are and pretending to be someone else should not be the only path to success. Being open and honest about my values and who I am is not a weakness. It requires integrity and fairly often bravery to function openly as who you are. We are supposed to be assertive but not too assertive, smart but modest about it, passionate but not emotional. I, for one, don’t want to play that game and, in many ways, just opted out and found ways around it. I strongly believe that we no longer need to play by the rules of those who came before us, let’s set our own rules, let’s choose our own truths and empower the future to be different and better for those who will follow on behind us. Choose your own path and let that be your truth.

Practice makes perfect

Now, I’m not sure I would be comfortable saying any of the below as they are written, I think I would be too scared of coming off as aggressive. For all you women out there who could and own being that assertive, I am not worthy. That said, I have used many of these responses, if not these exact words, in order to manage conversations.

The thing for me is you need to know what language you are comfortable with and practice it before you need it. In the moment I am often surprised and lose my mental footing, therefore if I haven’t practiced how to hold my ground and be assertive I lose it to hesitancy and upset. Practicing enables it to almost be a reflexive approach that you can draw on, so that you don’t have the cognitive additional load of making those nuanced word choices in the moment. So the sentences above may not fit you, but find ones that do and try them on for size well before you need them.

One of the things that also helps me is wearing a different head space when I go into rooms where this is likely to be an issue. ‘Dream’ would never hold up in these spaces, and when I leave them, she often crumbles in the replaying of the moment. Professor Cloutman-Green, however, is much more able to hold her own. It’s almost like my science shield enables me to suffer less from impact in the moment and so allows me to maintain or re-establish myself in that moment much more readily. This is different from not being my authentic self in a space, I am still me, but it gives me the emotional distance to process things later rather than being overwhelmed in the moment.

Self-awareness is key

Ever walk into a room, and there’s a single chair left and you offer it to everyone else who comes in after you? I do this all the time. It’s just polite, right? Absolutely. However, if you are in a room that internalises hierarchy and everyone sitting is a Consultant like you and everyone else standing is more junior, by undertaking this action you are unconsciously giving away your seniority in the room. You are signally you’re difference to your other consultant colleagues. Being aware of your surroundings and what cues you are sending out is important.

Ever sat listening whilst a colleague towered above you? The person who deliberately chooses to lean against your door frame whilst you sit in order to explain X or Y to you. Dominance positioning is a thing, we are primates after all. If we have small and closed body language it says a lot more than our verbal responses in the conversation. Sometimes, when you find yourself in a mansplaining situation the mere act of repositioning yourself can impact the conversation. Stand up, gesticulate using wide body language when speaking. It may be that this merely changes the way you receive the exact same dialogue, but sometimes that is half of the battle. If it also supports you in using some of your practiced dialogue, all the better!

How do we help others?

When sat in the conference room mentioned at the start of this article, I had so much rage at the way these young scientists were being treated. My PhD student who saw and understood my response asked ‘are you going to say something?’. I responded ‘no, these girls are going to handle it’, and they did. They did so perfectly. I think one of my biggest pieces of learning over recent years is not to run in like an amazon warrior to save people, as this can in actual fact be diminishing and takes away their opportunity to act. My response now is to be there as a back up if they signal they need help and to offer support and reinforcement with ‘you were amazing in how you handled that’ afterwards to let them know how successful they were from an independent observer view. By rushing into save we can be as bad as the mansplainer as it indicates we don’t have faith in their ability to handle the moment. That said, if I’d had an official role, such as Chair, I feel it would have been my responsibility to stop the situation from happening in the first place. My take home is this, how you respond has to depend on your role and the situation.

I still love the females from the Obama administration who used their voices to amplify those of other women in the room. Not all actions need to be direct or confrontational, sometimes just being there to repeat the voices of others is enough. I wish that I had been able to breath through my rage and find an amazing follow up question to allow that panel to shine even more in that moment, but I didn’t and that’s my learning. That moment wasn’t about me, it was about them and next time I will have practiced how I can then act to amplify them better in the moment, rather than worry so much about the mansplainer in the room and giving him my energy. Every day I learn a little more.

Right, I’m off to the growlery until I find myself in a better mood. See you on the other side.

All opinions in this blog are my own