Mansplaining
Why men should listen more and talk less
The Story
This story took place in the early 1990s, when I worked at a big East Coast firm that did large projects for the pharmaceutical industry and for other R&D related industries. The firm was going after a big lab project for a large and well-known Fortune 500 chemical company. It would have been our first project for that company and hopefully not our last. For those big jobs, a lot of strategy would go into picking the team, developing the presentation, the roles, the order, and any agendas and leave-behind materials. The team also rehearsed in front of the senior leadership of the firm and heard feedback and criticism on how to improve the presentation. It was a system that worked well, in my own experience of going out on a couple of big interviews, but somehow, in this case, the train went off the rails somewhere between Philadelphia and Wilmington.
I heard a first-hand account of the interview from the lead lighting designer in the firm, who was on our interview team. He was younger than the others, and his account went something like this:
“This was a typical one-hour timed interview—40-minute presentation and 20 minutes for Q&A—and there were five people on our team and five people on the client’s team. Our team was five (four older) white men in dark suits. Their team was three men and two women. The leader on the client side introduced his colleagues, and it was clear that the women on the panel played significant roles in the company—and would play a role in selecting the architect for this project. We did a fine job of getting through our 40-minute presentation, but when Q&A started, it was like watching a slow-moving train wreck. It all started when one of the women on the client panel asked a question. Usually when there is a question, instead of everyone starting to talk, we all look at the team leader, a senior partner in the firm, who decides who would be the best person to answer the question and then says, ‘why don’t you answer that one, Ken?’ In this case, our team leader just ignored the question, and no one else spoke up. I began to get a sinking feeling in my gut because each time one of the women on the panel asked a question our team leader just ignored it. It was a long twenty minutes and I was becoming more horrified until finally, we got to the end, and our leader asked the client leader if he had any questions. The client said, ‘Yes, just one: There are important women in leadership roles in our company and two of them are here today. I noticed that despite them each asking several questions, you never answered any of them, you just ignored them. So, what should we assume about how you will work with the leaders in our company on this project?’”
If it wasn’t already clear to everyone in the room, that last question confirmed that we would not be getting the job. Those guys came back with their tails between their legs, and it was all anyone in the office could talk about around the watercooler for the next couple of days. How could they be so tone deaf? It was a catastrophe, and not just for that one project but for any future work with that company, a new client relationship, and reputational damage. What were they thinking?
The Theory
A Pew Research article identifies eight specific types of gender discrimination that women experience in the workplace: Earning less than a man doing the same job; experiencing repeated, small slights at work; receiving less support from senior leaders than a man doing the same job; getting passed over for the most important assignments; feeling isolated in the workplace; being denied a promotion; being turned down for a job; and being treated as if they are not competent. My story highlights several of these. First, women are four times as likely to say they have been treated as if they are incompetent and three times as likely to say they have experienced repeated small slights because of their gender. Further, women with a bachelor’s degree or more education reported experiencing discrimination at significantly higher levels than women with less education. The women on that panel were highly educated scientists—more educated than the men who were ignoring them—and yet they were treated like they didn’t exist.1
The last of the eight types of gender discrimination outlined in the Pew study receives detailed treatment in another scholarly article in the Journal of Business Psychology, the title of which says it all: “Competence-questioning communication and Gender: Mansplaining, Ignoring, and Interruption Behaviors.” The article translates academic language into more easily understood meanings, including: “Behaviors of condescending explanation” (“mansplaining”), “voice non-recognition” (ignoring), and “interruption” (what it sounds like). More importantly, “women reacted more negatively and were more likely to see the behaviors as indicative of gender bias when the communicator was a man.”2
The article finds that while not all condescending explanations (mansplaining) from men are seen as sexist by women—because the man could just be a jerk, arrogant, or under time pressure—usually the behavior has roots in gender bias. Voice non-recognition (ignoring) is the more subtle and ambiguous of the three behaviors, as it is an omission rather than a commission, and so it can be less attributed to gender bias depending upon context. Interruption can mean different things for men and women. For example, when men interrupt other men, it is usually to agree or affirm an idea, while interruptions of women are more negative. Generally, however, women are more likely to be on the receiving end of all three competence questioning behaviors. And more importantly, there is an impact in the workplace, where women report that they have “lower intentions of working with a condescender” and are more inclined to avoid a coworker who exhibits this behavior.
Sadly, this article was published in 2022, over thirty years after the story I told at the beginning about the interview that went off the rails. Hopefully, there are fewer of those kinds of chauvinists around, but I know for a fact there are still some out there, and while I would like to think things have improved for women in the workplace, apparently, we still have some way to go. Some of us may be more enlightened than others, but many of us have been in uncomfortable positions where less enlightened men condescend, ignore, or interrupt our female colleagues, or worse, talk about them when they are not present. Just imagine how the leader of that client team felt when our team leader was ignoring his colleagues?
As a personal aside, I will never forget the first time I heard the word “mansplaining.” I was at an awards dinner at a planning conference, and the keynote speaker was a woman and planner who had recently been elected to her city council. There was a lot of positive energy in the room coming from the women who were proud to see one of their own in a leadership position. After the new council member gave her talk, when it came time for Q&A, the first question—shouted from the back of the ballroom—was “how do you handle ‘mansplaining?’” which brought a roar from the women in the audience. I remember having a cold feeling inside, because I had never heard the term before, and yet I knew exactly what it meant—and I was pretty sure that I had been guilty of doing it.
The Lesson
There are several lessons. First, men, if this story doesn’t make you just a little bit uncomfortable, then you may want to look in the mirror—we can and must always try to do better. That can be a challenge because for many of us, our old habits are subconscious and invisible to us, which means we need to be more self-aware and pay better attention to how people react to what we do and say. More generally, it is always good to live by the golden rule and treat people the way you want to be treated. People want to be treated with respect, and no one wants to be condescended to, interrupted, or ignored. And if you still aren’t convinced, then the final lesson is a more pragmatic one: Be careful—you don’t always know who is making the final hiring decision.
“But thanks for the mansplanation, Cartwright,” Lamb said. He looked at Louisa. “Mansplaining is when a man tells a woman something she already knows in a patronising, condescending manner,” he said, slowly and clearly. “Thanks.” “Do you need me to repeat that?” “No, I’m good.” “Excellent.”
—Mick Herron, Slow Horses
Postscript
There is a little postscript to that old interview story. I learned later that the CEO of the firm called his counterpart at the big company and, after apologizing profusely, made a request. He said, “I know we aren’t getting the job, and I am not trying to change that, but I would like to ask a favor: I would like to send a different team back down to your office for a second interview and ask your team to meet with them. I know it won’t change the outcome in this case, but I don’t want to leave you with this impression of our firm.” The client graciously agreed, and a second team rehearsed and went down for their interview. A few years later, our firm won a little job with that company, and then a bigger one. It was a bold and brave move on the part of our CEO, and I admired him for falling on his sword and then finding a way to repair some of the damage. So there is redemption.
And last but not least, this episode is dedicated to my lovely, wonderful, and patient wife, Anna, who, from time to time, lets me know that when it comes to these habits, I, myself, have plenty of room for improvement.
Parker, Kim and Cary Funk, “Gender discrimination comes in many forms for today’s working women,” Pew Research Center, 14 December 2017. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/12/14/gender-discrimination-comes-in-many-forms-for-todays-working-women/
Briggs, Caitlin Q., Danielle M. Gardner, and Ann Marie Ryan, “Competence‑Questioning Communication and Gender: Exploring Mansplaining, Ignoring, and Interruption Behaviors,” in Journal of Business and Psychology, 9 January 2023.