Last week, I thought I was going to die. Not because my questionable habits of drinking 17 cups of ShareTea boba per day or sleeping 30 minutes a week had finally caught up with me, but because I was mansplained to.
It started out innocently enough, as most interactions do. I was minding my own business at the CoHo with a very large set of headphones on and a sign around my neck that said “Do not talk to me” when the unthinkable happened: I was approached.
This guy came up to me, looked both ways before speaking and then knelt down to my level, because I am very short and he wanted to make sure I could hear him loud and clear. He later reevaluated his stance and instead grabbed a chair and sat backward on it, like a teacher who was trying to be relatable.
“You know,” he started. At the time, I didn’t know, but was very curious about what input he had to contribute. “Women aren’t people,” he said with questionable confidence.
This made me think for a good minute. Was I not a person? All this time, I had thought that I was, but after a man had explained it to me, it all started to make sense. At that point I began to question everything, but part of me still felt the urge to resist because something about that statement just didn’t seem physiologically accurate.
I told him that I definitely was a person and wasn’t really sure where he got the idea that women aren’t.
Nevertheless, he persisted. “Well, actually, you’re wrong,” he continued. “Women aren’t people because that’s my opinion, so it’s a fact now.”
I was fascinated and engaged all at once. His logic was rock-solid and there really was no disagreeing with it.
I smiled and told him I completely understood what he meant now and thanked him for imparting his wisdom upon me, a simple girl who was only knowledgeable about cooking, cleaning and ShareTea boba.
I guess the moral of my story is that being mansplained to actually isn’t so bad and is actually kind of helpful. When I was first approached, I was ignorant and afraid, thinking I was going to die, when all this poor guy wanted was to completely alter my thoughts and feelings in favor of his own. That’s obviously not terrifying at all, and I feel fine now! In the end, I was just being crazy and emotional and forgot my place, but I’m so glad I had a man explain it to me.
Written by: Lara Loptman — lrloptman@ucdavis.edu
(This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
