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4. Women screen for dominant men. This can be both be out of attraction or be mechanical, as women generally don’t approach and are passive followers in the early stages of courtship. Dominant men are more likely to talk over others and give off the pretense that they’re intellectually superior, including over women they’re dating or in a relationship with. Especially in the early stages of courtship, a man often has to lead and dictate the conversation because the woman puts in so little effort and initiative, and old habits can die hard.
5. Good ol’ hypergamy: For a date to go well and for subsequent dates to occur, or the first date to have occurred in the first place, perhaps a man does need to be intellectually superior to the woman or she won’t be sufficiently impressed. He needs enough material to lead and carry the conversation(s), and this can mean reaching for niche topics.
6. Some apex fallacy: Many women subconsciously don’t perceive non-dominant men as men. Non-dominant men are something more amorphous like “guys,” or not thought about at all like the Don Draper meme. See also the infamous OKCupid graphs: How men rate women vs. vice versa.
7. Speaking of Draper, Rule 1 and Rule 2, as always. A man’s supposed mansplaining and pretense of intellectual superiority is only a problem if a woman is not—or is no longer—sufficiently attracted to him.
8. Perhaps the average man is indeed intellectually superior to the average woman. It could be due to a modest gap in average cognitive ability. The average man may also have a wider and deeper knowledge base across a variety of topics than the average woman (e.g. in the physical sciences), which would only be exacerbated at the tails. If a random man or a random woman is to be selected to try to win a game of trivia with my life on the line, I’m definitely going man, especially if the pool is restricted to the college educated. If being funnier (intentionally, that is) is a form of intellectual superiority, that could be another point toward men.
I was accused of “mansplaining” by a young woman multiple times for talking to her the same way I talk to my male friend in his late 40s. Women just do not like being “explained” things the way men do. They HATE the implication that they don’t know something. They view it as condescending, while men are less cynical, and often seem to enjoy hearing how things work from others, or sharing knowledge in explanatory ways.
With women, it’s always about feelings. Making sure everyone in the conversation is “heard.” Lots of prefacing about how “maybe” it’s this way, or “I feel like” it’s that way. The corrosive, brain-melting end result of female socialization is that you can never just have a good argument without someone crying.
Things to consider:
Is the thing you're "mansplaining" something the woman in question might conceivably be interested in?
Have you shown a similar interest in hearing about things she's interested in and knows about?
Suppose you learn a lot about Roman military stuff, and she learns a lot about astrology, so you each have a lot of knowledge about an antiquated system. Are you as interested in what she has to say about birth signs as you hope she will be about your thing? If not, why not?
The issue here is that astrology is worthless nonsense. So that would be kind of a bad jumping off point. Roman history actually happened and may have some relevance.
People believing in astrology also actually happened.
You can say that about anything. Now we should coddle any fantasy?
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No, it's not. I meant the specific person you were talking to. Are they, specifically interested?
It's unsurprising that your young female colleague might be more sensitive to being talked down to than your middle aged male friend. Because you're not friends, for one thing.
Then it's hardly surprising that it would be more enjoyable for someone to learn about a topic from the internet than from you. I'm currently getting the impression that if I really needed the information you were giving, I would choose another source if possible, despite not generally being a "mansplaining" critic.
Didn’t ask; don’t care.
Then don't engage.
In the short time since you spun up this alt, you've posted nothing but crappy comments and antagonism. That plus deleting a lot of your comments makes it pretty clear you aren't here to contribute anything but turds in the punch bowl.
Banned for three days. Decide whether you actually have anything to say.
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Speaking of myself, I don't think I mind a girl being smart and/or having an interesting hobby, but I don't need her to be interesting to like her, so I won't probe her interests out as much aside from maintaining small talk. Conversely, I do want her to like me if the talk is to go anywhere, and it appears that most of the time I have to be interesting for that.
That's how attraction and courtship works from my oerspective, if I isolate it from the sexless part of companionship. I value what she looks like, I value how much she values me, and I value how easy it is to talk to her, inasmuch as talking to her is a necessary part of courtship. I think that ease (orthogonal to intelligence) is the difference between "gee, she's so silly" and "jesus she's dumb", as they say.
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Sure they do, women love knowing they're with a competent guy that they can rely on in a moment of crisis. Now, it's also true that we're under approximately 1001 reptillian psyops designed to hack our pair-bonding mechanisms, and make sure we see each other as enemies and never come together, which is how you get ideas like "mansplaining", but it's something that can be overcome.
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