Mansplaining Was Featured On ‘Jeopardy!’ And It Was Perfect

Mansplaining was featured on ‘Jeopardy!’ because it’s so freaking rampant

Mansplaining has gone Hollywood after being featured on “Jeopardy!” earlier this month. Since the act of explaining things to women in a condescending tone is everywhere why shouldn’t it be on Alex Trebek’s show?

Mansplaining is so popular that it was also recently added to the Oxford English online dictionary. For those who haven’t lived through the uncomfortable experience several times in your life here’s the official definition: mansplain (v.): (of a man) explain something to someone, typically a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing. Simply being a man who is explaining something doesn’t make the act mansplaining. The key is the patronizing.

During the October episode of “Jeopardy!” mansplaining was the right answer to the question “This 21st-century word happens when a male patronizingly tells a female about a topic she already understands.” Shannon responded with the right answer for $600 in the “That Explains It” category. Still confused? Well, here’s some perfect examples of mansplaining.

Computer scientist and University of Maryland professor Jen Golbeck had to shut down a man who thought his explaining was needed about Java, a programming language.

Then there’s this guy who tried mansplained an article on women in tech to a woman. The main problem – she wrote the damn thing. So thanks, bro, but we actually don’t need your input.

Then there’s the men who jumped in to the comments of a Huffpost article and mansplained why mansplaining was on “Jeopardy!” in the first place. Oh, the irony.

There’s this guy who just loves explaining things. I’m calling bullshit on this argument because anyone who explains everything to everyone has no friends because no one needs a walking encyclopedia who won’t shut the hell up. Pro tip, bro, wait until someone asks you a damn question before you launch into an explanation.

Then we have this guy who misunderstands how teaching works. Learning doesn’t include condescending or patronizing the opposite sex. Also, no dude, no one asked men to be the hall monitors of facts. As someone who has worked as a professional fact checker, I can assure you no one needs you setting people straight during normal, daily conversations.

This guy’s definitely a Men’s Right Activist. How about ditch the rage and actually listen to what the women around you, sociologists, the Oxford AND “Jeopardy!” are all telling you – mansplaining is a real problem. We’d hate to have your mama get involved.

Nope. Sorry. I do enjoy how he assumed that every example of mansplaining included a “well thought out opinion” from a male. Because come on, ladies, those are obviously the only kind of ideas men have. And, no, Ricky Ricardo didn’t spawn it. Its roots are actually from an essay written in 2008 by Rebecca Solnit, called “Men Explain Things To Me,” that appeared in the Los Angeles Times. See what we did there?

We could spend weeks finding examples of mansplaining and writing articles breaking it down for our confused friends. Clearly, they’re just well-meaning men trying to help us ladies who get so confused despite our education and experiences. But hopefully, with Trebek on the case, he is a man after all, we’ll see fewer examples of mansplaining in action.

Probably not.

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