Sunak’s interruptions in Monday night’s debate, his speech about Truss, his general “shouting private school behavior” were condemned as “desperate” and “inappropriate” by Truss supporters. Sunak’s team fought back. Yes, the discussion was lively. But it was “insulting” to suggest Truss couldn’t handle herself in a “rocky” debate, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab insisted. Sunak, according to others, was simply explaining the shortcomings in Truss’s proposed fiscal policy. Nothing sexist about it. So when does simple explanation become the much more charged ‘mansplaining’? According to the OED, the verb ‘mansplain’ is defined as ‘Of a man: explain (something) unnecessarily, exaggeratedly or condescendingly, esp. (usually when addressed to a woman) in a manner perceived to reveal a patronizing or chauvinistic attitude’. Or, as Catherine Mayer, co-founder and president of the Women’s Equality Party, journalist and activist, sums it up: “In its strictest sense, male speech is about men explaining things to women that women already understand perhaps better. by the speaker”. “Human speaking can be pretty funny. I know we get angry about it. But one of the dangers of being a co-founder of the Women’s Equality Party is the number of men who rush to tell me how to do or not do feminism,” she said. “But to explain man is a vast and fixed thing. And there’s a lot about it right now.” Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss face off in second TV debate – video highlights The term was first coined in 2008, following an essay by American author Rebecca Solnit titled Men Explain Things To Me in the Los Angeles Times, in which she described a time when a man explained a book to her without acknowledging that she had written it. . This led to the term, which was first adopted on feminist blogs, with usage steadily increasing. Now it’s mainstream. Mansplaining, Mayer said, “is very much part of the larger culture that places different value on what men and women say. Men have big ideas and what they say matters which it may or may not have. While women with big ideas are said to be pushy or discussed, and their ideas are either picked on or ignored. And the structural exclusion of vital ideas and perspectives is one of the reasons politics is so broken.” He didn’t watch the Sunak-Truss debate, but thinks both are “hopeless candidates.” And that being so, he said, “potentially confuses the issue of manslaughter” in this case. “Trussanomics”—or Truss economic policy—was unworkable, Mayer believed. “And so it is possible that he may have given Sunak room for explanation, as well as for anthropomorphism.” Tory MP Jackie Doyle-Price had no such qualms, tweeting: “Most female MPs have been subjected to complaints and debate during the debate. Never a worse example than now at the BBC.” Hand in hand with mansplaining goes manterrruption. And sure enough Sunak interrupted. Asked on BBC Breakfast, Truss’ supporter Simon Clarke MP said: “It certainly interrupted Liz a lot”, although he refused to use the word “mansplain”, saying only: “I’m not going to label”. However, Sunak’s supporter David Davies saw it as the point and impetus of a healthy debate, saying: “Sometimes it’s important to intervene in debates.” The shutdown is “definitely part of the same culture,” Mayer said. “Asserting yourself is great. Talking about other people is not. It’s kind of on the edge of homicide.” Robert Lawson, associate professor of sociolinguistics at Birmingham City University, said the Sunak-Truss debate would inevitably see a spike in the use of the hashtags #mansplaining and #manterruption on Twitter as such events drive debate on the issue. “Then there’s a discussion around ‘what is explaining? Did he explain at all? Is it just a case of him explaining something and he’s a man?’ And so this debate is about what constitutes mansplaining and what doesn’t,” Lawson, co-author of an academic paper titled Gender Politics and Discourse of #mansplaining #manspreading and #manterruption, said on Twitter. The sociolinguistics definition of mansplaining is “a patronizing and condescending explanation” to someone who can “reasonably be expected to have some degree of expertise or knowledge in that area,” he said. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST “These kinds of ‘man’ terms are part of a larger strategy about how we actually talk and draw attention to some of the more problematic elements of how men communicate, and if they do communicate that way, what can be done about this .” But while she believes that could mean a positive outcome from Monday’s debate, Mayer is less sanguine. “One of the other things I’ve learned from activism is that it’s incredibly important to let people know about things so you can change them. But this is only the first step. You also have to make them care about it, and in our polarized world, these kinds of hashtag conversations, rather than making people care about it [an issue] in terms of having a moment of revelation and thinking that I’m going to change my behavior, it tends to reinforce people’s behaviors that they already had.”
