Explaining Mansplaining

When psychology major Trinity Christiano ’26 tells men she knows that she is working on a research project about mansplaining, they inevitably start to, well, mansplain. “They are obviously joking,” Christiano says with a smile. “After a while, I get to explain that what we are looking at is why mansplaining occurs and in what circumstances.” Fellow psychology major Doris Chi ’24 says that while there is no equivalent term for “mansplaining” in China, where she hails from, “the experience of it is common” there.

The two students were part of a research team of seven Smithies who spent the spring semester studying mansplaining with Eric McCurdy, visiting assistant professor of psychology. Through qualitative surveys and quantitative analysis, McCurdy’s Gender Research Lab team worked to develop a way to help assess when men are most likely to mansplain.

McCurdy has faced his own challenges in researching the behavior that author Rebecca Solnit is credited with bringing to public awareness in 2008 (although she did not use the term “mansplaining”). “The question I always get is, ‘Why is a man studying mansplaining?’” McCurdy says. “For me, it was really important to have the students in my lab working with me—people who aren’t men, who can tell me about their experiences and their perspectives in order to make this a well-researched topic.”

This is how the team defined mansplaining in its surveys: “When a man speaks about a subject in a condescending way to a conversational partner whom he perceives to be a woman, without regard to whether his conversational partner has as much or more knowledge of the subject at hand.” Assessing when mansplaining is most likely to happen required testing scenarios to see which ones men “endorsed” as accepted masculine behavior. Here’s how McCurdy and the two students explained their research.

What drew you to the subject of mansplaining? 
Trinity Christiano: I was really intrigued by this topic because it’s a very common phenomenon. Almost every woman, if not every woman, has had an experience with mansplaining. It’s a really interesting field of study that hasn’t opened up in the world of psychology yet.
Doris Chi: I’m coming from a little bit different of a background. I’m from China, and there really isn’t this concept of mansplaining in our culture, but the experience is common. ... Explaining mansplaining to friends whose native language is not English has been quite challenging. It’s a new vocabulary for me, and that’s why I wanted to participate in this study.
Eric McCurdy: We know mansplaining has real impacts on women. In the workplace specifically, it negatively impacts many parts of their career and their comfort in the space. Knowing that, I think it’s important for our lab to be able to speak to why men are doing this. And once we can identify why, what can we do to reduce how often it happens?

How did you go about studying mansplaining?
DC: We started by collecting responses from the Smith community. We actually drew from people’s experiences of mansplaining. And we got all kinds of interesting responses. ... Then we surveyed 600 random male participants [from a database]. So, we actually ended up testing the measures on men.
TC: We had to create our own mea- sure—testing when men are more likely to mansplain. We looked specifically at, if we were to give men a scenario, how likely would they be to mansplain? We went through over 60 items and cut that down to eight.

What are some of the items that made the list?
DC: The first one is, “Explain to someone how to use their gear.” This one we are really fond of because we think “gear” is an interesting word. We have others like, “Explain how a sport works” or “Tell her how to hunt and fish.” We thought hunting and fishing is something that is really masculine in the Western context. We also have some items that are somewhat surprising. For example, “Help her understand something about TikTok.”
EM: We had to use a little intentional misdirection by saying that this was a study about men’s conversational practices. If you ask a man if he mansplains, he’s going to say “no.” So, we need to have a measure that looks at whether men endorse specific behaviors that we can identify as mansplaining in order to be able to figure out why they are doing it.

What have you learned from your research?
EM: One of the things I’ve learned is how incredibly difficult it is to create a good measure that will withstand psychometric scrutiny. We ended up realizing that we could have kept 15 or 20 questions [on the list], but we would still never touch on all of the potential ways that a man could go about mansplaining. So, it was a process of learning that it may not end up looking exactly the way we want it, but when a measure is statistically solid and psychometrically valid, that’s exactly the kind of measure we want to be putting out and that other people can look at and say, “I could use that.”
DC: I’ve had a lot of experience working with quantitative data, but this is the first project I’m involved in that works with qualitative data. I’ve learned so much about how to analyze qualitative data and develop a measure from scratch. This is a really fascinating experience for me and a really valuable research experience.
TC: Creating a measure and testing what situations men are more likely to mansplain in sets the stage for a lot of future research. This is a really important topic because it shows that despite our society having more equality, there are still aspects that prove women are below the hegemonic line. We have to continue working proactively to treat women with respect and teach men to treat women with respect.