Condescension, interruptions, creepiness, laughable ignorance, unsolicited advice—this guy’s mansplaining game has it all!
Every once in a while, the cosmos align to give us something so meta it’s almost hard to believe. Such is the case with one woman who was recently mansplained to by quite possibly the most mansplainery man to ever pontificate on the subject of mansplaining.
Lara Sharp, a writer, was hanging out at the pool reading Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit—a best-selling collection of essays seminal to the very concept of mansplaining—when a man she describes as “balding…maybe 65 or 70 years old, with blue, bloodshot eyes, drinking from a bottle of Ensure, wearing designer swim trunks, which are half hidden under a huge, extremely brown, beer belly,” approached her.
After inquiring about the book she’s reading and then interrupting her with an answer to his own question (“Oh, so it’s a book about men mentoring women!”) he addresses her 16 times throughout the conversation as “young lady” (to which she repeatedly responds that she’s 47 years old) and proceeds to inquire about whether she either works orhas kids. And whether or not she went to “typing school.”
Naturally, the man volunteers to mentor Sharp and “help grow [her] book,” because his career as the owner of a chain of corner stores is extremely relevant to her aspirations and he’s got a brain built for marketing: “You should put a photo of yourself in that bikini on the cover of the book! I bet you didn’t even think of that!”
Not only does the man execute the most predictable ending to their conversation by asking her out, but he manages to top it with a dash of anti-Semitism after she tells him her name is “Gloria Steinem.”
“OK, Gloria, call me, I’ll take you to dinner! I’m going to think of a new last name for you. Something less Jewish sounding. It’ll be better for your career! We can talk about at dinner! Be a good girl, Gloria!”
The post has been shared over 17,000 time so far. Read it in full below if you’re looking for a good rage-laugh.
Words: Deena Drewis
