Why Sweden launched a 'mansplaining' hotline
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For a week, Swedes who want to vent about 鈥渕ansplaining鈥 can call a hotline to share their experiences.
The project was set up by one of Sweden鈥檚 largest trade unions, Unionen, after its officials said they had received too many complaints about 鈥渕ansplaining鈥 from its members. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day this week, members can call in and speak to gender experts and academics.
"I think often it's experienced as a sort of condescending exercise whereby the woman feels that the man feels a need to explain in perhaps a , where the woman hasn't actually asked to be informed, and perhaps the woman might already be more knowledgeable or more well informed on the subject,鈥 Swedish gender expert Christina Knight, who was involved in the project, told PRI.
The project has attracted both male and female callers 鈥撀燼s well as plenty of detractors on social media. The term mansplaining took off after a 2008 essay from author Rebecca Solnit, 鈥淢en Explain Things To Me.鈥 The term covers scenarios in which arrogant men impose their knowledge on women 鈥 or, as the Swedish hotline has documented, other men 鈥 that the mansplainers聽assume are either less intelligent or less informed.
鈥淥ur objective is to contribute to awareness and start a discussion which we hope will be the first step in and talk about each other in the workplace,鈥 Jennie Zetterstr枚m, a union spokeswoman, told the New York Times. 鈥淚t鈥檚 important to create awareness about how seemingly small things that we do or say add up to a larger issue.鈥
Ms. Knight, who was one of the experts answering the calls, reports receiving a roughly equal number of calls from men and women. Some men call to complain, while others have asked for advice, like one man looking for tips on how to explain the term to his nephews.
"This specific campaign really is inspired by a need, expressed both by members within Unionen and women generally," Knight said. "They say that they have experienced this, and it is troublesome, and it is something they'd like to learn how to handle and make people who are mansplaining aware of what they are doing."
Sweden is already one of the in terms of gender equality, according to the World Economic Forum鈥檚 latest Global Gender Gap Report. As an example of the nation鈥檚 awareness on gender issues, some cities in Sweden have snow-plowing policies that , as reported by City Lab.
The phenomena of mansplaining is global and , such as when a man in 1903 tried to explain to women why they didn't really want the vote, as detailed by The Atlantic's Lily Rothman in 2012.
Ellen Dubois, a professor of history and gender studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, tells the 海角大神 Science Monitor in a phone interview that the word is new 鈥 but the phenomena is not.
"As women gather both experience and confidence in themselves, it's a repeated phenomenon as women become doctors, lawyers, as they studied and understood political development," she says. "They were able to say with greater confidence, 'Look, I know what I'm talking about.' "
In 2008, Ms. Solnit鈥檚 essay about a man 聽鈥撀爓ithout knowing or letting her explain that she wrote it 鈥撀爏et off a popular discussion about the phenomena.
Soon, a blog called 鈥溾 was set up by women in academia to anonymously share their stories of . Examples range from male colleagues telling women what is best with no regards to their abilities to differential judgment being passed on students based on gender.
Some have criticized the term mansplaining itself, saying it deepens the gender divide. As Liz Cookman wrote for The Guardian, 鈥淭hey serve to against gender-based social discrepancies and invite absolutism.鈥
Knight and some of her fellow hotline operators suggest engaging in conversation with mansplainers.
鈥淥bviously not all men subject all women to mansplaining all of the time,鈥 , one of the gender experts participating in the project, as translated by the New York Times. 鈥淭hat would be an absurd assertion and not based in reality. But enough women are subjected to it by enough men for it to be a problem that warrants being addressed, discussed, and resolved.鈥