younger women still hearing mansplaining

[Zoe Girl]

I was at training the last couple days with all of our frontline staff, almost 300 people. We had such amazing trainers for everything, once school starts we are too busy for this. I was sitting with a group of younger women, 20's, and we got to talking about mansplaining. Yup, still happens. They said it happens all the time. From their stories I think it is getting better, didn't want to take over with stories of the 'good old days', but still. I do remember worse, my mom reports worse, but it is still there.

I was however encouraged by some sharing about men that are perfectly fine with not taking over in any way, just being another person in the group. We had one training session on gender and we talked about how we learned roles and how we break roles, (and how to support our students). I was so encouraged by the young people, especially young black men, who were very vocal about how things should not be gender imposed. When some of the older women shared what they had been told over the years they were shocked, and it was funny to hear their comments. I also was totally encouraged that the discussion included as much about not putting men and boys into limited roles as women and girls.

[Chicken lady]

My daughter works in construction. She offered to take the company truck (regular, automatic pick up) to pick up a part because they were being delayed by not having it and she had finished her part of the job. The construction supervisor (generation older white male who is her equal, not her boss) told her "girls can't drive the truck" she thought he was kidding. When she realized he wasn't kidding, she told him you don't drive a truck with your penis. He exploded into verbal gender abuse. She walked away. They stayed behind schedule.

[Zoe Girl]

One young lady was having a private conversation with another woman about the conceal carry laws in the county as compared to the state. A man interrupted and tried to educate her. My friend is more than capable of knowing the gun laws. Then he said that women are not able to conceal a 45. She replied that she was carrying one right then, he was so shocked he asked to see it. Um no, she did not show him and walked away.

My newest staff is a young man, I am noticing some interrupting of me but I think he really just has a bit of ADD and he does have a lot of experience. However he was answering a question for another staff that I was in the middle of answering another way. We will just work on that,

What I noticed with my ex, horrific mansplaining, was that it was so much worse around other men. Like he could not hold his head up if he let me know something, he is also someone with no internal self esteem unfortunately. I keep remembering how I asked him to help out and mop the floor once. Yes it was helping out in that case since it was all my job. He kept on calling me over to teach me how to mop. I was saying that I had been mopping up after the family 15 years, I should be teaching him. He just kept calling me back. I think I took the dog for a 30 minute walk.