Hello all,
Yesterday I got into a argument with my girlfriend unfortunately. The situation is that she was sending me a lot of texts because she was worried about her period not arriving. She asked me when were the last times we had done it to be sure.
Seeing how much she was worried I tried to show her empathy and that she’s not alone in this. Actually, I have had the same situation of a period not arriving with my ex-girlfriend. It turned out that her period was simply late, possibly due to stress.
Having that same experience in the back of my mind I tried to ease my girlfriend’s anxiety by telling her that her period was probably just late or that stress can cause it to be late.
I didn’t mean to lecture her about her period. Of course she knows more about it than I. I just wanted to ease her anxiety. She told me I was mansplaining even if I didn’t mean to.
We have reached a deadlock now and I see no possibility of solving it. I am afraid this could lead to a break up even.
She says she knows i’m not sexist, but that it was a sexist attitude of mine to tell her about her period. She wants me to admit that.
I, on the other hand, felt offended because mansplaining in my book means talking condescendingly to a woman which was not my intention.
She wants me to admit to having sexist attitudes (which she says everyone has) that need to be deconstructed. I, on the other hand, feel like I can’t do anything right since I was just trying to be of help. I am all about equality in a relationship so it hurts me to hear I did mansplaining.
Can you offer my any advice on how I can solve our argument? I’d especially love to hear female perspectives.
Update: she is not pregnant and her period came later that day. Anyway, we made up tonight.
50 comments
I don’t see how that’s mansplaining, but regardless this is not something worth fighting over
Sounds like you both just heard the made up word mansplaining and couldn’t wait to use it on each other.
You need to pick your battles, my friend, & this isn’t one of them. That goes for both of you. If your relationship status is really hinging on this to the point where it may end over something this trivial, then you have more issues than mansplaining to deal with.
For what it’s worth, as a woman, I don’t think you were mansplaining, I think you were just offering a reasonable explanation, but we don’t always want a reasonable explanation (I know that doesn’t make sense, but I don’t know what else to tell you).
I really think you just need to agree it’s silly, & put it behind you. There are times to deconstruct your views on sexism, & the female condition, & everyone should, but in the midst of an argument, about a late period, no less, it’s not the time.
Just apologize and move on. If she’s as stressed as you say, there’s no point in fighting a losing battle.
mansplaining is just explaining something that a woman already knows, I think thats where you’re getting confused, it has nothing to do with your intentions. its understandable though, as a lot of men don’t understand what mansplaining is
NAH
Here’s the thing: we’re now in a time where if you end up pregnant and don’t want to be pregnant, you need to act quickly or have the resources to travel out of state. Yes, it is most likely stress, but she is also scared that it might be more than that. I absolutely knew my cycle was going to be wonky due to stress, but I still took a pregnancy test just in case because I would only have a two week window to take action if it came back positive.
If your girlfriend is that anxious about pregnancy, she should take a test and put her fears to rest.
Im a girl. Did you just say it could be stress? Or did you give a long speech about the ins and outs of periods ? It really doesn’t seem like mansplaining at all if it’s the former, it’s a fact that stress can cause periods to be late or miss a month because of it.
>She wants me to admit to having sexist attitudes (which she says everyone has) that need to be deconstructed
This line makes it sound like she’s overthinking or trying to look for any evidence of sexism you may have. If someone came up to me and assumed I was sexist especially after just trying to calm them down, it would bother me a lot, and I think the same goes for you as being told you were mansplaining is offending you. You stated that you were there for her, had experience in the same situation with your last gf, and was just trying to offer sympathy to the situation, especially after getting many texts from her. I don’t think you did anything wrong. Of course I’m assuming that you literally didn’t lecture her and just said it could be stress.
You can make your intentions clear with her and tell her she’s hurting you by assuming you’re being condescending when you were just offering empathy and trying to calm her down. If she still wants to deconstruct your ‘sexism’ and doesn’t acknowledge that you’re trying to help, then it’s a sign of how future fights in the relationship are gonna go down.
[deleted]
When men do it we are mansplainin’ when women do it they are educating or informing. Yes this is 100% a real thing and yes it happens all the time. If you complain about womensplainin’ you are suddenly just a sexist pig and same rule applies if you try to defend yourself for mansplainin’. I am living this all the time except when I get womensplainin’ed I have learned to just think in my head “Yes I know all this, being a man doesn’t make me dumber than you”.
I am a women who has an inconsistent cycle, and that can be stressful enough. I myself, and most women I know wouldn’t appreciate any guy trying to remind or educate us about our cycles.
You just need to apologize. Understand that someone can unintentionally “mansplain”. You don’t have to be condescending or intend to do this for it to be true. Intentions to not always equate to reality. Especially with this being about her period, to your point she absolutely knows more than you.
Suggestion to avoid conflicts in the future: if your GF vents to you, don’t just jump to trying to solution it via giving suggestions. Instead ASK. “what can I do to help, do you need me to just be a good listener so you can vent, or do you want any advice? I know this is bothering you and I want to support you in the way that you need right now”
Was a huge game changer asking how someone needs support, and not responding with what I assume someone needs from me. I also vocalize when I approach someone close to me what I need to avoid any frustration.
Good luck OP. This is not a hill to die on!
Guys have a bad habit of trying to fix every problem when most of the time we just want you in the boat with us and to get some sympathy panic. Maybe in the future ask if she’s looking for solutions/advice or just wants to vent?
Also, mansplaining is not always intentional on the man’s part. It’s definitely mansplaining when men think they’re going to solve a problem with miracle advice that they think we haven’t already considered. She knew about the stress thing, guaranteed. That’s like suggesting turning the electronics off and on again to an IT person. That’s literally the first thing they tried dude.
I would be very careful with a gf pulling out the mansplaining card randomly
OP, is this the same girlfriend you made a reddit post about 2 months ago where you said she didn’t want to have sex for a while because she’s a virgin? If so, and you two had unprotected sex, which I hope she agreed with, or protected sex and is scared of a condom failure, she is probably really stressed out and thinking of all the options. She clearly doesn’t want to be pregnant yet, and having a possibility that she is pregnant can cause alot of stress. If you tell her once that a period can be late because of stress aswell, then that’s fine, if you constantly try to dismiss her worries since you assume it’s just because of stress, that’s not fine. We only hear your side of the story so it’s hard to judge what really goes on, especially since you’re lying about your age, even if it might be a typo.
“Mansplaining” is an obviously sexist term that is used by sexists to excuse their sexism.
… and you are allowing a person – WHO IS USING A SEXIST TERM – to gaslight you into believing that YOU need to apologize for being sexist?
Lolwut?! 🤪
Mansplaining is when a dude tells a girl something they already know because they think she doesn’t know and she needs him to help her feeble mind understand. This seems really small if you literally just stayed a fact but it sounds like you did kind of tell her something she probably already knew. She wasn’t asking you why her period could be late. She does you the last times you had sex to be sure she had the right dates from what she remembers. Most women already know a period can be late due to stress. You tried to educate her on something she already knows. It sounds like mansplaining to me, albeit a minor case. I would recommend apologizing and understanding what she wanted out of you in that situation.
Edit: or maybe next time state it as more of a question rather than a fact. Ex “do you think it could be from stress?” Instead of “you know dear, periods, they can be late from stress.”
I would just break up. Lots of women here always defend women
You both need to stop arguing to win. Start arguing to solve.
Sharing your experience should be something your partner values. No matter who knows what on the topic — experiences are unique and important.
I would communicate that.
On the topic of “mansplaining” (not a fan, it’s sexist) — you should be free to explain anything you want to, and the other person should be free to participate in the conversation or not.
Don’t be condescending, stay nice, and try to be as empathic as possible (emotions > logic in a heated discussion) in conversations with **everyone**.
You sound like you’re at least trying to do those things. Work with her to improve them. If she wouldn’t work with you — I’d find a partner who does. You have the most context, so you have to make the decision.
I think she’s overreacting and being unfair to you BUT I also sympathise a little.
In similar situations in the future, you might try offering QUESTIONS instead of solutions. Because you don’t know her body and she’s already experienced in the specific way HER body deals with periods (because like many other things like size, hair colour, bodies are very different about that). So you can ASK if something could help. Example:
“My period is late!”
“It’s probably just stress.” => COULD be misconstructed as mansplaining, even if you were genuinely just trying to help her.
Better:
“My period is late!”
“I’ve heard it can be late due to stress, could that maybe be it?”
“Did you already experience it being late before in your life or is it always super on time?”
Reassure your gf and stay with her until you find out whether she is pregnant or not; at this stage she needs your help and support. If it turns out that she is not pregnant, then I would suggest leaving her. You don’t need that kind of toxicity in your life. She clearly feeds into the whole toxic feminist agenda of breaking men’s balls simply for being men. You’ll have dodged a bullet.
If she is pregnant, then you’re basically gonna have to sit it out. The decision to either continue or discontinue the pregnancy is hers. If she chooses to continue with it, and have a baby, then you’re gonna have to face up to your responsibilities as a dad.
Even if we don’t intend to make someone feel a type of way, we don’t get to decide how they feel. And sometimes being “right” or “wrong” doesn’t even matter because we’re complex emotional creatures. If there’s any bit of either of you who thinks you can change the other, it’s not gonna work out.
Remove gender from the conversation. Person A is stressed and shows immense concern over something. Person B uses whatever knowledge they have (with good intentions) that it will be ok.
This doesn’t have to travel down the wormhole of gender identity. Seems to be a human interaction where a person was stressed and didn’t feel like getting advice.
If you remove gender from the interaction it’s all pretty innocent. Isn’t that what the gender-obsessed want? For everything to be neutral? There you have it.
The issue I guess now after making up. You will be walking on eggshells. Constantly worried what you say how you say it. Almost falling into the trap of earning the peace between you. That can become taxing. But she is worried and acting out because of it. Apologise don’t go into to much detail, don’t do it more than once. And let the dust settle stay quiet. The more you move forward here the chances are you will cause more issues in both of your current states. But once it does let her know your intentions and where they came from, out of love but also that youre glad you’ve learnt how to communicate with her from now on.
Woman here – i just don’t understand why many are asking him to apologize. If your partner is stressing about something, how is your offering possibilities of the problem a sin or a wrongdoing to apologize?
wtf…i am a girl and i think your gf should really just understand that you were only trying to help
What did you say exactly? Usually, mansplaining is paired with arrogance and patronizing language.
“she wants me to admit to having sexist tendencies, (which everyone does) that needs to be deconstructed.”
Holy hell where do these kinds of ppl get off.
If she isnt pregnant, run, and do it fast.
So when in situations like these, I try to avoid making statements that imply I know something the other person may not; I usually try to first ask questions to allow the other person to show that they do know what im talking about. If they aren’t aware or they seem confused, I will elaborate on the question. I will only then make a statement about what I know or have researched.
Edit: I think honestly, though, you aren’t at fault here since if your girlfriend is under the impression that everyone is sexist or condescending to women, then it is likely that she has a defensive mindset that sees the world as being against her
The thing that is a big red flag for me is that she wants you to admit to something you have said is not true. In this position, you have nothing you can do that doesn’t compromise your self-respect or dignity. Either you lie and admit like she wants you to, or you don’t, and she continues to emotionally denigrate you for it.
Mansplaining isn’t talking condescendingly to a woman. Its when you as a man try to explain something a woman obviously knows equally well or better than he does. This mistake can happen between any two people but women claim men do this a lot to them. They believe this happens because there is a societal bias where men are seen as smarter and leaders.
Often when someone is venting they don’t want to hear advice because they feel a little controlled and critiqued. They just want a listening ear and some empathy. Its especially annoying when they get advice about something they actually know better about, hence the accusation of mansplaining.
All you have to do is apologize and remember to be careful about giving advice when someone is venting, and be careful about explaining an issue the other person knows just as well as you do or better.
I think she might be upset that you tried to brush it off by saying she might be late due to stress. Women make huge sacrifices when it comes to carrying a child and even when the potential mother is pro-choice, terminating a pregnancy is hard on the body.
I know you didn’t mean to be condescending but, especially if this conversation happened over text, she may have taken your suggestion the wrong way. The worry that accompanies someone with a late period can be indescribable and there’s flaring hormones in addition, which make patience a little harder to keep. I recommend apologizing, acknowledge her concerns and move forward from there. She may need a bit of time to cool off then she may come around.
Regardless to all of this I just wanted to say: mansplaining doesn’t *have* to be intentionally condescending. That almost missed the point. It’s the whole notion that men inherently think they know better than women. Regardless to the intention. It’s almost the opposite, that there is no intention, it’s just understood by the man that he simply knows or understands something that the woman he’s speaking to doesn’t. It’s an a sense of humility, an assumption.
Honestly, I think what she wants is for you to reassure her that you’ll step up and be supportive regardless of the outcome, not tell her things she already knows like stress can delay periods. Regardless of whether you were mansplaining or not, all she wants is for you to express that you’ll be there for her no matter what, not just hope she isn’t pregnant.
1. You can not be sexist and still slip up and make sexist comments.
2. The fact that you put mansplaining in quotation marks told me that you said it in a way you didn’t think you did. You did mansplain, albeit probably unintentionally.
3. The fact that you’re so offended at the possibility that you’ve exercised male privilege says to me a lot. Men who always get angry at being called out for a sexist act (especially unintentional) usually know on some level that they did something not okay and have convinced themselves they’re not sexist.
Spoiler, they usually are. The men who aren’t typically take that information and think about it, and usually end up apologizing or working through with me why what they said wasn’t okay. The later show an amazing amount of empathy and maturity.
4. You could have avoided the entire argument by phrasing it as a leading question:
“Is it possible thst it’s late?”
Or better,
“Hey I had a similar situation with my previous gf. It turned out thst her period was just late. Do you think it’s possible the same is happening here?”
You see what I mean? You’re asking her for her opinion while getting the information you want to across to her without just simply TELLING her.
You aren’t just telling her what it is, which is how this is mansplaining.
The simple fact is that periods are different for all women. I get my period sometimes for two weeks or not at all duringa month.
Soooooo thats why you were 100% mainsplaining.
Just apologize, swallow that misplaced pride, and move on.
Everyone makes mistakes. This doesn’t make you necessarily a sexist. It just means you made a mistake and you’re learning from it. The important part here is that you take that knowledge and grow from it. I will commend you for being cognizant of sexism and wanting to avoid being a sexist. That’s really good. You just need to accept that you’re going to make mistakes sometimes, even when you don’t mean to.
We all have sexist attitudes
A professor was walking home from work when a freak accident happened and a tree fell, killing then immediately – I heard that and immediately thought oh my god his poor wife and kids… but nothing in the stem says it’s a woman, I just assumed due to the word professor
It’s okay to admit to a flaw that the vast majority of the population has
Mansplaining is such a bullshit term. The only people who use this term have no control over their emotions and get upset over a being offered a logical argument to help alleviate stress or deescalate a situation that is spiraling out of control. If someone uses the term mansplaining, you should feel free to refer to any illogical or inconsistent arguments as “womensplaining” in their presence. Stop arguing. Find a partner who doesn’t use gender as an excuse to denigrate or devalue an opinion.
Get a pregnancy test and find out what the deal is. Quit bickering and solve the problem.
While it’s understandable that shes stressed, she sounds very dramatic for saying that your being sexist and saying you need to apologize. She sounds like someone you need to walk over eggshells on and your relationship shouldn’t be in jeopardy simply because you we’re trying to console her(perhaps not exactly the way she would have preferred but at-least was a genuine attempt) Perhaps you were a little bit dismissive but i think her reaction was unwarranted.
She shouldn’t be making you feel sexist or guilty for what you said.
Time for an IUD
“mansplaining”
“admit to having sexist attitudes that need to be deconstructed”
From one man (29) to another. You did absolutely nothing wrong. Don’t admit to something you didn’t do. Who knows where you’ll end up. Take note of this argument you are having and be wary for more of this kind of unreasonable behavior.
Let her calm down and if it takes too long for her to get her period just propose she gets a pregnancy test (it increases stress at first but then you are relieved after, from experience).
Jesus Christ. The rampant miscommunication here.
“I know you’re scared. I think we were being very safe but I’ll support you through this no matter what. How about we start by getting some pregnancy strips for peace of mind?”
You can buy huge packs of em on Amazon.
There. Shit solved + she’ll love you for being understanding and dependable. Learn how to communicate better. Learn to ask people for what they need when they’re struggling. It’ll save you a lot of headache down the road.
Also, I get why she jumped to “mansplaining” here because she felt like you’re not understanding her needs, but she needs to apologize for that later. That’s accusatory and hurtful to someone that’s only trying to do right by his girlfriend.
Ask her “what would you prefer I say? It ain’t mine?”
She’s BSing man. Just tell her yeah you’re right. You know she’s dragging it unnecessarily and logic has already left the chat long ago.
~cut the arm to save the body~
she has stressed herself out, BTW this is easy to do! But she’s old enough not to have placed herself in this position, Run!
Ngl, this is going to sound harsh, but there are plenty of fish in the sea, and you will have a much better time dating one who doesn’t spend all day playing victim.
Some people here are saying mansplaining is “a man telling or explaining to a woman something she already knows”. If that is what mansplaining is, then many people mansplain to each other all the time, and mansplaining wouldn’t be something evil either, just a thing.
Even if she’s a woman and the subject is the monthly period, you talking about it is not “mansplaining”. If I have a friend who is an expert at cars and his car breaks down, and I tell him it might be the gas, he’s not gonna tell me “stop behaving condescendingly towards me. You know I’m an expert at cars”.
“Mansplaining”, huh..
Is talking down to someone (whether deserved or not) only a male trait?
Or is this more misandrist trash attributing a gender-neutral bad behavior to only men?
I read that not as you “educating” her about her period, but perhaps redirecting what might be an anxiety spiral on her part into more realistic thoughts. She probably knows stress can cause late periods, and you know she knows, and she knows you know she knows.
That said, it does feel a little bit like “fixing.” Like what she needed was less you to fix her thinking and more listen and understand.
I also think you’re right not to just admit to being “sexist” just to appease her. She’s feeling a particular way, and she’s externalizing it onto you, making you the cause of her feelings instead of taking responsibility for them. Just giving in to her demands will allow that unhealthy process to continue.
There’s only so much you can do here, she ultimately has to own her own projections onto you.
30 year old women here, she’s being immature and is infact sexist
Next time she tells you her period is late and is worring, just let her know it is her period so she will be able to deal with it (or lack of) herself It is her body and you are just a simple man with no voice or opinions when it comes to the female body and cycles.
See if that attitude is what she would rather have from you.