The man knows the reason, and he is not afraid to tell you, using words that even your small brain can understand.

If you wander into the oddly colored outskirts of the Internet, you may come across weird words like “mansplaining”. This is at its core the need we men have to explain things in detail to women who know those things better than we do. The word is slowly catching on and getting a wider definition – men can now mansplain to men and even some women can mansplain. This is probably because we do not have a good word that means the exact opposite of “shut up, listen, and learn”.

Actually we don’t have a word for “shut up, listen and learn” either, I think. If we could verb “meekness”, it would at least be in the same neighborhood. It is no big surprise then that meekness is not seen as a great manly virtue among the worldly. Even though arguably, as the ancients said, the greatest victory is over oneself.

I don’t think mansplaining is a secret weapon of the patriarchy, or even that men are too stupid to realize we are stupid. Rather, I suspect that it has to do with reproduction. I think it serves a similar purpose as the peacock’s tail, to impress the chicks. And even when it fails to impress – as it often does these days when women have longer education than men – at least it leaves them in no doubt as to your gender.

Likewise there is a tendency among women who like a man, to play along with his self-styled omniscience. This again encourages the man and puffs him up in his self-importance. And due to the roots in reproduction, this process can be particularly pleasurable. This is something that I remember the elders of the Christian Church warned against. Those men who had come to a life in which they were qualified to teach others and give advice, should take particular care to not needlessly spend their time advising women in matters where they might as well ask another woman, and in particular not alone.  Stories from other denominations have borne this out; it is a slippery slope.

But even apart from that, the ego has a tendency to eat and grow strong from such activity. It requires an effort – or at best lifelong vigilance – to shut up, listen and learn.