I think of "mansplaining" as men giving unsolicited advice rooted in assuming women are just stupid and failing to recognize that things work differently for women, so women can do the same things men do and get different results, which means women do things differently from men and sometimes there seems to be no good means for a woman to do anything.
Kind of like male construction workers can take their shirts off if they get too hot and female construction workers can't. (Real case I read about: Two female construction workers decided to wear bikini tops so they could take their shirts off in the heat and the busty, attractive lady was fired because this was a distraction potentially causing more accidents by the male construction workers. The skinny, flat chested girl wasn't fired because it wasn't literally turning heads when she pulled her shirt off and worked in a bikini top.)
Men explain things to each other and there is a whole etiquette around doing it. Doesn't matter if the listener has a better, more original version of the story they will still listen. How else would oral histories get rehearsed and memorised.
Well, to be fair, a large busted female taking her top off at a construction site would be a distraction in a way that a flat-chested girl would not. In a way that safety could be affected. It would be an anomaly that would instigate a reflexive reaction.
So you're saying you agree with me: The world works different for women than men, so telling a woman "If you're sweating while working hard in the heat, take your top off." would be actively bad advice that assumes she's merely stupid for not doing so?
It is ~~idiotic~~ alien to my world view to fire someone for having to take care of them selves not to overheat. Perhaps a better solution could have been providing more shade, rest, or cooling vests to everyone. And/or to re educate the male workforce not to be distracted so much that it would cause safety incidents. (I struggle to see how this would lead to serious issues. Is somebody going to be distracted so badly they are going to pour concrete over their colleague instead of in the hole?)
I’d say these situations show that we must have more diversity, not less, in all our interactions so that we learn to become more used to differences (insert race/gender/whatever else some people trip over.)
However idiotic it may seem, in a non-safe, litigating environment one can, sadly, expect these knee jerk reactions. The only way forward is to make our society a safer place. This probably relies on all parties becoming more aware of the effects of their actions as well on the receiving side having a buffer and being tolerant such that we don’t get a cascade effect.
Edit: I mean the above paragraph in the sense that just like aircraft investigations are about finding a root cause instead of blaming, discussions should be more about achieving harmony together or to agree to disagree.
Kind of like male construction workers can take their shirts off if they get too hot and female construction workers can't. (Real case I read about: Two female construction workers decided to wear bikini tops so they could take their shirts off in the heat and the busty, attractive lady was fired because this was a distraction potentially causing more accidents by the male construction workers. The skinny, flat chested girl wasn't fired because it wasn't literally turning heads when she pulled her shirt off and worked in a bikini top.)