Luuuuuucy! I got some ‘splainin’ to do!

Today as I was walking out of my building, a kindly-looking stranger stopped to hold the door open for me and the the Kidlet. “That’s pretty brave,” he said. Thinking maybe he meant it was brave of me to try to open the door for myself in some parallel universe, I gave the sort of Terri-Hatcher-on-Desperate-Housewives wacky mom half-apology grin and said “aww, it’s not so bad. Right nice of you to open the door!” Apparently I had missed his point, because he humorlessly gruffed, “yeah, well be sure to keep him warm.”

Wait–what? I was so stunned that I didn’t say anything and left feeling a little dizzy. What the hell was that? For the record, yes, it is quite cold outside, but the kidlet was decked out in a shirt and pants, a furry bear snowsuit that makes him look like a teddybear (!!!), a BundleMe (effectively a sleeping bag), and covered with a fleece blanket. He was definitely the warmest person around! About a block away, it hit me.

I was a victim of a drive-by mansplaining.

I really can’t describe the concept any more eloquently than Zuska did in the post linked here (nor exemplify it better than Michael Hawkins’s furious mansplanations all over her blog, in her links), so you should just take a moment to read it in its glorious hilarity. I had heard the term “mansplaining” in various contexts, but I thought it was just a cheeky web neologism. No! Turns out it gives a name to a phenomenon that has driven me nutso since I was old enough to feel indignant, a term for what my father and brother do in 99% of my conversations with them. Sort of the opposite of speaking truth to power.

There’s a certain type of condescension that can only come from a knowledge –no, an expectation– that you are right and that the other person is going to just roll over. I know that people of all genders can be prone to pedantic asshattery (paging Courtroom Mama!), but it’s really only mansplaining if it comes with the certitude of dominant status. What, other than a feeling of superiority, could compel a perfect stranger to give me very serious instructions on how to care for my own child? And now that I’m thinking about it, our pediatrician–a septuagenarian with all the vim and vigor of a Coney Island strong man, but a mansplainer of the highest order–has recommended that we let our 2 1/2 month old get some of that bracing winter air, it’ll do him good. So there, condescending door-holding guy!

Mansplaining is something that most women encounter on a near-daily basis, but I think that motherhood in particular seems to bring all the ‘splainers to the yard.  When my first son was born, my male law school career counselor informed me that I should breastfeed because it’s better for babies. My father insisted that he needed talcum powder (I wondered, did he ever change my diaper?), and pitched a tanty when I said that talcum is currently poo-pooed by pediatricians. Some dude told me I should be getting exercise by swimming laps. The waiter at breakfast served me decaf because “coffee is bad for babies.” I got a lot of advice, both solicited and unsolicited, from other women, but the I definitely know what’s going on with your body and likewise what is best for you came from men.

It’s sort of funny-not-funny-ha-ha when it’s your loved ones or strangers pontificating about biological processes they’re incapable of undergoing or telling you what your own baby wants, but becomes a grotesque tragicomedy in the family courts, welfare policy, and pretty much any situation where pregnant women are involved. Add in age/race/class (all obviously at play in my interaction with the door holder), and you’ve got a perfect storm. Unfortunately, it seems like the only thing worse than a person who thinks they have the authority to comment on your situation without details or context is that same person after you point out that they don’t know your damned life.  For example, next time you got to the ER and they ask where your baby sleeps, try to explain cosleeping to the doctor. Or try explaining that you understand the risks of VBAC and want to be offered a trial of labor (oooh I hate that term). It doesn’t matter if you wrote your damned dissertation on the issue and present the doctor with a stack of research from the hallowed halls of the ivy league. Suddenly empirical research is “just numbers” and you’re sent off with a pat on the head (or if you’re “recalcitrant,” maybe a threat, a slap on the wrist, or worse).

Mansplaining is particularly poisonous in the area of law closest to my heart, the rights of childbearing women. I’m thinking of one situation in particular that I’ve seen in several incarnations.  A pregnant woman goes to give birth and something terrible happens. Maybe she doesn’t want an episiotomy and ends up getting cut anyhow as the doctor explains that they’re just far too busy to be massaging everyone’s perineum and that he just rescued her baby AND her sex life. Maybe she has to transfer to a hospital from an attempt at a home VBAC and the doctor tells her what a stupid choice she made as he cuts in for the repeat cesarean, and recounts  how he’s stood ankle-deep in blood from a uterine rupture as he angrily stitches her up. Then the woman has that a-ha moment when she recognizes that there should be some sort of legal vindication for her experience and tries to get a lawyer. She googles anyone who says they deal with birth, and gets mansplained at by a bevvy of attorneys who assure her that, notwithstanding her trauma or physical pain, if there’s a healthy baby and a healthy mother, she has sustained no injury and has no case. She should go home and count her blessings. She just got the twofer mansplanation!

At its very essence, the problem [of the secondary manspanation, the first is its own post] was best articulated by a colleague of mine: the Constitution wasn’t written for people who look like you and me. It’s almost depressing to think about the ways in which the law has failed women. Like, we didn’t even have a word for domestic violence for the longest time, it’s only in recent history that rape has been treated like anything other than an affront to a woman’s value to some male. Is it any surprise, then, that the rules for recovery in childbirth cases are confusing and inconsistent between jurisdictions? It’s funny, as much as activism, legislation, and even Supreme Court opinions would lead you to believe that women are unfailingly and irretrievably damaged by abortion, relatively little attention seems to have been paid to the fact that childbirth can be traumatic to women.  In fact, some jurisdictions pretty much bar all recovery for emotional pain and suffering related to a birth the mother survives without major injury unless the baby dies. Because having healthy mom/healthy baby is all there is to it, right?

Right.

The problem with the mansplanation of birth-trauma-as-noninjury is particularly frustrating because it’s technically correct according to the rules, but assumes that the rules themselves are a) correct, and b) immutable. We basically find ourselves one mansplanation away from disaster, away from legal vindication, and sometimes even away from full Constitutional and human rights. But there’s hope! The nice thing about the law: we can change it. Instead of being dissatisfied by what we’re given, we should make something new! Take it to our legislators, and failing that, take it to the streets.

Photo Courtesy of http://www.njmaternitycare.com.

Which reminds me, I should really get to know my local elected officials. I’ve lived in an oblivious fog of law school and motherhood for the past 3 1/2 years that I really have not kept up with local and state politics. Who knows, maybe reform of pain and suffering damages for birthing women or prevention of punitive CPS calls by healthcare providers might just be the star a cub legislator needs to hitch their wagon to.

A note on “womansplaining.” Some people insist that there is such a thing as “womansplaining,” where a dumb broad tries to talk to a man about stuff he already knows about, but she clearly doesn’t know anything and is irrational. And probably on her period. I agree that there is a phenomenon of “womansplaining,” but it’s not mansplaining by a woman; quite the opposite in fact. I’d say it’s when you over-explain yourself to accommodate someone else’s feelings.

Par exemple, just yesterday my husband ran into a friend of ours. She immediately launched into a preemptive apology for an email that she had sent that she worried might have made me uncomfortable. She almost hadn’t forwarded it because of blah blah and she hadn’t really expected me to blah blah but thought I might like to know about blah blah, and she was really sorry if it had upset me in any way. But here’s the thing: I wasn’t offended in the least, nor was there really any reason for me to have been. The thing that popped into my head (and this is no commentary on the friend!) was when a big dog walks in and the little dog lays on his back and pees on himself. And, when you parse it out, it really is the same thing: an immediately passive/defensive response, conditioned by years of being confronted with an immediately dominant response. Next time I apologize for just taking up space in an elevator, I’m going to ask myself am I womansplaining?

Tagged as: activism, advice, birth trauma, condescension, legislative advocacy, mansplaining, Motherhood, opinions are like butts, pregnancy, shortcomings of the law