How the Internet Killed One of Our Most Useful Words:

Benjamin Hart

But along the way, mansplaining has morphed from a useful descriptor of a real problem in contemporary gender dynamics to an increasingly vague catchall expression that seems to be inflaming the Internet gender wars more than clarifying them.

In April, Melissa Harris-Perry accused Jay Carney, in his response to a question from Ed Henry of Fox News, of “mansplaining” why women earn less than men at the White House. But Carney was merely giving a fairly straightforward answer to a badly premised question from a right-wing outlet. Yes, he was a man explaining something. But “delivering an unsatisfactory response to a question involving gender inequality” does not a mansplain make.

Then there are the instances when the “mansplain” label actually diminishes a bigger problem. This summer, ESPN shouter Stephen A. Smith made some terribly stupid comments about the Ray Rice assault, implying that women should shoulder some of the blame for their own abuse. After fellow anchor Michelle Beadle responded with appropriate disgust, Smith dug himself into an even deeper hole with a series of rambling tweets that attempted to justify his comments. New York magazine labeled this “mansplaining.” But Smith’s response wasn’t so much an example of smug, petty condescension; it was more a matter of flat-out ignorance about the scourge of domestic violence.

Perhaps the word’s goofy clunkiness is part of the problem. “Mansplain” is not the most graceful coinage — Alexandra Petri at the Washington Post recently called it a “horrible chimera with the head of a goat and the tail of a serpent and wings” — and the ridiculousness of its construction makes it into a kind of insta-punch line, something people want to say just for the sake of saying it.