That time I said "mansplaining" in a law school setting.

The scene in Room 2211 yesterday evening looked like this:



Photo by Meade, across the vast landscape of tabletop and the remains of the dinner provided by The Federalist Society.

Ilya Somin was there to talk about some of the things in his book "A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case," and I was there to offer a few insights of my own. I began with a description of the last time I heard Ilya speak about Obamacare, which was at another event sponsored by The Federalist Society, that one at the Madison Club, where the audience sat at round dinner tables, and Meade and I were among the last arrivals and took the last 2 seats at a table full of strangers, probably Madison lawyers.

I don't think the person I sat next to knew I was a law professor. He started lecturing — he started mansplaining — he started mansplaining — I'd never say that in law school — he started (as I say) mansplaining to me about how this is really all politics and that the healthcare reform bill represents a big important political effort, and that's why it's going to be upheld in the courts. It's all politics, this was so important to the Obama administration, this was such a huge deal politically that there's no way that the courts are going to be able to strike it down. So I said if it's all politics, then what about all the polls that show how unpopular it is? People don't like it. So if the court is responding to politics, why wouldn't the court respond to politics in the form of striking it down? Well, at that point the panel began, so he didn't have to answer me, but I thought I had him cornered.

Much more was said, of course. And Professor Somin gave a lively presentation taking the strong, clear position that the individual mandate is beyond the commerce power and could not properly be regarded as a tax. Me, I thought both sides on both questions were within the realm of debate. As usual, I'm more interested in how people can think the different things they think and what might be motivating them than in taking positions on legal issues and trying to persuade anyone. So Ilya and I took different tones, but I think it harmonized pretty well for a nice evening law-and-politics talk.

IN THE COMMENTS: I expanded on the meaning of "mansplaining":

You see a woman and you assume she doesn't know anything about something you think you know something about. You might be explaining constitutional law to a constitutional law professor. She could be thinking: You're assuming you know more than me because I'm a woman and you're a man.

The aptly named wholelottasplainin' said:

That sounds an awful lot like feminists sneering at men, "You just don't get it, do you", as a way of NOT engaging them "on the merits".

I said:

It sounds quite different to me.

The feminists you describe are openly expressing hostility and exasperation, as if the interlocutor should already have figured it out and is perhaps being willfully dumb and therefore doesn't deserve to hear it spelled out. Part of it is that she expects to be agreed with and any disagreement is getting characterized as failure to understand. It's a manipulation, of course.

The mansplainer isn't displaying hostility, but his need to be dominant. He performing in the theater of verbal expertise and he's overdoing the explanation, possibly concerned that he might otherwise seem dull or weak. He's failing to take into account that the woman might be knowledgable and missing a chance to connect as equals.

Note that I am not being the woman who says "You just don't get it" to the man. I'm trying to explain a dynamic that I have experienced many, many times in the last 4 decades. It used to be worse, and I used to get it even from students. It's bad etiquette.