Have you ever had that moment when you were in a meeting and proposed an idea for consideration to solve a problem? In an instance, you are abruptly interrupted. Your colleague regurgitated your idea as if it was their own. As you look around the table for a connection of affirmation, in your head you are thinking, “I just said that!” Yet, no one seems to notice except for you, and your colleague was credited and praised for the idea.
When these moments happen they are usually gendered and/or racialized. Let me set the context.
Recently, I went to the National Association of Student Affairs Practitioners (NASPA) in Los Angeles, California. For me, conferences serve as a place to not only discuss academic or practitioner work, but they are spaces to engage in affirmations among my most closest colleagues.
I went to lunch with one of my Chingona sisters, Dr. Marissa Vasquez, and her students. We were celebrating the Outstanding Faculty award that she received from NASPA. In more than one way, Dr. Vasquez serves as a mentor to myself and many other Latinas in academia. As we gathered to congratulate her accomplishments, we also exchanged stories.
One of the many stories we joked about was how often we experience the “moment” I opened this article with. However, what I did not say was that the make-up of the room is usually majority men (both White and of color) who interact and engage in “mansplaining.” Dr. Vasquez, stated, you need to write on this and name it, “I Just Said That!”
Rebecca Solnit, a journalist and editor, first coined “mansplaining,” in a commentary on how conversations are gendered and men often interrupt, cut off and explain things to women. This can manifest itself in various ways depending on the space, place and time. Since then, Solnit, has published the book Men Explain Things to Me which is a collection of essays exploring how mansplaining gets played out in different contexts. Academia is not void of mansplaining, however, there are ways to counteract it.
Black feminist, bell hooks, states: “I write these words to bear witness to the primacy of resistance struggle in any situation of domination (even within family life); to the strength and power that emerges from sustained resistance and the profound conviction that forces can be healing, can protects us from dehumanization and despair.”
