LET'S TALK ABOUT MANSPLAINING

Women often find themselves at the receiving end of these condescending monologues, which can make the listener feel incompetent at best, and infantilised at worst. Why do men do it, and what can women do about it?

It all begins innocuously enough. Malini* was at a party when an older family friend learnt that she was in graduate school studying poetry, and was interested in writing about the postcolonial experience and immigration.

Says the writer and editor: "He started to lecture me about postcolonial poetry, even though I was well-versed in the topic. I entertained it patiently, but sort of started second guessing what I knew.

"Nice guy, well-intentioned, but like most men, so sure of their expertise in everything." Sabrina*, a bird-watching enthusiast in her early 30s, would empathise. She was on one of her solo birding trips at the Singapore Botanic Gardens when she was accosted by an "uncle" in his fifties, who decided she needed some unsolicited advice.

"Here I am, waiting for a particular species of parrot to show up, and this person completely invades my space by standing incredibly close to me. He goes on to ask me about the camera I'm using and tells me what settings I should be shooting with.

"He then whips out his phone and starts showing me his shots, before proceeding to tell me what I should do with the photos I take, and how to edit them using Lightroom. I kept trying to ignore him, but it didn't work. Eventually, I got really annoyed and left to find another spot," says the social media strategist.

Sabrina muses that these encounters often occur when she is engaging in what is considered a "male dominated" activity, such as photography.

"This usually happens when I'm literally doing nothing but holding a camera. It's this assumption that women don't know or understand technical stuff like photography that drives me totally nuts," she adds.

WHY DO MEN FEEL COMPELLED TO MANSPLAIN?