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Mansplaining
The Oxford Dictionary defines mansplaining as, “the explanation of something by a man, typically to a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing.
Those of us who identify as women know mansplaining when we hear it. Or see it. Or read it. Or any combination of those. Because when a man is mansplaining something, it can happen verbally, non-verbally, or even be a tone in an email, a text, or a written note.
I’m really beginning to think that men who mansplain have no idea what they look or sound like when they do it.
The Backstory
Because there always is one, right?
The “Ken” SLP I wrote about here has been back in contact for the last couple of months via email and text. He reached out after his life fell apart (again). He doesn’t like the bed he made for himself, but he’s learning that I’m going to let him lie in it. He’s safely ensconced on the other side of the country, for now anyway. And, he doesn’t know where I am.
He’s full of all of these ideas about how we can work together on therapy materials. He wants to piggy back on my steadily growing writing and material development “side hustles.” He wants to start a podcast as if I haven’t already done that, too.
He asked me to take a look at a set of therapy materials he has devised. As a reminder, he works with adults – a population I choose not to work with. So, I don’t have much knowledge of the research literature on the adult side of the field. But, I understand the basic principles of the therapy process, especially when trying to re-establish as much function as possible after an acute event (e.g., stroke, cardiac event, head injury).
As a child language researcher interested in cultural and linguistic differences, I very much do have intimate knowledge of the relevant research into cultural and linguistic differences. As an SLP with more than 25+ years of experience in the field and someone who develops and markets materials already, I also have good insight and understanding into what works as far as wording and presentation go. In other words, I already have a sense of what will sell within the field. And, I have experience being on the patient side of things when I needed voice therapy myself during my undergraduate program.
The Conflict that Resulted in Mansplaining
So, late last week, Ken shared his therapy idea with me. He said he designed it to help patients with respiratory capacity issues build or regain some of their skill to be able to take a deeper breath prior to beginning to vocalize, then pacing the exhale of that air evenly while reading and/or repeating a list of words.
Ok ~ quite frankly, that sounds exactly like what I did in voice therapy with clinician-developed lists of materials. I see why patients coming off of trachs and/or ventilators need this type of therapy. As a practicing clinician who develops materials myself (and understands the draw of shiny, prepackaged materials by clinicians), I see the need and market for some prepacked materials in this realm as well.
His idea, essentially, was to list out the state capitals and states by region, include other rote memory lists (e.g., days of the week, months of the year), and numbers.
Again exactly the types of materials I used when I was in voice therapy.
His innovation was to glue these lists onto a piece of 24″ x 36″ poster board in font large enough for most geriatric patients to be able to read it comfortable. He sent me a picture of the posterboard after I suggested that it be digitized. That would: 1) make it easier to sell on online marketplaces lowering overhead costs; and 2) make it much more scalable to other sizes as needed. He was agreeable to all of this, because as he would freely admit, computers and technology are not his thing.
But, digital materials are the thing in the therapy material market. Precisely because they can be used on phones, tablets, computers, and printed out.
It was simple enough to set up the PowerPoint slide to make the poster. After all, I am a researcher and I present my work at conferences and workshops. Anyone who works in this space knows we need to be able to present a lot of information in a small space that must be clearly legible at a distance.
It was the organization of the states by region that caused the conflict.
You can take the boy out of California, but you can’t always take the California out of the boy. More specifically, you can take the boy out of Northern California, but you can’t take the Northern California out of the boy. That will become important in a moment.
He had the states and their capital cities organized from the West Coast to the East Coast. Okay ~ that might work out this way, because most people who grew up here think anything further west than Idaho or Utah is just flyover country anyway. But, the states and their capitals are traditionally listed from the East Coast to the West Coast, in regions that roughly approximate the order in which they entered the country. And, whether those of us on the West Coast admit it or not, the majority of the U.S. population lives on the east of the Mississippi River.
But, the biggest issue I had with his original organization was the listing of “Appalachian States.” Appalachia is a culturally-defined region of the United States. It is NOT defined by state boundaries. My family originates from rural East Tennessee and many of my relatives spoke Appalachian English. I can speak the dialect easily when I need to. However, my mom grew up in downtown Nashville, Tennessee and my dad grew up in an affluent suburb of Memphis, Tennessee. They do not consider themselves to be from Appalachia, nor do they consider the urban, metropolitan areas where they grew up to be in Appalachia. Both metro areas are hundreds of miles away from the area of Tennessee that considers itself to be in Appalachia. Yet, Nashville, Tennessee was categorized by Ken a capital of an “Appalachian State.” As was Richmond, Virginia – the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War. But, Pennsylvania, home to the actual Appalachian Mountains, was not.
I told him via text that I really didn’t like the category of “Appalachian States” because Appalachia is a culturally defined region, not a geographically defined one. His response was, “Ok, cool.”
After conducting some research on the geographic regions of the United States, I reorganized the states by the geographic regions used by the federal government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The BEA map divides the country into 7 geographic regions. Using this map accomplished two things: 1) states were organized based on their geographic region, not culturally-defined areas; and 2) were organized from east to west and north to south within each region. Importantly, using 7 regions meant that each region included approximately 7 capitals and states, rather than the 13 states he had included in one region in the original version.
Remember, the purpose of this poster was to help patients improve their ability to build or rebuild respiratory capacity and their pacing of airflow while speaking.
Because I don’t fully trust Ken, I sent him a picture of the digitized version rather than sharing the file with him. That turned out to be a good decision.
I explained to him how and why I had reorganized the states into their regional categories.
His first questions had to do with whether the poster was large enough for clients to see clearly. I explained I had scaled the 24″x36″ slide size to fit my 24″ screen so I could see all of it at once. I forget that people who don’t work in the poster presentation space aren’t used to having to deal with graphics at scaled sizes. Okay ~ I sent him a picture of one section at 100% so he could see the size difference. So far, so good.
Then, he started to take a closer look at the way I had reorganized the geographic regions. And, here’s where the mansplaining started. Even though I had told him what I’d done and why and he knows where I’m from, he began to tell me I was wrong about the “Appalachian States.” I sent him the same USC link I’ve posted above – that Appalachia is a culturally-defined region, not a geographic one. Both Tennessee and Virginia include parts of the states that are considered Appalachia, but that does not make them “Appalachian States.” He persisted, so I did, too. I told him that if he was going to include “Appalachian States” then Pennsylvania should be included in that category, too. He told me that I was crazy. Pennsylvania was an East Coast state (despite the fact that is it completely land locked!).
He told me he had used this board for three years “all over the country” and “with people from all over the world” and no one had “complained” until I said something. Classic mansplaining.
Let’s break this down. First, his “three years” per his own admission is closer to 18 months. His use of this board “all over the country” is one western state and one southern state. In the western state, he was in a large, urban metropolitan area where just about everyone is from somewhere else. He currently is in an area where some of his clients likely do identify as Appalachian. And, in this southern state, no one will point out his mistakes to his face. That’s just not part of the culture. It would be considered rude to correct him. Besides, he has only his copy of this board, so his clients only see it when they are in a therapy session. His use of this board “with people from all over the world” is rather a stretch, too. As I pointed out to him, if I were a client originally from another country, I would not presume to tell a mainstream culture, middle aged, white male he did not know the regions of his own country.
His reply was that I had no idea what I was talking about. That no one cared about these things. My reply was to ask him if it was okay to tell everyone he was from Los Angeles, because everyone back East thinks that’s all California is anyway, just L.A.? The response was, “That’s different. I’m not from L.A. You know I’m not. I don’t care anyway.” I tried to explain that what he was doing with his original organization of the states into categories like, “Appalachian States” was the exact same thing. That people back east feel just as strongly about their regional and cultural affiliations as he does about people assuming he’s from SoCal rather than NorCal when he says he’s from California.
I also reminded him I was looking at this from the perspective of marketing the board to other clinicians and cultural relevance/sensitivity, two areas where I have some experience. I tried to tell him that if he tried to market his board with its original iteration, other SLPs would look at it and think to themselves, “I can make that – the ‘right’ way,” rather than buying it from him.
His response was, “You’re wrong. I’ll get the next person to help me. Have a good day.”
I did have a good day. I had a wonderful Sunday hanging out with some friends who have no connection to him. And, he’s on a text timeout for the time being.
As always, thanks for reading!
Outside The Box 