[9] Joshua Sealy-Harrington and Tom McLaughlin wrote in the newspaper The Globe and Mail that the term has been used as an ad hominem to silence debate.
[10] The verb splain has been in use for more than 200 years, originally as a colloquial pronunciation of the Late Middle English word explain.
[1][11] Dictionary.com noted that the meaning of mansplain had changed somewhat since 2009, from "intense and serious to casual and jocular", while older -splain words still have "heavy cultural and political connotations and are often added to the names of politicians".
[12] The term mansplaining was inspired by an essay, "Men Explain Things to Me: Facts Didn't Get in Their Way", written by author Rebecca Solnit and published on TomDispatch.com on 13 April 2008.
[15] Solnit later published Men Explain Things to Me (2014), a collection of seven essays on social issues and human rights themes.
Women, including professionals and experts, are routinely seen or treated as less credible than men, she wrote in the title essay, and their insights, or even legal testimony are dismissed unless validated by a man in some countries.
[23] Journalists have used the word to describe the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney;[24] President Donald Trump;[25] Governor of Texas Rick Perry;[26] MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell;[27] various characters on the HBO drama series The Newsroom;[28][29][30] music executive Jimmy Iovine;[31] Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull;[32] actor Matt Damon;[33] and consumer rights advocate Ralph Nader.
[37] Given its gender-specific nature and negative connotation, Lesley Kinzel described it as inherently biased, essentialist, dismissive, and a double standard.
[38] In a 2016 Washington Post article, Cathy Young wrote that it is just one of a number of terms using "man" as a derogatory prefix, and that this convention is part of a "current cycle of misandry".
[39] Meghan Daum, in a 2015 Los Angeles Times article, wrote that "To suggest that men are more qualified for the designation than women is not only sexist but almost as tone deaf as categorizing everything that a man says as mansplaining.