Australian Macquarie Dictionary votes "mansplain" Word of the Year 2015

The Macquarie Dictionary has voted the gendered, derogatory word “mansplain” Word of the Year for 2015.

https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/view/word/of/the/year/

'verb (t) Colloquial (humorous) (of a man) to explain (something) to a woman, in a way that is patronising because it assumes that a woman will be ignorant of the subject matter.
[MAN + (EX)PLAIN with s inserted to create a pronunciation link with explain]
–mansplaining, noun'

Mansplain is a portmanteau, a new word made by blending the beginning of one word with the ending of another, while including the original meaning of both words (i.e. “brunch”, including the “br” from breakfast and the “unch” from lunch). The word “explain” is simple and clearly by itself not patronising. So the patronising part of the meaning here must be related to the word “man”. If there was any doubt about the word “man” meaning patronising, the definition of “mansplain” published by the Macquarie Dictionary makes it clear that only men do the "splaining" and the patronising.

The specially convened Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year Committee commented that mansplain was a “much needed word and it was a clever coinage which captured neatly the concept of the patronising explanation offered only too frequently by some men to women”. However, when used in this general context, “man” refers to all men generally. So while the Committee appears to be watering down the sexist nature of mansplain by suggesting it's just “some men”, the derogatory meaning refers to a patronising act commited by all men, as a result of their gender, whenever explaining.

According to the Committee members and the editors of the Macquarie Dictionary, no word exists to describe this kind of activity when the gender of the explainer is reversed, as there is obviously no need for such as word. The assumption that women never “splain” things either to men or women appears to be a given to the Macquarie Dictionary, but a given based on a deeply entrenched and celebrated sexist culture.

It might be expected that the Australian media would comment on the potential that some members of the community may be offended by this celebration of sexism. Andrew Bolt might think so. In fact The Conversation, an online publication of academic views, did offer an analysis of the gendered nature of mansplain. Unfortunately, the article written by Howard Manns, a lecturer in Linguistics at Monash University, celebrated the choice of mansplain as Word of the Year because it is sexist (https://www.theconversation.com/mansplaining-the-word-of-the-year-and-why-it-matters-37091). Manns suggests that mansplain may be “a powerful tool in the anti-sexism arsenal” because it provides a balance for the many gendered derogatory terms like “woman”, “women”, “chairman” and so on.

Anyone who would like to respond to this celebration of sexist editorial practice by Australia’s national dictionary, the Macquarie Dictionary, should email a formal complaint to the editor, care of support@macquariedictionary.com.au.