Can We Please Ditch the Splaining Meme?

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Hey there. Is there any chance that we could deep six the splaining meme? You know, mansplaining, straightsplaining, whitesplaining, and all their myriad offshoots. I get that it’s a useful term, but it’s gotten out of hand. Obviously we should all be careful when we talk about things outside our personal experience, and nobody gets a pass when they say something stupid. Still, we should all be allowed to talk about sensitive subjects as best we can without instantly being shot down as unfit to even hold an opinion.

The splaining meme is quickly becoming the go-to ad hominem of the 2010s, basically just a snarky version of STFU that combines pseudosophisticated mockery and derision without any substance to back it up. Maybe it’s time to give it a rest and engage instead with a little less smugness and narcissism.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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