Capstone Project
The Art Of Mansplaining
For my capstone project I decided to discuss the gender divide in communication. My specific topic of research is on the concept of mansplaining and the role it plays in everyday sexism. For generations, women have fought for equality and respect in a world dominated by men. Through protest, literature, and democracy women have displayed their discomfort with the way they are treated and continue to voice the issues that need to be solved. The specific topic I want to connect to Feminism and communication is the term “mansplaining”. The term is described as a situation in which a man explains something to a woman in a patronizing and condescending way. This term cuts much deeper than a sexist insult because it is derived from much deeper societal issues. Mansplaining, to its core, is related to privilege and gender inequality, that sometimes is not intentional.
Understanding
Within my researched i discovered the impact the media has had on gender roles. When something like sexism is popularized in the media, the viewer normalizes that pattern of behavior which can lead to them mimicking it in their daily life. Groupthink relates to this topic because men tend to stick together in groups. What I mean by this statement is that there is a camaraderie among men that connects them in various ways. Groupthink describes a scenario in which a group opinion has been made and everyone in that group accepts what is going on without differing from the status quo. I’m relating the media to groupthink because an education. Through Communication studies and my education on different COM theories, in this paper, you will see the connection between Mansplaining and Standpoint theory. For the research aspect of this paper, I investigated scholarly articles, spoke with people on their personal experiences, and took a poll within a group of women/ men at the University of Alabama, asking a few questions on the topic of mansplaining, without depicting what the topic was truly on. Within my research, I discovered that most of the literature and publications on thetopic of Mansplaining are discussed within the world of social psychology and sociolinguistics. Through this paper, you will see the heavy connection to a series of communication theories. Firstly, I want to discuss an article written in 2021, that touches on everyday sexism and the results of normalizing toxic behavior in men. The prefix of their argument is that everyday acts of sexism manifest into normal behavior, conditioning men’s condescending behavior as “normal” (Joyce, 2021, Pg6).
