From the Urban Dictionary:

Whitesplaining:
The paternalistic lecture given by Whites toward a person of
color defining what should and shouldn't be considered racist,
while obliviously exhibiting their own racism.

Mansplain:
To explain in a patronizing manner, assuming total ignorance on
the part of those listening. The mansplainer is often shocked
and hurt when their mansplanation is not taken as absolute fact,
criticized or even rejected altogether. (This comes from
arrogant men who explain things to women as if the women were
"in some sort of obscene impregnation metaphor, an empty
vessel to be filled with their wisdom and knowledge. --
Rebecca Solnit)

I hereby solicit definitions and examples of "Mormsplain" and "Mormsplaining"



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2012 10:24PM by baura.

Not sure if this qualifies, but sounds like it to me.

"There is some truth in all churches, but only we have all of the truth."

That certainly ties in to what I'm thinking about.

The thing that I see is how Mormons think their religion has all the answers that others are searching for. My brother the Institute director talked about how "angry" he became listening to the various theologians and scriptorians in Bill Moyers' Genesis program discuss questions that he had a pat answer for.

One approach would be to define "Mormsplain" as "a religious pontification on a topic by a Mormon to non-Mormons in which the Mormon assumes the others will be strikingly impressed with the obvious superiority of the Mormon view."

Another possibility is that "Mormsplain" is how a TBM explains cheerfully explains away the lack of promised spiritual confirmation to an investigator or doubting member by assuming spiritual weakness on the part of the doubter. This all done with a smile expecting the person who has just been insulted to feel enlightened:

"I read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it repeatedly and got nothing."

"Well, you just haven't progressed enough spiritually to be in tune with the still small voice of the Lord."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2012 12:06AM by baura.

Well, there certainly isn't any shortage of superiority complexes in TSCC.

How about these:

"Well, he is the priesthood holder/zone leader/bishop/sp/etc." It doesn't matter what it is, or how stupid it sounds, if it spewed forth from the mouth of a penishood holder, by god, it's the truth and you better follow it! Anything anyone with a title lower than his has to say has little or no credibility. Non-member opinions don't have a chance!

At a restaurant, a waitress offers tea or coffee. With a haughty, holier-than-thou attitude topped off with nose slightly up in air and sweet smile on face: "We don't drink those things. We're mormons." Then the whole table exchanges smiles and musings over the "truth" that just knocked that unassuming non-mormon waitress for a loop.

"People only leave the church because they are too weak to keep the commandments. Unless they were offended by somebody once."

my best examples of mansplaining:

when a man tries to explain to a woman what menstruation/childbirth/breastfeeding is like. I've seen this happen more than once. I don't mean they say "i have heard women say its like...", I mean they are talking down to women from a position of authority on the matter.

Then there are men who think they know the best way to deal with sexism (after all they just thought about it for a half a second, and you've only experienced it your entire life...).

It also means when a man lectures a female expert on the subject of her expertise. Like if you see a high school educated dude lecturing a neuroscience professor about what neurotransmitters are and what they do.

etc etc. Its white people explaining to black people that the police don't actually do racial profiling. That kind of thing. I haven't heard of mormsplain before, but I can imagine that it is probably mormons trying to "school" exmos in doctrinal affairs from a position of *profound* ignorance.


Its a phenomenon born of the fact that people with social privilege believe that they are inherently worth listening to. I can't exactly fault them, they have been told that thier opinion is Very Important their entire lives. It doesn't make it less infuriating for me to see it happen.

I haven't "heard of" Mormsplain either. But I'm familiar with "Whitesplaining" and "Mansplain"

For an EXCELLENT article on Mansplaining (even though it doesn't mention the word) see here:

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/problem-men-explaining-things-rebecca-solnit

However Mormons have this tendency to not only think they know it all, but that when they drop little Mormonisms on other people that it should be a real revelation to the others--that the others should stop and think, "wow, I never looked at it that way!"

"Well of course you can be friends with him. Your good influence on him and his family will lead them closer to the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Even though they were unworthy in the pre-existence they can still be good people."

Keep in mind that this family was active in the church. We lived in a small town and I'm sure the woman knew who I was asking about.

Damn, I really was a smart and stupid kid at the same time.

Shamelessly self topping