Men need to admit to their patriarchal tendencies; white people to their racial prejudices, etc. It is not the mistakes we make that define us in the end, but whether we're willing to admit them and try to correct them.

It's insidious. It's hard for many (if not most) men to do it and it's hard for us women to push back, or even to recognize it. If you're taught all your life that you're not the authority it's natural to step aside and listen, even to someone who knows less and just feels more entitled to do it.

I hope we can learn to step up compassionately and insist on being respected without shaming the men who do it without awareness. And to call out the ones who don't care.

Example: "Pay no attention to "Buttercup" Bob. He is under a great deal of stress. His little sack of family jewels has become quite chaffed."

Hubs and I went golfing with another couple.
I watched quietly while he mansplained her how to hit a ball with a stick for the first three holes. But on no. 4 tee box, when he walked up behind her again, I said "hey random man, let this lady hit her own ball". He got mad and stomped off to the cart. I said Kim, grip it and rip it!

She out hit him thirty yards.