One of the hallmarks of mansplainers is the deep (and it must be said, often feigned) inability to get the joke when someone femme-presenting responds in good and amusing faith. This is because mansplaining is an exercise in hypocrisy, which means an exercise of power.

This is one reason why I so like to mute them. If they’re screaming unheard in my mentions, it means they’re not bothering at some other poor girl. I’ll often do the same to sealioners, since they look utterly ridiculous trotting out the same “just asking questions” schtick and getting crickets. I can do this because there are layers of insulation between me and the mansplainer/sealioner.

A successful exercise in hypocrisy is an exercise of power. An unsuccessful exercise in hypocrisy is a failed attempt at gaining or retaining power. This is why so many abusers and fanatics require ritualised submission to their hypocritical actions or assertions.

They don’t need you to believe their grift or bullshit, but they will become violent unless you act as if you do. The pretence sustains them.

This is also why so many abusive families are run like cults, why so many cults call themselves families, and why toxic workplaces lean on the rhetoric of familial “loyalty”.

It’s all the same thin, overused playbook, and it’s used over and over all through human history. It works, sure, especially when the victims are cooperative, well-socialised, decent people.

It doesn’t work long-term without escalating violence and constant scapegoating, though. Inevitably, it fails.

The only question is how high the body count is in the meantime.