Last week, my friends and I were on holiday at the sea. We’re going to college together (age 20-30). Our house had a small swimming pool, so we would go swimming each evening. One of my male best friends had a bag packed with everything you could only imagine to need, such as bandaids, pain meds, lighters etc., so one of the girls asked him if he’d put a tampon in it. He had. We were sitting with another guy.
“So”, my male friend said. “You’re on your period?”
“Yeah”, she said. Because, duh.
“Well”, he said, “a pity you can’t come swimming.”
Him and the other guy started laughing. When the girl and I, puzzled, wanted to know what was so funny, they explained to us: “You know, when you’re on your period, you can’t go swimming. Your tampon will swell.” And the other guy turned to me because I snorted in disbelief, spilling my drink everywhere, and said: “Well, have you ever worn a tampon?”
It was comical. We sat there, thunderstruck, listening to two guys explaining to us girls how not only we couldn’t swim with a tampon, but how they imagined wearing a tampon felt, and how they couldn’t understand why women couldn’t just take pain meds because the cramps would “go away instantly, why the fuss?”. Needless to say, one they had finished their little explaining, we had a good laugh and kindly explained to them what Mansplaining is and why they had just delivered the most ridiculous example one could imagine.
When we had dinner, we retold our little conversation to our other friends and alltogether had a really good laugh – the two Mansplainers sat embarrassed and ashamed.
