Is Mansplaining Gendered? The Effects of Unsolicited, Generic, and Prescriptive Advice on U.S. Women

In light of popular accounts in the United States of “mansplaining,” we investigated the effects on women when others give them “unresponsive” advice (i.e., unsolicited, generic, and prescriptive recommendations). We show using both vignettes (Study 1) and live interactions (Study 2) that unresponsive advice (vs. responsive questions) from men negatively affected women’s self-perceptions, leaving them feeling less respected, powerful, and trusting and having a smaller size of self. The advice giver’s gender did not moderate these self-perception outcomes (Study 3), although women anticipated greater stereotype threat only when men, and not when women, gave them unresponsive advice. Similar effects were found using responsive advice instead of questions as the comparison condition (Study 4). Overall, these findings ( N = 4,394 U.S. adult women) suggest that it is the unresponsive nature of advice—and for certain outcomes the advice giver’s gender—that explain its effects on women. They point to the value of a responsive suggestion or question during conversations, particularly during cross-gender ones.