Germany is about to get a new president. He — yes, the position has been male-exclusive so far — does have mostly representative duties and not much power, and gets elected by an extended parliarment. Since the majority parties already have agreed upon a common candidate, current foreign minister Steinmeier, he is most likely to succeed president Gauck.

The reason I write this is the question asked by SpiegelOnline in their pay-walled section (not worth a link): Can Steinmeier's wife keep her job as a judge when she becomes "first lady"?

What the hell, SpOn? Well done propagating the antiquated norm that women should give up their careers whenever it fits the husband. What about asking whether Steinmeier can take the job, if his wife's profession really poses a conflict of interest?

Uppsala university recently published this Festschrift that lists all newly installed professors. As cover they chose an image that made me stop short: a single male surrounded by a flock of females. Not exactly what one would expect in usually quite gender-aware Swedish academia. It gets worse once you read the description that enlightens us that there is indeed only one professor in the picture, the man. And that the others are a "group of women from the Orient". Oh, dear!

However, I think there is a way to read all this sympathetically. The caption tells us further that the chaired professorship held by the man in the image is about semitic languages, which explains the connection to "oriental women" shortly after the second world war. Also, this chair is one of the positions newly filled by a women included in the booklet. So, benevolently, the message of the cover image can be read as "Look at how things were a few decades ago, and look inside for how much more equal they are today."

You certainly have heard of the term mansplaining, meaning to condescendingly explain something while falsely assuming the explainee is ignorant of the subject matter; typically executed by a male on a female.

While this certainly exists and is often pointed out rightfully (and hilariously), there is a related aspect that I think should not be confused with mansplaining. Remember this old XKDC:

Combined it with the attitude that we all know very little, that it is fun to learn new things and that there is no prestige involved in knowing more or less, we can easily find ourselves "involuntarily mansplaining". This situation, even if it lacks the misjudgment of expertise and the condescension, can be perceived as mansplaining.

Should it? Maybe. After all, in this case, the explainer has misconceved not the knowledge of the explainee, but the mind set and presence of the aforementioned attitude, resulting in a failure of human interaction. On the other hand, we might not want to stifle open exchange of ideas too much by being afraid of appearing mansplaining.