I’ve been reading the old Mansplained tumblr and after 40 pages of archives, the urge to add my own became overwhelming.
Re: http://mansplained.tumblr.com/post/44541622164/north-face-south
About 20 years ago, I went to undergrad for geology and geophysics, leaving school after my third year to take my dream job out west at the NPS that involved a lot of geology and paleontology work, plus interpretation for park visitors. I was required to know all about the area’s geologic history, paleoecology for the fossil beds, and memorize every plant and animal species discovered there.
A couple years later, my mother and her husband, the king of mansplainers, came to visit. While he was driving us to some restaurant, we passed by an unusual formation. He pointed at it and declared it a volcanic dike. I replied that no, it was simply the remnant of a large section of sandstone layers that had been flipped due to tectonic forces. He condescendingly explained that he had a degree from Cornell in geology and I was a college dropout, so therefore he clearly knew what he was talking about. Nevermind that he went in a completely different direction for a career, he has a geology degree from Cornell. Attempts to explain why he was wrong and I knew what I was talking about were met with some nasty jokes about me having not finished college, which were pretty hurtful and I just shut up about anything related to geology around him after that.
He was right, you know. He did have a Bachelor’s in geology from Cornell...from 1958. I, on the other hand, didn’t have a degree because I’d only been working a geology job focused on the paleoecology of the area we were in, had done my college field camp in this same area, worked with the premier geologist of this specific fossil-bearing formation, oh, and had climbed that specific formation the previous year with my boyfriend, a geology grad student, in order to obtain samples for his thesis.
But, you know, he had an undergrad degree from Cornell from before the microchip was invented...
