Usually, a video opening with a bloke staring into the camera saying, "I’m about to mansplain..." is my cue to scroll as fast as my thumb can carry me. We’ve all been there, haven't we? We certainly don’t need another man telling us how our bodies work, or explaining our own mood swings back to us. No thank you.
But every now and then, the internet surprises you. A short clip recently went viral across my social feeds, and against all odds, the women in the comments aren't rolling their eyes either - we're all applauding.
© David MaherThe guy in question is David Maher - according to his profile, his expertise is 'Menopause & Hormone Health Education'. I'll be honest, I haven't stalked his profile too much, as it was the mansplaining video that stopped my scroll.
Why? Because he's mansplaining menopause to MEN.
He starts: "I'm going to mansplain menopause, not because women don’t get it. Because the men in their lives don’t have a clue what’s happening to the woman they love."
Fair point. But it was his next line that completely blew up the comment section. He seems to have cracked the code for confused partners everywhere: Comparing menopause to a Fortune 500 company with staff dropping like flies (likening staff to 'estrogen', 'progesterone', and 'testosterone').
"Imagine your body is a company, and for 40 years that company had three executives running the whole operation ... Then one day, without warning, HR fires all three. Same week, no handover, no replacement. That is menopause. Estrogen was the CEO. She ran everything: skin, hair, bones, brain, heart, mood, memory, libido, sleep. When she leaves, the whole building starts falling apart."
Moving on to progesterone. "Progesterone was the head of security, kept everyone calm, ran the sleep department. When she leaves, the alarms go off at 3am every single night."
Then you have testosterone, aka the 'head of engineering' according to his theory. "She built her muscle, her bones, powered the drive, kept the systems maintained. When she leaves, nothing gets built, nothing ever gets fixed."
He concludes: "Your wife is not difficult, she's not overreacting, she's not just going through something. She’s running Fortune 500 physiology on 20% of the hormones she had five years ago."
A pretty good description, is it not?
His caption on Instagram reads: "She doesn’t need a candle. She needs a team that actually studied her physiology. Bloodwork, DUTCH, thyroid, HRT, strength training, and a nutritionist. Under one roof."
Unsurprisingly, women of all ages have flooded the post, relieved to finally see their daily, invisible physical body change explained so accurately. Women in the comments are impressed, and say that they have spent years struggling to articulate menopause.
One impressed lady wrote: "I'm a menopausal woman and I never even thought of it this way. Or understood like this either. I've just 'got on with it'. Brilliant explanation."
Another summed up the collective sentiment perfectly: "This is the best explanation I’ve ever heard and makes it sound exactly what it is…bloody horrendous."
Why did this particular video work so well? Because sometimes, it takes hearing our internal reality translated into a corporate metaphor for the broader world - to truly get it.
So, ladies, I’m giving this particular piece of mansplaining a rare, enthusiastic pass. In fact, if your partner has been looking at you lately like you’re an unsolved puzzle, do yourself a favour: leave this clip playing on the kitchen counter tonight or just forward this article to him.
Ultimately, you aren't "difficult." You're a CEO running a high-stakes enterprise on a shoe-string hormone budget - and it's high time everyone around you treated you like one.
What do you make of David's analogy of menopause? Tell us in the comments box below.
