Men in Sweden are upset over a new mansplaining hotline that allows women to call and report condescending and patronising male colleagues.

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Unionen, Sweden’s largest union, launched the hotline on Monday to encourage women to report when men offer unwanted or unneeded explanation on things they might already understand. The mansplaining hotline is to create awareness of how rampant yet widely unacknowledged this practice is.

The organisation represents 600,000 private sector workers and those receiving calls and complaints will be feminist politicians, comedians and scientists.

The hotline was launched through an article where Unionen cites a study by the American Psychological Association, which says men “tend to overestimate their intelligence to a much greater extent than women.

The study also showed that men tend to get more self-assured as they grow and the hotline will help both men and women to “handle this kind of behaviour” at the workplace.

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Unionen defined mansplaining as when “a man explains something to a woman without being asked, particularly something which she might already know more about than the man”. And added that this is practice is extremely common and diminishes women by making them appear less competent than they are.

Unionen said the hotline is “about putting your finger on the small everyday problems which become large when they stack up.” Patriarchy is so ingrained that most people brush mansplaining off as if it’s nothing but it can actually lead to men earning more than women and being promoted faster.

Representational image/the open mind

Unionen received a lot of backlash online mostly by men (should we be surprised?) who claim this hotline will lead to more polarisation between the sexes.

Niclas Blomqvist said, “Hey Union, Is there any statistics or research in this area? Or is it mostly built on a "feeling" you have?”

Others like Jim Brännlund were harsher and said, “Just what we need in society, more polarisation. And people wonder why right-wing populism is on the rise. You. Are. Retarded.”

Linda Landgren wrote, “Good initiative. Judging by the comments, it seems quite a lot of men feel this is aimed at them, so it shows how much this kind of work is needed.”

Perhaps this is what Unionen wanted with the launch of the mansplaining hotline – for people to at least have a conversation about this pervasive yet unspoken practice.