Women have become somewhat accustomed to men mansplaining all types of subjects, including politics, technology, career and sexual harassment. It’s now 2019 and a man by the name of Paul took it upon himself to tell the women of Twitter the difference between a vagina and a vulva.
It all began when The Guardian shared an article aptly titled ‘Me and my vulva: 100 women reveal all’, an article about a photo series (and film) created by Laura Dodsworth where she shares “stories of 100 women and gender non-conforming people through portraits of their vulvas” meant to decrease stigmas around women’s bodies. One man by the name of Paul Bullen couldn’t help but attempt to mansplain to these 100 women, and more, what the article got wrong. “The correct word is vagina”, wrote Paul confidently.
Sorry, Paul. The word is in fact vulva.
In the hopes of educating Paul on the correct use of the female anatomy, women’s health advocate and gynaecologist Jennifer Gunter chimed in. Gunter explained that she was highly qualified and even provided Paul with a link to a previous post she had written about the difference between a vulva and vagina.
“I’m sick of people forgetting the poor vulva and referring to everything in the female lower reproductive tract as vagina,” Jennifer had written in the 2015 post, which included a handy ven diagram.
Gunter went on to explain that inaccurate language in reference to female sex organs highlighted a greater societal issue of gender imbalance. “No one confuses male anatomy when people say penis they don’t really mean the testicles,” wrote Gunter. “Vagina as a catch-all means it doesn’t matter enough to get it right.”
Instead of taking on the opinion of Gunter, Paul decided to mansplain further.
Paul finished off his rant by attempting to mansplain mansplaining.
Thousands were drawn to Paul’s comment. “No, it’s not. But thanks for the mansplaining on something you obvs know nothing about,” one woman responded.
