Here’s an example of mansplaining, by a woman!

My wife and I owned a ground floor condo for a number of years. We’d recently had a coaxial cable run through the ceiling to hide the cables for our TV. The guy we had do it was dirt cheap and didn’t repair the ceiling afterwards. Whatever.

The ground floor units didn’t have fireplaces, but the upstairs ones did. The fireplaces were right above where we’d moved the cable to, so there was a hole in the wall right where the fireplace was above us.

One day, during a rainstorm, we started getting drips through the ceiling hole at that spot. When it rained harder, it dripped harder. We asked our neighbors but they said they didn’t notice anything.

My wife called the property management company, who was a woman.

My wife explained the issue and the woman said, condescendingly:

“Oh, you must have a leaky pipe. You need a plumber.”

My wife raised an eyebrow: “What? All the supply lines run through the walls, not the ceiling (or floor). Our drain goes into the concrete, but our neighbors doesn’t run anywhere near where the hole was.”

“Yes, but water runs down, since there’s a hole it must be down.”

“Are you kidding me? There’s no way that that’s what’s happening here. I can feel it dripping through the floor above us, there’s no trail leading the water here.”

“Yeah, you should tell your neighbors to call a plumber.”

Normally, for these issues the property management company will send someone out to take a look, or pay for a plumber and bill us if it’s our problem.

My wife relays this to me, so I give her, the property manager, a call. I politely explain the problem and INSTANTLY the woman says:

“Yes, sir, we’ll have someone come out to your neighbor right away!”

It turned out the contractors that were hired to paint the chimney caps didn’t replace it properly above our house and it caused a leak through the fireplace into our condo. We got a check to repair the damages. I was furious that they’d treat my wife the way they did since I added absolutely nothing to the conversation except a polite male voice.

This happens to us all the time. If my wife takes a car into the shop she gets a higher quote than I do. I know jack about cars, but they give me a better price for some reason, for example. If my wife calls for help with anything technical, they treat her like an ignoramus. If I call in they kowtow to me. Every. Single. Time.