Auchtoon!Let Me Tell You Why So Many Women Were Elected
When my kids were in elementary school, they would take AR tests. AR was short for Accelerated Reading, and the idea was positive reinforcement. At any time a kid could take a quick comprehension test on a book that they had read. If they passed, they got points, and there were rewards for a certain number of points.
My daughter Natalina was an avid reader from an early age, and in first grade had accumulated quite a few AR points. One day she came home with a printout of an AR test in which she had gotten only one out of five questions right. My wife noticed it was for a book Natalina had read dozens of times.
She asked, “Sweetheart, what happened here? You know that book — how’d you miss so many questions?”
Natalina said, “My friend Justin was helping me take the test.” A brief pause. “Justin can’t read.”
My wife advised her that in the future it would be wise not to let Justin help her on AR tests.
So that’s my favorite example of mansplaining: when the desire to be knowledgeable supersedes actual knowledge.
