Yesterday, at our weekly writing get-together, a fellow female postdoc, Phylofemme and I talked about one of the things that we thought women scientists were more prone to than men scientists - the need to explain yourself.  Or as I like to call it bean'splaining.

Bean'splaining is not the same as "mansplaining."  For those of you who don't know -  mansplaining is word for men who "delight in condescending, inaccurate explanations delivered with rock solid confidence of rightness and that slimy certainty that, of course he's right, because he is the man in the conversation." (Urban Dictionary).

This is the exact opposite.  A bean'splainer provides unnecessary and detailed personal information that justifies a particular behaviour or lack of action.  We felt that women were more prone to this than men - of course this was based on a depauperate sample size (N=5).

An extreme example of bean'splaining could be something like this, your former supervisor writes you an email regarding data for a manuscript and it takes you a week or so to write him/her back.  In the email that you eventually write, you say something like the following:

"Dear Dr. Dr.:

I'm sorry I haven't been able to get you that data, but last week was crazy.  On Monday, I had to wait for a plummer to come and deal with a backed up toilet (can you say shitstorm?), Tuesday the balcony on our apartment gave way and crashed onto the sidewalk below (no one was hurt), Wednesday my cat had an altercation with the neighbourhood skunk and I had to take her to the vet.  Sadly, on the way to the vet, I was hit when turning left at the signal and the car was totalled.  I'm okay but my cat is dead.  At this point, I won't be able to get you that data for at least another week.

Warmly,

TMI"

Bean'splaining can be as simple as - you are asked to give a seminar but as it happens you are busy that day.  And instead of simply responding unfortunately, I'm busy that day.  You explain why you are busy.  Obviously in some cases explanations are required but we both felt that we shouldn't for the most part have to explain ourselves. Shit happens and we're busy.

To up the ante, every time one us bean'splains, we owe the other a beer.

What do you folks think, is there gender bias in this type of behaviour?  Secondly, how do you view an individual who bean'splains?