I was accused of “mansplaining” recently. On a conference call… to a mixed audience… That I was asked to participate in because the head of the company wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page… for an explanation that I started with “This might be review, but I just want to make sure we’re all using the same terms”... after it was obvious we weren’t all using the same terms to mean the same thing… by someone on “my side” of the call… How did you defend yourself? I think I mostly went silent for a second, and tried to figure out how she got that impression. Was it my tone? Had I directed anything at her specifically? Had I implied anything? I really hadn’t. There’s really nothing to say. Saying I was there to make sure everyone understood what we were talking about really doesn’t help. So I stumped through something along the lines of “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be rude or patronizing, you all please continue.” and then just put my phone on mute. What was the outcome? I got a message while the call was still going on from the person who hired me to be there apologizing. She said she’d talk to the person who threw it out there. Mostly, it just highlighted how little you can say to defend yourself from some things. What do you say there? “I love women, I’ve got lots of friends who are women, they’re like… super smart! And definitely don’t need my help.” Your only options are to apologize, or dig in.