There’s now a helpline for victims of mansplaining. Because 2016

It’s a sad fact of modern life that most young women have been at one point, the victim of ‘mansplaining’, whether on social media, at work, or from every mini-Hemingway in a tutorial who tells you that “actually, hun, it’s…”

For many of us, getting over it is dismissing it with a withering eye roll, but now a company have taken mansplaining in the workplace one step further. Swedish women who feel they have been the victim of it at work can now call a dedicated union hotline.

Unione, which represents 600,000 employees in the country, is persuading women to report it anytime a male colleague talks to them in a patronising way. The hotline will be manned, obviously, by female advisors – feminist politicians, comedians and scientists who can help women decide how to tackle it.

Launching the campaign, Unionen explained the practice citing a study which said “men tend to overestimate their intelligence to a much greater extent than women.” But they promised the hotline wouldn’t be unfairly targeting any man who speaks.

It hasn’t done much to deter angry men posting on their Facebook page already, with one calling the venture “retarded”. And blogger Rebecca Weidmo Uvell pointed out that patronising put downs can come from other women in the workplace just as much as men.

In a statement to the Local they said: “The purpose of this campaign is not to point fingers or to blame all men. It’s intended to make us all, men and women, aware of this phenomenon and hopefully to start a change together.

“Everyone wins when we expose suppression techniques and talk about them.”