Here’s the thing: I am 5’1. Men and women tower over me and automatically call me “endearing” names and assume that they outrank me in professional situations, even when I am the boss. I have been asked to get my boss, or had my taller receptionist had to point out that I’m the director and they’d be getting the lunch order, not me. It’s NOT anything but a power play, based on size and preconceived notions of what credibility and authority are supposed to look like. It has nothing to do with the validity of the argument or facts.
Look around you. Scientific data and the rigorous application thereof abounds, and yet climate action, gun control, and the stock market is governed by irrationality. Elections are won by people who “we want to have a beer with?” Since when is the neighborhood bar fly a font of wisdom? More like an affable bullshit artist who mansplains in a way that makes sense to people who can take what they want to hear from his line of reasoning.