With finals only a week away, students are looking to peers for support, but many end up leaving feeling worse than they did before.

Students at University Prep are frustrated by the amount of mansplaining that occurs by peers.

“My definition of mansplaining would be explaining something to someone as though it’s obvious or using a really condescending tone to that person during the explanation that just doesn’t need to be there,” senior Haley Hoffman said.

Senior Sarah Burns believes that mansplaining is an issue at school, especially because of the rigorous academics.

“A lot of people here are super smart, but there’s something going on where the boys really think that somehow their opinion is far superior to ours,” Burns said.

Junior Sidney Chandler is irritated by the mansplaining she’s experienced at school.

“It always makes me feel like someone’s trying to speak down to me as if I’m like a young child,” Chandler said.

Hoffman has also experienced mansplaining, mainly in male-dominated classrooms.

“It’s definitely pervasive among STEM fields, especially because there is a lack of female representation in those fields already,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman believes that oftentimes, mansplaining doesn’t come with malicious intent.

“I think sometimes it does come out of an unawareness of how you’re being perceived and how your tone and stuff is being portrayed,” Hoffman said.

Junior Max Seitz believes that mansplaining isn’t a serious issue at UPrep.

“Sometimes people like to joke that a person is mansplaining something, regardless of their gender, if they go in detail about something obvious,” Seitz said. “I think there are very, very few people, at least that I have come across, that actually unironically mansplain things.”

Hoffman continues to take STEM classes that she enjoys, and has learned to speak up when she recognizes someone is mansplaining.

“I think things have gotten better in the last year,” Hoffman said. “At least with my ability to stand up to it.”