Men Explain Things To Me

This book is a collection of essays that address everything from mansplaining to toxic masculinity, rape, statistics, and denying women the right to exist as separate entities.

Using empathy as a cornerstone, Solnit portrays the injustices faced by women throughout the world, quoting the examples of Jyoti Singh (New Delhi) and Malal Yousafzi (Pakistan) with sharp, succinct, and hard-hitting words.

Countering Mansplaining is a Daily Battle

Photo by Monica Silva on Unsplash

Solnit, a prolific author, and an overall successful person shs herself faced several instances where men have tried to belittle her by patronizingly explaining things to her she already knows. She alone construes that this goes beyond the confines of everyday conversation. Men find themselves entitled to their opinions wherever they please; however, the same liberty does not extend itself to women.

It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. (Solnit,p.7)

Solnit’s discourse is reminiscent of Deborah Tannen’s work: both of these women state that where men can say whatever they want and disparage whoever they want (usually women), women have to very carefully select everything that comes out of their mouth because the world they exist in is inherently patriarchal.

Toxic Masculinity and Power

All over the book, Solnit maintains that rape and violence have little to do with sex and more to do with power.

Violence is first of all authoritarian. It begins with this premise: I have the power to control you (p.17)

It is a savage system of control that enables the physical and emotional exploitation of women. The writer cites statistics which reflect that women are abused and murdered by those close to them — who think they have power over them: blood relations, boyfriends, and husbands. The need to control their counterparts has been entrenched in the male psyche by the patriarchal institutionalization of toxic masculinity — a phenomenon that hurts both men and women in different ways: where it stops men from expressing their emotions and embracing their feminine side, it upends women’s lives.

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This post was previously published on Medium.com.

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