MEN EXPLAIN THINGS TO ME

Rebecca Solnit

The eponymous essay of this book focuses entirely on the silencing of women, specifically the idea that men seemingly believe that no matter what a woman says, a man always knows better. This phenomenon would later come to be called mansplaining, but in this essay Solnit describes how the silencing of female voices is an infringement on female liberty and is in fact an abuse of power. With an absence of credibility to female voices in the male mind issues like violent death, abuse, harassment, and rape are often discounted. In this way, she argues, female silencing is a dangerous phenomenon.