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1-Page Summary of Men Explain Things To Me
Overall Summary
Rebecca Solnit is a writer who has written 19 books. This book, which she published in 2014, contains essays that discuss gender politics. The first essay explores how men silence women by talking over them and telling them what to think about their ideas instead of listening to them. She describes this as a way for men to feel like they are more knowledgeable than women and therefore have the right to speak over them. She links this back to traditional gender roles that inculcate boys into believing they’re automatically better informed than girls or women, giving these men the right to talk over those people without listening to what they have say. Examining wider patterns of oppression and abuse stemming from silencing voices through conversation, Solnit shows how important it is for us all—men and women—to listen carefully when others are speaking so we can truly understand one another’s points of view before we try explaining our own opinions on things that might not be relevant or accurate enough yet for us to share with others.
The second essay explores violence against women, providing a variety of statistics that demonstrate the scale of rape, domestic violence, and other abuse in the U.S. and throughout the world. The author observes that this is almost exclusively committed by men but argues that we don’t recognize or discuss it as such because gender roles help perpetuate this cycle of abuse.
The third essay continues to focus on violence against women, specifically the alleged sexual assault of an African immigrant working as a hotel maid by Dominique Strauss-Kahn. She uses this encounter to explore gender roles and how they enable men to commit violence against women. She also draws symbolic parallels between Strauss-Kahn’s actions and neo-colonialism enacted by institutions like the IMF.
The fourth essay examines the issue of same-sex marriage, suggesting that those who oppose it are motivated by a desire to maintain traditional gender roles. The author asserts that same-sex marriage challenges patriarchal organizations in which women have effectively been the property of men.
In the fifth essay, the author talks about how women are erased from history and culture. She explains that they’re ignored in family trees and have to take their husband’s names when they get married. This erases them from history because it removes their voice. The author connects this to a larger pattern of silencing women around the world by other means as well
This essay is about Virginia Woolf and her approach to criticism. Criticism should not try to make the unknown known, but rather explore the intangible and obscure. This means that darkness is a place of hope, full of potential for remarkable progress and positive change.
The author looks at the progress of the feminist movement. She says that we can measure this by looking at how women’s rights have changed cultural views and beliefs about gender. This is because these changes are irreversible, even though there may be a backlash against feminism from conservative forces. The ideas unleashed by feminists will continue to change society, despite attempts to put them back into Pandora’s box.
Essay 1: “Men Explain Things to Me”
Author Rebecca Solnit and her friend Sallie want to leave a party, but the host insists they stay for another hour. He asks them about their books and writing. Although she has written on several diverse subjects, Solnit begins talking only about River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West.
The host interrupts Sallie to tell her about a very important book. He is soon telling her about the book, but she knows that he’s just trying to show off his own authority by talking about it. She has to interrupt him several times and remind him that she wrote the book before he finally takes it in. This information confuses his neat categories into which his world is sorted, so he stops talking for a moment before continuing on with what he was saying.
