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A review by bloupibloupreads
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
informative
fast-paced
I was anticipating a lot more, but I need to keep in mind that this book was released in 2014, a whole decade has passed since then. I'd like to think that feminism has come a long way and all the information in this book is merely basic knowledge, to be honest it's almost just feminism 101.
The first few essays were very interesting to me, as they discussed the lack of space for women to express themselves and the violence they face, we were also met with some of Solnit's personal experiences. There was a lot of room for discussion, but unfortunately no conclusion was drawn by the end of the book.
I feel like many unimportant things were mentioned, which made me lose interest. For example, we get an explanation of what the IMF is and the economical impact of this group for multiple pages (everything could have been said in shorter terms) and there was an entire chapter dedicated to a Woolf/Sintag debate that did not add anything to the essay. I didn't see the correlation between this and men silencing and belittling women's intelligence but maybe I'm just missing the point.
The first few essays were very interesting to me, as they discussed the lack of space for women to express themselves and the violence they face, we were also met with some of Solnit's personal experiences. There was a lot of room for discussion, but unfortunately no conclusion was drawn by the end of the book.
I feel like many unimportant things were mentioned, which made me lose interest. For example, we get an explanation of what the IMF is and the economical impact of this group for multiple pages (everything could have been said in shorter terms) and there was an entire chapter dedicated to a Woolf/Sintag debate that did not add anything to the essay. I didn't see the correlation between this and men silencing and belittling women's intelligence but maybe I'm just missing the point.
Solnit's failure to address intersectionality is the biggest flaw of the book, she says: "Violence doesn't have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender" (chapter 2, The Longest War) despite the fact that this statement has been proven to be false multiple times, but given that the book was released 10 years ago, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
Another petty critic of mine is how often Solnit mentions that “it is not all men!!" while mentioning the violences and crimes that men perpetrate against women. I just think it's tiresome to keep mentioning that we know not every man is a dangerous threat to women.
"Here let me just say that my life is well sprinkled with lovely men" (chapter 1, Men Explain Things to Me) / "Here I want to say one thing: though virtually all the perpetrators of such crime are men, that doesn't mean all men are violent" (chapter 2, The Longest War) / "There are lovely and wonderful men out there" (chapter 2, In Memory of Jyoti Singh) and more.
Overall, I would say that 'Men Explain Things to Me' is a somewhat good collection of essays, althought it never goes deeper and only skims the surface of its subjects. For people who want to understand feminism at its basic level, this book could be a great option.
Overall, I would say that 'Men Explain Things to Me' is a somewhat good collection of essays, althought it never goes deeper and only skims the surface of its subjects. For people who want to understand feminism at its basic level, this book could be a great option.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Rape, and Sexual violence