I do not really do New Year’s resolutions, but my informal one this year was to read more about topics I should be more informed about, and specifically more feminist reads. As with most of the good things I read these days, Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit was already on my radar thanks to Cannonballers. I was familiar with the eponymous essay’s conceit: that Solnit was treated to an older gentleman explaining her book to her without realizing that she had written it, or that it had in fact been written by a woman. But, I hadn’t taken the time to find the essay or this collection. It was time to remedy this.
The best compliment I can give Ms. Solnit is that she has a definitive voice to her writing. I watched an interview that she gave (about climate change and other things), and in it her voice sounded exactly as I had expected it to, based on reading her writing.
This book (a quick 150+ pages) is a collection of essays, nine in total in this updated version, and the first was great. But perhaps the ones that hit closest to my heart were the ones where Solnit talks about the staggering statistics of violence perpetrated against women by men. We aren’t discussing an epidemic. A public health crisis which seemingly never ends in the United States, due in no small part to the fact that we won’t name the beast. The silencing of women is at the core of this book, the concept linking the essays. We are silenced in personal, professional, political, and cultural spaces, and this book gives some discernment into this shared experience. Of course I suggest this book to everyone, but it should absolutely be read by all the men, even the good guys. We need them calling out the “nice guys” and general asshats with us.
Read it. (Also, why 4 stars you say? Because there was at least one essay I really didn’t like and five stars felt disingenuous.)
And his name is Voldemort, you might as well use it. He’s going to try and kill you either way”. – Minerva McGonagall, Deathly Hallows part 2
Four stars was how I felt about this book, as well. I can’t remember which essay(s) I didn’t love, but they were there (same could be said for Lindy West’s Shrill, which became less cohesive towards the end and just didn’t gel for me as a whole work). But Solnit has a distinctive voice, and that’s what sets her apart for me.
Goodreads recommended this to me after reading Shrill, sounds like I need to get on it!
Overdrive has it — I downloaded it for my trip
Ah, your blizzard read!
I second your 4 star review. I loved the concept, and loved, loved her way with words, but parts of a few essays fell flat for me. I’m curious about which essay(s) you didn’t like? The Virginia Woolf essay was no my fave, and some of the intra-essay concepts felt a bit forced into the narrative. But overall, a great read, and I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Yes, my blizzard read which I didn’t finish until just a few nights ago! :)
The Woolf one stands out as the one where she lost my attention entirely. I also skimmed a bit through the one about Nafissatou Diallo, the woman who was attacked by Dominque Strass-Kahn. The lyrical parts worked for me, but it got muddied in the middle.
I felt exactly the same about those two essays.