Men Explain Things to Me – Cannonball Read 17

“The ability to tell your own story, in words or images, is already a victory, already a revolt.”

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

January 7, 2020 by narfna 3 Comments

I’ve been wanting to read this for years, and my TBR Jar finally plucked this from the pile. There’s just something about that cheeky title that draws you in, but I never got around to it. Unfortunately, my first impressions of the titular piece were very underwhelming. It’s about seven pages long, plus an updated postscript. I wanted a lot more from the ideas the book was titled after. Luckily I at least knew going in that this was an essay collection that would be […]

Great Title for an Average Feminist Essay Collection

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

September 7, 2019 by Jen K Leave a Comment

I downloaded this essay collection a year ago when I attended a work training, and felt like I was being over-explained to by the men presenting a class (I asked a few questions, so it might have also simply been that I was one of the only ones that seemed engage enough to pay attention and hence they directed everything directly to me). I finally ended up reading it in February/March time frame because I was feeling slightly ignored by a different set of men […]

“Violence doesn’t have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.”

January 21, 2018 by Caitlin_D Leave a Comment

I was unable to march yesterday because I had to work so I opted to read Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, a collection of feminist essays, instead. This a powerful collection but I think the most powerful punch was just how dated it seemed despite being published only 3 years ago. There is no Trump or Weinstein and while there is a well crafted essay on #yesallwomen it felt lacking in a world where #metoo and the Time’s Up initiative have had such widespread coverage […]

Rebecca Explains it All (In a Good Way!)

April 28, 2017 by Blingle Bells Leave a Comment

3.5 stars, rounding down because when I think back on it (I finished it a few weeks ago), the things that bugged me stick out more than the things that didn’t. This might’ve been a four star book for me if I’d checked at all on what it actually was. I’d hoped it would be a deeper dive into the title concept, aka “mainsplaining” (although Solnit herself did not coin that term and is not a fan of it). The title essay was fantastic, so […]

“Some women get erased a little at a time, some all at once. Some reappear. Every woman who appears wrestles with the forces that would have her disappear.”

March 28, 2017 by faintingviolet 6 Comments

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 […]

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