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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
The title led me to believe it would be about the infuriating experience of men explaining things to me. It wasn’t. This is a collection of feminist essays, which is also fine, just not what I expected.
A must read for all women (who can then explain it to men).
Feels of its time in the best way. I remember when this essay came out and how revolutionary it felt at the time, even though I was only fifteen / sixteen. It was the first Solnit book I read, and I think she’s definitely written better prose since, but nothing so blunt, so furious. It’s not flowery because it can’t afford to be. All the lessons in this book, we still have yet to learn. So read it, if you haven’t. If you have, then read it again.
Feels of its time in the best way. I remember when this essay came out and how revolutionary it felt at the time, even though I was only fifteen / sixteen. It was the first Solnit book I read, and I think she’s definitely written better prose since, but nothing so blunt, so furious. It’s not flowery because it can’t afford to be. All the lessons in this book, we still have yet to learn. So read it, if you haven’t. If you have, then read it again.
This book makes me so angry. Solnit's ability to weave intricate prose with blatant truths of misogyny so clearly lay out so many things wrong with the world. Her last essay certainly offers a hint of optimism, but I can't help but feel riled up with the oh-so-relatable descriptions of women being shut down. A must-read for everyone.
funny
informative
sad
fast-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Loved the examples and historical references, it's nice to have things you've thought said by someone else(but better) and have new examples offered. Thanks.
challenging
slow-paced
hopeful
informative
reflective
Slightly trite, after almost 15 years, but still an interesting, easy read, that I enjoyed as a bit of a booster shot. Rebecca Solnit writes wonderfully, and on incredibly diverse topics - she scratches the surface of the intersectional writers that have followed her since.
Achingly funny and achingly devastating. I recommend the first chapter to everyone (men and women) -- it's laugh-out-loud funny, while surfacing unpleasant realities about gender. Subsequent chapters move from mansplaining to stark statistics on rape, domestic abuse, economic inequality, and other forms of subjugation and silencing that some (many) men do to women. For the most part the essays don't read as an attack on men (though the quotes below might sound like they do); she treats many men as allies and sees these power issues as ones that affect all of us.
Some favorite quotes:
"Explaining men still assume I am, in some sort of obscene impregnation metaphor, an empty vessel to be filled with their wisdom and knowledge."
"So many men murder their partners and former partners that we have well over a thousand homicides of that kind a year--meaning that every three years the death toll tops 9/11's casualties, though no one declares a war on this particular kind of terror. (Another way to put it; the more than 11,766 corpses from domestic-violence homicides between 9/11 and 2012 exceed the number of deaths of victims on that day and all American soldiers killed in the 'war on terror.')"
"We have far more than eight-seven thousand rapes in this country every year, but each of them is invariably portrayed as an isolated incident. We have dots so close they're spatters melting into a stain, but hardly anyone connects them, or names that stain."
"We still haven't really talked about the fact that, of sixty-two mass shootings in the United States in three decades, only one was by a woman, because when you say 'lone gunman,' everyone talks about loners and guns but not about men."
"Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being."
Some favorite quotes:
"Explaining men still assume I am, in some sort of obscene impregnation metaphor, an empty vessel to be filled with their wisdom and knowledge."
"So many men murder their partners and former partners that we have well over a thousand homicides of that kind a year--meaning that every three years the death toll tops 9/11's casualties, though no one declares a war on this particular kind of terror. (Another way to put it; the more than 11,766 corpses from domestic-violence homicides between 9/11 and 2012 exceed the number of deaths of victims on that day and all American soldiers killed in the 'war on terror.')"
"We have far more than eight-seven thousand rapes in this country every year, but each of them is invariably portrayed as an isolated incident. We have dots so close they're spatters melting into a stain, but hardly anyone connects them, or names that stain."
"We still haven't really talked about the fact that, of sixty-two mass shootings in the United States in three decades, only one was by a woman, because when you say 'lone gunman,' everyone talks about loners and guns but not about men."
"Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being."