Key themes
- The silencing of women and its specific mechanisms
- Language as a site of power — who gets to speak, to be believed, to be heard
- Mansplaining as a symptom of a larger system, not an individual quirk
About this book
The essay collection that helped popularise a now-famous idea; sharp feminist criticism.
Published in 2014, Men Explain Things to Me gathers seven essays originally published elsewhere. The title essay was originally published in 2008 and went viral before the word 'mansplaining' existed.
Discussion questions
- The title essay describes a specific experience — a man explaining her own book to her at a party. How does Solnit use this anecdote to make a larger argument — and does the particular carry the general convincingly?
- Solnit connects the mundane silencing of the title essay to extreme forms of violence against women. How does she build this argument — and does the connection hold under scrutiny?
- The book has been criticised for overgeneralising from individual experience. How do you engage with this critique — and where does Solnit address or leave unaddressed the limits of her argument?
- The essays range across topics including the geography of protest and the monuments of the past. What unifies them — and is it a strength or a weakness that the collection covers so much ground?
- Men Explain Things to Me gave the English language a new word — 'mansplaining.' What does naming something achieve — and does the word's assimilation into common use represent a victory or a dilution of the argument?
Get the book
Links open an Amazon search. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Read together or read next
Books that make a good pairing or natural follow-up.
This is a set text
Men Explain Things to Me appears on the following curriculum reading lists.
Reading it with your group?
Get Men Explain Things to Me
As an Amazon Associate and Bookshop.org affiliate we earn from qualifying purchases.