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Coleen de Guzman
Mono Brown
ENGL 1127
June 16, 2017
Mansplaining: From Words to DeedsThe Deaths of Women

Mansplaining, to explain something to someone, characteristically by a man to woman,

in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing. This term has gained popularity

between 2008 and 2009 after Rebecca Solnit published her work, Men Explain Things to Me.

Mansplaining is a phenomenon that almost every woman is subjected to; women are inferior,

men are superior. In Men Explain Things to Me, Solnit argues that mansplaining is the most

basic form of oppression which then leads to the demeaning of women, violence, and death.

Gender has been a big part of assigning societal status. Through the years, women have

been told to stay in the kitchen, or be the damsel in distress that men strive for as their prize.

Women have been silenced for centuries and only now do women [acquire] the status of human

beings (12). Solnit asserts that this kind of oppressionthis mansplainingis prevalent in any

situation, from Special Agent Coleen Rowleys dismissal to Solnits ludicrous encounter with Mr.

Very Important. Men Explain Things to Me has received numerous remarks, most significant

are the multiple testimonies of women around the world narrating their experience with

mansplaining. Men Explain Things to Me gave women an outleta platformto share

their encounters and realize that women are constantly looked down on, not because of their

intellect, but because of simply being born female.

With silenced voices, womens credibility is disregarded. Solnit explains, Credibility is

a survival tool, without it women are bound to a life of violence and, ultimately, death. Solnit

affirms,
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At the heart of the struggle of feminism to give rape, date rape, marital rape,

domestic violence, and workplace sexual harassment legal standing as crimes has

been the necessity of making women credible and audible. (12)

Women have suffered through countless acts of violencephysical and mentalto be

considered as human beings. Credibility is a necessity, a VIP card for a private seating we call

the world. Men have been born with this necessity, a sleek black card they wave around slapping

unsuspecting women with their superiority and privilege. Without this card, women are

nonessential, they do not exist. They are as much as what men deem they are worth. Solnit

points out that credibility is what stands between justice and injustice like those Middle Eastern

countries where womens testimony has no legal standing: so that a woman cant testify that she

was raped without a male witness to counter the male rapist (11).

Mansplaining is a form of microaggression that shakes womens confidence and induces

self-doubt. While this microaggression is present, women will be weighed down by uncertainty

and the need for reassurance which will then give men the power to assert their dominance over

women by explaining things. Not until the early to mid 20th century did women acquire

protection under the human rights. Although that may be the case, Solnit emphasizes that

women are still treated unequally by expressing the grim murder of Lance Corporal Maria

Lauterbach, who was killed during her wait to testify against a colleague who raped her. This

massive power differential (16) results in the negligence of justice for women that were put

through horrendous acts of violence by men. Solnit stresses that Violence is one way to silence

people, to deny their voice and their credibility, to assert your right to control over their right to

exist (11). Women have no mastery over their lives and are silenced because they were deemed

lesser than men.

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With Man Explain Things to Me, Solnit was able to inform both men and women the

struggles women have been fighting for years. Solnit recounts experiences of different women

of different social status, including herself, that mansplaining goes hand in hand with violence.

And these violence, these small deaths, that women faced builds up overtime making this

microaggression into an attack against women that spans the whole world.

In the end, mansplaining, however small on inconsequential it may be to most people, is

an attack on women, a kind of oppression that is the foundation of both the violence against

women and the fight for equality. Women fight for their lives every day, whether it is with a

condescending Mr. Very Important or with a rapist colleague. Mansplaining is not something

that most people identify, which makes Solnits Men Explain Things to Me that much more

important. It helps women understand and realize that it is not them that are wrong, but the

monster we call our societal norm bent on the oppression of women.

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Works Cited

Solnit, Rebecca. Men Explain Things to Me. Haymarket Books, 2014.