Neil Hopcroft

[audiobook]

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit is a collection of essays and articles about the interactions between the sexes. The headline essay collected the thoughts into a coherent whole that turned into an understanding of what we now know as mansplaining, although the author did not use that portmanteau and does not support its use.

In the title essay she takes care to distinguish explanations from knowledgeable people from those who are lacking but speaking with confidence. The trouble is that many people cannot tell the difference, especially if the subject matter is not one they know about.

There is, also, an assumption by some men that women know little, which breeds an unwarranted confidence in their own belief that they know more, thus their explanations will, in their eyes, carry more weight with an audience of women. And the depressing thing is that they often get away with it, boosting their own misplaced confidence and appearing knowledgeable in the eyes of their interlocutors. A mansplain not identified as such.

This is a difficult line to walk – to really know a subject requires talking about it and making mistakes while doing so, and for those mistakes to be challenged by those who really do know more. Squashing that ability to make mistakes altogether does nothing to improve the knowledge in society as a whole. Indeed, experts often disagree with each other, even putting aside the explaining of novices, and that might seem to have some of these characteristics. I find myself talking sometimes about subjects on which I am an expert in non-expert ways, often because I know that those I am talking to do not have the depth of expertise to understand. Or is it that I believe they do not have that expertise?

There are a number of other essays included with the book – these are largely ‘feminist’ in content, talking about the disparity, or downright brutality, between men and women in society and history and sexual violence.

There is a common theme to these essays, that the problems are societal rather than individual. That there are men in control of the narrative who will portray each rape, each spousal assault, each selection of a man over a woman for promotion, as an isolated act, something to be considered on its own. While the way the problems add up shows a different pattern. It reminds me of the meta-analysis that showed an overall effect where each study on its own could not declare a conclusion, no-effect was within the error bars.

We are inured to the erasure of the female point of view through history, a lot of which was instigated, then written, by men, with women, until recently, rarely given the opportunities to learn, then write their stories. Our world is all the richer for those stories, for the ability to have conversations about these disparities, for the involvement of all participants. As is often the case, the smaller voices have the most interesting things to say, the art of conversation is to listen more and talk less.

Further, equality in marriage sits uncomfortably with the misogynist world view, where the woman subsumes to the marriage, becomes a bit player, keeping house, making babies. Same sex relationships do not present such a dynamic, the members being peers, there is not one above the other. The goal posts should have moved by now, equality in same sex marriage is not a threat, it is an opportunity to see your spouse as your peer.

This book contains some writing that many would consider feminist, it gives a voice to some who would otherwise have remained silent, but it is very clearly not an anti-male book, she appreciates explanations by genuine experts and conversations with men. It is more an argument in favour of us all being peers and approaching the conversation, the relationships, the writing of history, based on that equal footing.

Not all men, but it is always a man.

Postscript: I realised after writing the above that I had ‘othered’ the perpetrators of male explanation. I don’t think that is entirely fair, since I know that I have done this in the past, and I’m sure will still do it on occasion. I must take some responsibility for my part in the phenomenon.

Please, if you notice me taking that kind of tone, bring me back to reality – give my curiosity something to find out about and I’ll soon engage the ears and disengage mouth.