Silencing women
Mansplaining: Many readers may already be familiar with the concept.
Some might even know that the term was coined in response to “Men Explain Things to Me,” a wildly popular essay written by author, historian and activist, Rebecca Solnit.
If not, let’s catch you up: A few years back, Solnit attended a party at a McMansion sized chalet in Aspen owned by a man who had what the kids call “F-U money.” In the most patronizing fashion, the host said he’d heard she’d written a “couple of books” and pressed her for details. Although the prolific cultural historian had about eight to choose from, she started to describe her book about Eadweard Muybridge, father of the motion picture, when he cut her off with: “And have you heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year?”
He proceeded to explain the book (that he hadn’t read, but had read about) until it became abundantly clear to everyone (except the host) that he was explaining the very important book to its very author. This clarity came courtesy of a third party who interrupted the host to say “That’s her book.” And she only had to say it four times before the host, realizing his embarrassing error, stopped lecturing.
The essay went viral. It nailed the phenomenon of “mansplaining” (although the author never called it that) — a previously “sneaky” and hidden gender dynamic that became, in that Aspen chalet, obvious and apparent, like “an anaconda that’s eaten a cow.”
We might not expect this funny anecdote about arrogance and privilege to go where the essay (and, now, book) ultimately goes — namely, misogyny-motivated mass killings, gang rapes, spousal abuse and femicide. All part of the same problem, Solnit argues, since they are in the same (albeit, extremely wide) spectrum of silencing, isolating and disappearing (used as a verb) women.
Solnit makes a crystal clear argument for treating all these disparate issues as one civil rights matter. Just as lynchings were used to silence, disempower, segregate and terrorize in the Jim Crow south, so does sexual violence and our tolerance for a rape culture work to disappear
Rebecca Solnit on mansplaining, spousal abuse, femicide and mass killings motivated by misogyny
women — literally and, of course, metaphorically, in that they don’t feel free to engage in the public sphere.
Here’s a little prognostication for you: My use of the term “rape culture” is likely to prompt a comment somewhere on the Internet. Last time it was used in the headline of an article I wrote, I found this comment in response on Grub Street by “kingoogondo”: When I hear the phrase “rape culture”, that’s when I reach for my revolver.
I’d like to tell you that I was happy to see the truth laid so bare, like an anaconda that had eaten a cow. But, instead, I was shaken.
Welcome to the world of online misogyny. One author that Solnit cites claims that she sometimes gets up to 50 rape/ violence threats in an hour.
Kinda makes you want to give up hope. But, in India, they didn’t. And we can look to them for guidance. Yes, that’s right, India, which, after the New Delhi 2012 brutal gang rape and fatal assault of Jyoti Singh, the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who never survived the bus ride home from the theatre showing The Life of Pi, declared the country’s rape culture to be a human rights issue. In other words, it’s everyone’s problem.
It became a problem for a new group of people in Isla Vista, California, this past May 23, when another man went out on a violent rampage that, in no way, disguised its misogyny.
Are we ready to call it everyone’s problem yet, as they have in India?
Rebecca Solnit hopes so. And, everyone should read her book that, long before Isla Vista, made the argument (one that is now viral on Twitter under hashtags such as #notallmen and #yesallwomen) that we need to treat this issue as a civil rights matter.
Don’t buy it yet? You will if you read her book. She’s the perfect person to explain it to you. Christine Sismondo is a freelance writer.