"Mansplaining"

My feminist ears have been burning. After Rep. Todd Akin "misspoke" and then recanted his comments earlier this week, I have been tuning in to the conversations happening in the media regarding the (in)validation of a woman's experience (especially regarding something as traumatizing and serious as sexual assualt). In a similar vein, a friend of mine shared an article with me that I can't help but tie with Rep. Akin's remarks.


This article by author Rebecca Solnit shares the authors discourse with her male counterparts throughout her career. She talks about the problem with "Men Explaining Things", a term coined "mansplaining". Solnit describes this phenomenon: she is well-versed, well-researched, or in fact the author or expert on a topic and finds herself invalidated by a man who either refuses to listen or believe her knowledge. This man's explanation directly invalidates her lived experience and her perspective as a woman.


Solnit says, "Men explain things to me, and other women, whether or not they know what they are talking about." I have had this experience happen to me in both social and professional spheres. After my time at Columbia University, I had a conversation with a male friend, who felt the need to educate me on the Ivy League. He gave me information full of false statements, unfounded evidence, and downright ludicrous "facts", that he felt the need to explain to me and appear the expert on. I remember his saying incredulously to me, "you went to an Ivy League school and you don't even know anything about the Ivy League?"


I have had similar conversations with men about rape myths, despite my senior capstone research on the subject. I've had conversations in social circles where men, not of the counseling profession, jump in to explain what counseling is, preventing me from even answering the question of "what is it that you do?" (This is when I in fact was practicing as a counselor).


These experiences invalidate the experience of a woman--in this case, me. A less aware woman may walk away from these interactions questioning if she really knows anything about the school she got her graduate degree from, whether her research is worth mentioning, or whether it is worth the fight to discourse on her own chosen career path.


The article really struck a chord with me (given Representative Akin's comments) when Solnit relays the story told by a guest at a party, about a woman who ran from her home naked, exclaiming that her husband was trying to kill her. This man feels the need to explain that this could not have been the case, that this was an upstanding family, that the woman's statement could not possibly be truth. This slowly quiets every woman's voice, slowly allows the fight to be won that this is not our world too.


Solnit says it better than I, when she says, "The battle with Men Who Explain Things has trampled down many women—of my generation, of the up-and-coming generation we need so badly." Women need to support each other by validating their lived experiences and knowledge. Men who are allies need to support and stand up for women. These subtle moments where a man, whether knowledgeable or not, holds the final trump card with no apologies, is unacceptable.


And so I write my own stories, and my own reaffirmation of this phenomenon, so that the man at this party, Rep. Akin, and any other man who feels the need to appear the expert on a subject at the expense of a knowledgeable woman have voices to reckon with. I am another woman's voice confirming that our perspective is valid, real, and yes, we may know more than you every once in a while.