Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Ten Words

It's a migraine day, and I'm feeling kind of wonky despite the Imitrex, so all I can manage is this, from an article called Ten Words Every Girl Should Learn. It describes how writer Rebecca Solnit came to coin the useful term mansplaining:

Solnit's tipping point experience really did take the cake. She was talking to a man at a cocktail party when he asked her what she did. She replied that she wrote books and she described her most recent one, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West. The man interrupted her soon after she said the word Muybridge and asked, "And have you heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year?" He then waxed on, based on his reading of a review of the book, not even the book itself, until finally, a friend said, "That's her book." He ignored that friend (also a woman) and she had to say it more than three times before "he went ashen" and walked away. If you are not a woman, ask any woman you know what this is like, because it is not fun and happens to all of us.
By the way, the ten words are:

"Stop interrupting me,"

"I just said that," and

"No explanation needed."

1 comment:

Gina said...

Oh, I hope you're feeling better! So sorry about the migraine.

Oh, yeah. So true. I've experienced "mansplaining" in other ways. It's like there's this barrier between hearing the words and comprehension. The barrier consists of equal parts outdated beliefs and the man's outsized ego.

Love this post!