The praise of Male mediocrity in society is nothing new.
Men are celebrated for achieving everything from the bare minimum to actual successes. Even for the most basic of human actions, men are constantly praised in society. They are allowed to be and expected to be confident, loud, assertive, and prideful. The same cannot be said for women, however. Male mediocrity is praised and celebrated while female achievements are downplayed and criticized.
If a woman is confident, she is “vain.” If she is assertive, she is “bossy.” If she is a working woman, she is “selfish.” If she is a stay-at-home mother, she is “lazy.” Women are held to unattainable and insurmountable standards by society. In order to be taken seriously, they have to be the best. Unfortunately, even if they are the most qualified person in their field, as Rebecca Solnit explains in “Men Explain Things to Me,” women are still belittled and not taken seriously.
I know there is the common argument of “not all men” and all of its variations. While this is true, not all men perpetuate these gender inequalities, however, enough men, either knowingly or unknowingly benefit from these views, creating and continuing this double standard. As Solnit puts it, her life “is well-sprinkled with lovely men, with a long succession of editors who have, since [Solnit] was young, listened and encouraged and published [Solnit],” however, her life is filled with “these other men, too,” the ones who belittle and ignore her.
As a woman, Solnit’s article hits close to home. What shocks me is how similar the female experience is when speaking to men. This is particularly evident when she recounts a conversation she had with a man.
“He kept us waiting while the other guests drifted out into the summer night, and then sat us down at his authentically grainy wood table and said to me, ‘So? I hear you’ve written a couple of books.’
I replied, ‘Several, actually.’
He said, in the way you encourage your friend’s seven-year-old to describe flute practice, ‘And what are they about?’
Solnit
Despite Solnit’s obvious achievements, she is still spoken to as a child. This experience is demeaning and insulting. Solnit is an adult woman with remarkable skills and successes, yet to this man, she is nothing more than a silly little girl. He then goes on to smugly explain the “very important” book he had read to Solnit.
Unfortunately for this man, what he does not realize at the time is that Solnit actually wrote this book he is trying to explain to her. As a woman, I relate to this story, as I have also fallen victim to the dreaded “mansplaining.”
Though I agree with and relate to the majority of Solnit’s piece, I take issue with her points towards the end of the article. Here she discusses the issues of violence against women. She argues that “women women acquired the status of human beings when these kinds of acts started to be taken seriously, when the big things that stop us and kill us were addressed legally from the mid-1970s on” I, however, do not think society has reached this point yet. As made evident from countless verdicts of “not guilty” for male defendants against women (Brock Turner, for example) and the constant attacks on the reproductive rights of women, women are most certainly not seen as human beings the way men are. Like Solnit, I am hopeful that one day men and society will change to protect and support women, I am not convinced this will happen in my lifetime.
E367: Writing and Diversity 