Mariah Inghram
ENG 3060J
Ms. Berta
December 1, 2016
Reader Response Five
Rebecca Solnit’s book, Men Explain Things to Me, is atypical of others in that it is made up of various essays in which Solnit addresses different areas of feminist thought regarding womens’ oppression. Though the entirety of Solnit’s work in Men Explain Things to Me could be analyzed in terms of theorist Bell Hook’s ideas in the “Feminist Masculinity” chapter of her analytical work, Feminism is for Everybody, this essay will serve to examine only the overarching idea presented in the “Men Explain Things to Me” essay portion of the Solnit’s work. The central idea of this essay is that the patriarchal practice of silencing of women through society’s tendency to value men’s word over women’s is problematic because it works to discount experiences, such as domestic abuse or rape (Solnit). However, it is Solnit’s disconcertment with female silencing that Bell Hook’s assertion builds on in the “Feminist Masculinity” chapter of her book by suggesting that patriarchal values and/or ideas are not only harmful to women, but they are also harmful to men in that they too can work to silence male experiences (Hook).…