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Theory Tuesdays

Theory Tuesdays is a nonacademic platform for theoretical discussion founded, organized and coordinated by artist Philip Matesic since 2009. Participants read beforehand then discuss contemporary art, design, literary, cultural and critical theory on a weekly basis, with the texts selected and introduced each week by a different person.

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Tuesday 10th October 2017, 8:00pm

Session 181: “Men Explain Things to Me” by Rebecca Solnit

For this Theory Tuesdays session, Rebecka Domig selected the essay “Men Explain Things To Me” by Rebecca Solnit (Haymarket Books, 2015).

Rebecca Solnit’s essay “Men Explain Things to Me” is what might be called a meta-essay of sorts. It generated the term “mansplaining”, which gave women a word to describe condescending interactions they’ve had with men, and resulted in countless Buzzfeed articles, tweets and Facebook stories, Buzzfeed articles about said tweets and Facebook stories, and on and on.

Solnit’s now famous essay, is however, above all, a brilliant and comic piece of writing. Describing some of her own hilariously awful encounters, she pinpoints what so often goes wrong in conversations between men and women, especially when men wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don’t.

Rebecca Solnit is a prolific author (17 books to date!), historian, activist and contributing editor to Harper’s.

Participants: 8

Solnit – Men Explain Things To Me

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Founded and coordinated by Philip Matesic.