mansplaining

Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It__ the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men__ unsupported overconfidence.

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, here and in Pakistan and Bolivia and Java, not to speak of the countless women who came before me and were not allowed into the laboratory, or the library, or the conversation, or the revolution, or even the category called human.

Only small men parade their learning, talk over their audience and air their superior knowledge. Only brutal men throw their strength about, and vain rich men display their wealth in ostentatious useless luxuries.

...explaining men still assume I am, in some sort of obscene impregnation metaphor, an empty vessel to be filled with their wisdom and knowledge.

...the Men Who Knew came out of the woodwork.

I like incidents of that sort, when forces that are usually so sneaky and hard to point out slither out of the grass and are as obvious as, say, an anaconda that's eaten a cow or an elephant turd on the carpet.

Why do some trees stay green while others change their color?___ertain trees need to show off, dear. I__ sure that my big brother could explain why it happens. Dahlaine loves to explain things, and he can be very tedious about it. I prefer simpler answers. The trees are sad because summer__ almost over.

He went on, but I tuned him out. I made eye contact and nodded occasionally, but I didn__ hear what he was saying. I had heard it all before. Even men who should__e known better__vereducated progressive types who probably considered themselves feminists__ad no compunction explaining things to me.

If he__ explained his reasoning with humor, rather than with condescension, she might have stayed sane; now she__ grind his bones to make her bread.-The Widow Nash

There is always a man eager to explain my mental illness to me. They all do it so confidently, motioning to their Hemingway and Bukowski bookshelf as they compare my depression to their late-night loneliness. There is always someone that rejected them that they equate their sadness to and a bottle of gin (or a song playing, or a movie) close by that they refer to as their cure. Somehow, every soft confession of my Crazy that I hand to them turns into them pulling out pieces of themselves to prove how it really is in my head.So many dudes I__e dated have faces like doctors ready to institutionalize and love my crazy (but only on Friday nights.)They tell their friends about my impulsive decision making and how I __et them_ more than anyone they__e ever met but leave out my staring off in silence for hours and the self-inflicted bruises on my cheeks.None of them want to acknowledge a crazy they can__ cure.They want a crazy that fits well into a trope and gives them a chance to play Hero. And they always love a Crazy that provides them material to write about.Truth is they love me best as a cigarette cloud of impossibility, with my lipstick applied perfectly and my Crazy only being pulled out when their life needs a little spice.They don__ want me dirty, having not left my bed for days. Not diseased. Not real.So they invite me over when they__e going through writer__ block but don__ answer my calls during breakdowns. They tell me I look beautiful when I__ crying then stick their hands in-between my thighs. They mistake my silence for listening to them attentively and say my quiet mouth understands them like no one else has.These men love my good dead hollowness. Because it means less of a fighting personality for them to force out. And is so much easier to fill someone who has already given up with themselves.

If it__ not clear enough in the piece, I love it when people things to me they know and I__ interested in but don__ yet know. It__ when they explain things to me I know and they don__ that the conversation goes awry.