Men Explain Things to Me: Facts Didn't Get in Their Way

Men Explain Things to Me: Facts Didn't Get in Their Way is an essay written by author Rebecca Solnit and published on TomDispatch.com on 13 April 2008. In the essay, Solnit told an anecdote about a man at a party who said he had heard she had written some books. She began to talk about her most recent, on Eadweard Muybridge, whereupon the man cut her off and asked if she had "heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year" - not considering that it might be (as, in fact, it was) Solnit's book. Solnit did not use the word mansplaining in the essay, but she described the phenomenon as "something every woman knows".

It is often the case that in accusations of mansplaining the man did not know that the woman was knowledgeable on the subject. In this original usage of the concept the man did know the woman was knowledgeable on the subject but did not know that she had written that particular book. It appears the man was merely trying to make conversation and was castigated for it.