Mansplaining

                        After reading Rebecca Solnit's article, my brain became flooded with examples of people in positions of authority over me explaining things to me that I either already understood or doing so in a condescending tone or manner. My mind immediately goes to the time I was out to dinner with my family the summer before entering my freshman year of college. My sister's boyfriend asked me about school and if I was excited or sad to leave home. When I expressed that I could not wait to leave home because I had always disagreed with my parents views on most things and couldn't wait to make some changes to my life that I wasn't able to make in high school, he decided I needed a lecture. He took advantage of the fact that I had never been to college and he had, therefore I had no grounds to argue with him about my experiences. He told me that I was being ungrateful in regards to all my parents had done for me that one week into school I would be homesick and wishing that I was back in their house. As I suspected, he was wrong and I never even experienced homesickness my freshman year. He also did not know the whole story of my relationship with my parents and how they had handled certain pieces of information about me in the past. This is the same person who has lectured me about the duties of "the man of the house" and has insulted men for ordering "girly drinks" at the bar. He is a cisgender straight white male and has no idea about his privilege. I think that this example is a different kind of condescension. The kind where a person doesn't understand that everyone's experience is not like theirs. He could never relate to not being loved simply because of being who you are. I think Solnit would agree with me that a person who is being "explained to" has to fight for their argument to seem valid and fight for "credibility" which she talks about extensively in her article. Just like a person might take away someone's sense of credibility based on their gender, this also happens in relation to age, power, and other forms of oppression. This article really spoke to me and I think that women's voices are only the beginning on the list of people denied credibility.