On Friday, my group was assigned with reading and analyzing Rebecca Solnit’s article about men reading a novel about “a white man serially raping a child over a period of years” (Solnit) and giving their opinions on it. My focus for this blog will not be on the responses of the men, but on Solnit and the tone and themes of her article. It started to become visible to me that this article was going to be an aggressive attack on males when she starts her second paragraph off by saying “It isn’t a fact universally acknowledged that a person who mistakes his opinions for facts may also mistake himself for God” (Solnit). While this quote is not necessarily wrong, I immediately noticed her choice of words when she uses “his” and “himself”. She could have said “their” or “themselves” but decided not to. Another example of this is when she talks about upsetting men. Lolita says, “Many among that curious gender are easy to upset, and when they are upset they don’t know it (see: privelobliviousness). They just think you’re wrong and sometimes also evil.” This quote lines up with the beliefs of radical feminism. In this movement, there is a “struggle” between men and women and that the only solution may be to separate the two genders. From my interpretation, Solnit unfairly stereotypes all men as people who are unable to understand the emotions of others and that they would rather attack your opinion than have a civilized debate on the issue. Painting men as the enemy is not the solution to equality, in fact its quite the opposite. In order to achieve this goal, both sides must work together and find the best path towards equality.
