This coruscating piece by Rebecca Solnit, which indirectly gave us the word ‘mansplaining’, launched her from being a San Francisco poet and political writer to an internationally known one. The scenario she describes of having her own book explained – or mansplained – back at her is so commonly familiar that it went viral. Yes, Rebecca, in our own ways, we’ve all been there too.

First published on TomDispatch, April 2008 and available to read there. Collected in Men Explain Things to Me, Haymarket/Granta, 2014. Also available to read at Guernica Mag