The Mother of All Questions

by Rebecca Solnit

Overview

In a timely follow-up to her national bestseller Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit offers indispensable commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more.

In characteristic style, Solnit mixes humor, keen analysis, and powerful insight in these essays.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642590999
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	09/20/2019
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of eighteen or so books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and disaster, including the books Men Explain Things to Me and Hope in the Dark, both also with Haymarket; a trilogy of atlases of American cities; The Faraway Nearby; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Wanderlust: A History of Walking; and River of Shadows, Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she is a columnist at Harper's and a regular contributor to the Guardian.

Table of Contents

• Chapter One: The Mother of All Questions
• Chapter Two: Silence Is Broken
• Chapter Three: The Year Women Refused to Shut Up
• Chapter Four: Feminism: The Men Arrive
• Chapter Five: The Short Happy Recent History of the Rape Joke
• Chapter Six: 80 Books No Woman Should Read
• Chapter Seven: The Tomb of the Unknown Battered Woman, or, Extremely Domestic Terrorism
• Chapter Eight: Isla Vista One Year After
• Chapter Nine: Shooting Down Man the Hunter
• Chapter Ten: Categories Are Leaky: An Argument for and Against Gender Binaries
• Chapter Eleven: Despite Everything: Finishing My Grandmothers’ Work

Editorial Reviews

"There's a new feminist revolution – open to people of all genders – brewing right now and Rebecca Solnit is one of its most powerful, not to mention beguiling, voices."
–Barbara Ehrenreich

"These short, incisive essays that pack a powerful punch."
–Publishers Weekly

"A keen and timely commentary on gender and feminism. Solnit’s voice is calm, clear, and unapologetic; each essay balances a warm wit with confident, thoughtful analysis, resulting in a collection that is as enjoyable and accessible as it is incisive."
–Booklist

"A thought-provoking and important anthology."
–Library Journal

"Trenchant and hopeful, the book reveals that the ongoing work of righting the wrongs of patriarchy is only part of a much larger project of social justice for all people. As always, Solnit is eloquent and sharply insightful."
–Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2017-01-23
A distinguished cultural critic tackles "the binaries and boundaries of gender" while examining the continuing evolution of feminism.In her latest collection, Harper's contributing editor Solnit (Men Explain Things to Me, 2014, etc.) examines how women continue to struggle to make their voices heard in a violent, misogynist world. In the first section, the author deals with the act of silencing. Whether in professional situations involving unfair treatment or personal ones involving abuse or rape, patriarchal culture has discouraged women from speaking out against gender injustice. At the same time, men have also been forced into silence about their interior lives in exchange for "power and membership" in patriarchy. Yet women—and men—continue to make progress. Solnit points to the changes in attitude toward rape and how comedians like Tina Fey and Amy Schumer have openly challenged perpetrators. They have not succeeded in winning the war "for everyone to have their basic human rights respected," but they have helped turn the tide against acceptance of rape culture. Moreover, social initiatives like the Obama administration's 2014 "It's On Us" project to "get bystanders, particularly men," to protect potential victims of assault are positive signs of further change. In the second section of the book, the author focuses more on language used in discourse about women, which not only emphasizes dependency, but also overlooks how the concept of gender is built upon categories that exclude differences that transcend the male/female binary. She also offers commentary on how culturally iconic works—e.g., Lolita—continue to feed into ideas of women as "disposable…absent, or worthless." Others, like the 1956 film Giant, can be read to suggest that patriarchy can successfully be replaced by "some kind of open, negotiated reshuffling of everything." Trenchant and hopeful, the book reveals that the ongoing work of righting the wrongs of patriarchy is only part of a much larger project of social justice for all people. As always, Solnit is eloquent and sharply insightful.

Kirkus Reviews