Women Explain Things to Me
I have just finished Jenny Odell’s Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock. I am standing at the window in my bedroom, filled with a sense of wonder. Her words are still humming in my mind as I search for a place within myself to hold the small golden treasures I have found in her book —insights that may, in time, bear fruit in my own life.
I place the book on the small stack of books I am currently reading and notice that all the authors are women: Jenny Odell, Naomi Klein, Rebecca Solnit, and Arundhati Roy. My gaze drifts across the titles and comes to rest on Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me. With a touch of humor, I realize that it is women who explain things to me.
Some of the books shown are Swedish translations. Scroll down for the English titles.
Not “explaining” in the sense of making something plain or comprehensible to someone who does not understand, nor in the condescending way Solnit describes in her essay—where the person doing the explaining often knows less about the subject than the person being addressed. Rather, these women explain things in the sense of offering reasons, causes, and ways of seeing.
Reading their books expands the reader.
As for “women,” I understand that an author would not wish to be categorized by gender as the sole common denominator. Although these writers address different subjects and each has a distinct literary voice, I see three things that unite them.
First, they share a critical perspective on our (capitalist) society. Their analyses dismantle and reassemble events and processes into new patterns, always attentive to questions of power and control — who holds power, and who does not.
Second, they are tireless explorers of culture and history. Deeply learned, they repeatedly show that alternative futures are possible.
Finally, they insist that we must not give up hope — that together, we can change our world for the better.
Some of these books were written several years ago, yet what I have discovered is that they are at least as relevant today as they were when they were published—for better and for worse. So if you can get hold of a copy (maybe at your local library), I can truly recommend these books.
Books shown in the image (with their English titles):
Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate
Jenny Odell, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock
Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Arundhati Roy, The Algebra of Infinite Justice
Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me
Rebecca Solnit, Recollections of My Nonexistence