Explaining Mansplaining

In this presentation, Professor Partridge will examine Rebecca Solnit’s rich description (in the short essay, “Men Explain Things to Me”) of an experience that was later dubbed “mansplaining.” Partridge treats mansplaining as a specific kind of communicative dysfunction in which a man wrongs a woman in her capacity as a knower. Drawing on the work of Miranda Fricker, Partridge will discuss the harms of mansplaining as a “pre-emptive testimonial injustice” that objectifies and silences women. Partridge argues that among other types of bad explainers, who may be merely annoying, the mansplainer’s ignorance reveals him to be an epistemic fraud and credibility thief. Partridge will close by looking to field virtue, epistemology and elsewhere for ways to reduce the frequency and severity of “mansplaining.”

Tuesday, October 18, 2016
12:30 pm
President’s Dining Room

Presented by John Partridge, Associate Professor of Philosophy

 

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