One of the criticisms I had about Rebecca Solnit's essay "Men Explain Things to Me," is that at the dinner table, certainly here, where articles can be responded to by highlighting and then as I am doing here, typing in responses, thougths, opinions, advice, etc, is grist for the conversational mill. I hear that women like to hear themselves talk so that they can make a decision. Why would you write such an article if you didn't want to see if it resonated with other people? You could have kept it to yourself. Unless, you intend to use it as a whipping stick. But, again, this is a social forum. Debate is a feature of conversation. I assume we are all trying to get to the truth. There is this thing called reason. There is this thing called science, which is experimenting and testing. Not everyone is an expert in anything, much less everything. What Solnit argued was that a man was talking about her book without even realizing it. She was the expert in her area, if you could say that about anyone, and she made a mockery of him. But, it didn't matter to me. I have been to so many parties, where the best argument wins.

Oliver Wendell Holmes used to come into his office and tell his clerk to take a position on a particular issue and Holmes would take the other side and win everytime. So, the point was superfluous.

By your reasoning, men are not supposed to think, opine, or advise. And you call men thinking, opining, and advising as entitlement? It's the same thing you are doing. You remind me of the ex who wanted me to carry her luggage. She didn't need me for anything but that. This whole thing is not a question of gender, but one of power. You want to be given the right to do whatever you want. Men, who have no interested in you other than in the words you say, are merely in a social experiment, one where speaking and acting is the quality of life.

Is this "Advice that no one really asked for?"

No one is doubting your right to write here, but now I question whether this medium is gender-specific, prejudical to speech itself, and whether you are?

Mutual respect doesn't seem to have a place. You should not feel unsafe. You should be free to say whatever you want within the confines of our right to free speech, which again is not gender-specific.