In “Men Explain Things to Me,” the reason Rebecca Solnit describes the situation at the party is to give a real life example of what she talks about within the rest of her essay. The rest of her essay is light on concrete examples of what she is talking about, so her having that personal example at the beginning gives the audience something to keep in their mind as they read the rest of the essay. By and large, I do believe that out-and-out confrontational confidence while ignorant is, for the most part, gendered. However, I believe that that confidence isn’t tied to gender specifically, but instead tied to certain personality traits that society often encourages men to adopt. In terms of severity, I cannot say. I’m exactly the demographic that one would expect this behavior from and I personally do not have any form of reference on the act happening to me. In how severe this issue is and the negative impacts that it has, I’ll defer to people who have experienced this phenomenon before.