What is "Not All Men"?

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/2ef5z7/what_is_not_all_men/

created by jdudinfoo on 24/08/2014 at 04:23 UTC

14 upvotes, 7 top-level comments (showing 7)

I see this all the time on the internet and don't understand it

Comments

Comment by whitesock at 24/08/2014 at 06:35 UTC

16 upvotes, 3 direct replies

"Not all men" is one of those things usually heard in discussions of gender online. For example, someone might say "I'm afraid to walk down the street because I will get catcalled, harassed or raped". One of the common responses would be "come on, not all men are evil rapists, take it easy". At a certain point this became annoying and you can kinda sorta understand why. of *course* not all men do it, but it's like telling someone who got hit by a car "come on, not all drivers are bad, if you get run over its your own fault". Some people spend their entire lives not getting hit by cars, it doesn't make the danger any less serious.

So that's "not all men". After a while there was also a response called "yes all women", basically saying that all women were, at a certain point, a victim of sexual violence - rape or otherwise. This became a viral hashtag meant to raise awareness to women's plight.

And... that's it mostly.

Comment by Drakelet at 24/08/2014 at 09:42 UTC

5 upvotes, 0 direct replies

"Yes all women" can feel threatened by men "Not all men" are going to threaten women

Comment by NasalJack at 24/08/2014 at 06:59 UTC

6 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Some people generalize certain characteristics onto the entire male population, like "All men are rapists." Other people will point out that no, not all men are rapists (which is factually accurate).

Some people don't like this being pointed out to them, so rather than respond to it they instead mock it and ignore it, thus the perpetuation of "not all men" as a phrase to be made fun of and dismissed.

Comment by House566 at 24/08/2014 at 17:15 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Well, awhile ago a hashtag started on twitter called yesallwomen, which tweeted about various things women faced, the main one being rape/sexual assault. Tweets would be things like "#yesallwomen always have to be in fear of rape/sexual assault".

A lot of men felt like this was kind of sexist, because it implied that such a large majority of men were rapists/sexual assaulter that all women constantly had to live in fear so the common response is "Well, not all men are rapists!" which lead to the change in tweets going "#notallmen are rapists, but #yesallwomen etc etc!"

Overall it's kind of a complicated situation. Although women face rape and sexual assault disproportionately in comparison towards men, a lot of people argue that a lot of the language anti-rape or femists use on the issue contributes to the idea that most men are rapists, or evil, or in general much more violent than women. So it's a difficult issue of helping women and lowering the rates of rape while making sure women aren't profiling all men as rapists.

Comment by wecl0me12 at 24/08/2014 at 05:31 UTC

-1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

it's exactly what it says it is.

When people say "All men are X", others will respond with "not all men are X", to point out that the first speaker is wrong.