Not all men

[AskBasil]

Interesting article here

And a slightly different slant on it

I am kind of mystified by why this happens.

If I was asked what language the French spoke, I would say French. I would then not expect to be leapt upon by people saying a. but why are you associating French with French people, lots of Canadians speak French too, b. Not all French people speak French, some of them speak Polish/German/Chinese, stop generalising or C. why are you assuming everyone in France can speak? I would expect people to accept my generalisation. So why people leap in with the 'not all men' argument so quickly I don't know.

On the other hand, in the rise of intersectionality, we have reduced the extent to which all people in a particular disadvantaged class (i.e women, the reproductive class) can be said to have a collective experience or solidarity, so it makes sense that if there is no real sense of collective disadvantage, then how can there be a collectively advantaged group? It is all just atomised individuals and somebody saying, 'not all men...' is right.

Also, if the judgements we make about somebody and their authority to speak (i.e female, disabled) for social issues are based on individual identity rather than actual words or behaviour of the indivual to end collective disadvantage, everyone is then under pressure not to demonstrate their activism but their suffering, hence the rise of, 'Not all men... I'm a man but also grew up in a shoe box in the middle of the road,' 'not all white people... I'm white but I work in a matchstick factory next to a toxic waste dump,' etc, etc.

I work with all women. In the staff room not a week goes by without somebody saying that 'men are crap because of this' or 'shit because of that'. If one of the women have broken up with their partner recently it can get pretty bad. Sometimes I go to my car and have lunch in there instead. It's hardly surprising so many men leave my profession due to finding it too unwelcoming an atmosphere.

So, if somebody has just come in and said "Men are all such inconsiderate arseholes!" what should I do in return?

Say "Not all men", report them for sexual discrimination, or just accept people are allowed to make sweeping negative statements about a whole section of the community?

Thanks for posting this.

Tiggy, saying things like that at work would be a discrimination issue.

But your example is not the same as those given in the links.

There is a difference between me saying:

The French speak French.
There was a problem with the way the French behaved in Algeria.
All French people speak French.
The French are all such inconsiderate arseholes.

I expect to be picked up on the second two, not the first two.

almond, I love the language comparison.

I don't agree that it's comparable with the language thing, as saying all French people speak French is not offensive to the majority of French people.

It may not be factually accurate, but it isn't damaging to the general perception of French people to assume they all speak the national language.

Saying all men are knobs is offensive to the vast majority (or hopefully a significant majority!) of men who aren't knobs.

You hear it a lot on here because when someone posts "why are all men such knobs?" those of us who love a man (or several of them!) want to defend them, much as I would hope that DP would correct someone who made a sweeping generalisation about women that didn't apply to me, or his mum or good friends.

I don think it is used on MN in a satirical way very often, more just as a leveller because we object to people categorising women as all sharing certain characteristics. We are also very aware of the differences when posters of each gender post similar details but are greeted with very different replies, so we treat others as we'd like to be treated ourselves and so we distance ourselves from the comment by posting that we don't believe that all men are knobs.

There is also the very real possibility of MN posts being publicised on twitter on in the fail etc so regular posters are understandably keen to portray MN as a fair space which isn't man-hating and doesn't lower itself to the level of the hairy handed visitors. They don't need much ammunition to start a bunfight, so the more we can show that we are NOT like them, the better.

I think that's tricky, though.

I actually find this really depressing. But a huge number of men and women think that remarks like 'oh, lol, men don't see dirt' or 'ooh, typical woman, so vain!' are both funny and clever. Clearly, they don't imagine those comments are insulting.

However, the same people (IME it really is exactly the same people) jump up and down at statements like 'the vast majority of poor people in the world are women' or 'the majority of violence is committed by men'.

I didn't say the two were comparable. Saying all men are knobs is similar to saying all French people are knobs. It is unacceptable. Saying there was a problem with French behaviour in Algeria is similar to saying there is a problem with male violence; it refers to a structural problem without suggesting that all French people or men participated or were complicit in it, or that no French people or men fought against it, so there is no reason to get into a 'not all men' interruption.

Both you and Tiggy are responding by bringing up examples of people just being offensive and insulting about men through using coarse slurs, which was not mentioned or defended in the links given by the OP.

Sorry, was replying to HF in my previous post.

LRD, I think there is also the issue that by saying 'all men are arseholes' in a conversation with somebody who has an abusive partner, it is minimising that woman's experience to that of the experience of the rest of the women in that office who may well be griping about things that are annoying but not abuse, which I think is harmful to her.

But I think that if someone sees an opportunity to jump in with a NAM defence then the original statement has been badly worded with a sweeping generalisation.

I only used that example as I have seen two such posts on here and FB tonight and replied to them both with a comment along the lines of 'not all men' even though I am a woman.

And that's your experience, HF, and there's nothing wrong with jumping in when people do that. But it isn't what the OP brought up.

Personally, as soon as anyone starts using aggressive, slur based language to be offensive, I won't have the conversation with them, regardless of how good or bad their other points are. Some people would accuse me of 'tone policing' and I don't agree, but tone policing is still a thing that does happen.

I think the point of the meme is that this phrase is used to derail feminist debates, specifically. It's about refusing to recognise or discuss trends, facts and statistics. Especially ones that show men as a class oppressing women as a class. It's taking statistical trends personally and directing anger not at those that cause the trends (other men), but at those who point them out (feminists).

I don't think it's anything to do with giving women a free pass to slag men off Tiggy Women do do that, I know, but I don't think this is a way of excusing that. I think, in general, feminists are incredibly wary of generalisations that involve assumptions, prejudice and emotion preferring to rely on statistics and shared experience instead.

Anyway, I liked this (from the second article). The stages of becoming a male feminist:

1. Sexism is a fake idea invented by feminists
2. Sexism happens, but the effect of “reverse sexism” on men is as bad or worse
3. Sexism happens, but the important part is that I personally am not sexist
4. Sexism happens, and I benefit from that whether or not I personally am sexist
5. Sexism happens, I benefit from it, I am unavoidably sexist sometimes because I was socialized that way, and if I want to be anti-sexist I have to be actively working against that socialization

I think this is very observant. Hopefully it only flows one way and, one day, everyone will be a 5!

But saying "all men are..." is a generalisation. It means the statement applies to each and every single man in the whole world, including little Tiggy. When somebody says "all men are..." they are saying "you Tiggy are....", and surely if the statement is wrong, which it virtually certainly is, it's not unreasonable to point it out. "Not all men" is a reasonable response to some statements.

And saying the French people speak French is not a great comparison because it doesn't convey and negativity. Saying French people only speak French would be a better example as that would put down the many French people who have spent time learning other languages.

Hmm. I think there's a big difference between an "all men are jerks" rant and a comment about men as a group, as happens a lot in feminist discussion. The first instance is the place for "not all men" - it's a statement of fact, not all men are jerks. The second one, though, is where it's used to derail an argument. Example - "men abusing women is a serious problem." "Not all men are abusive." Because obviously that means it's not a problem It shuts down any discussion.

Did you actually read the links Tiggy?

They're not talking about people who say "All men are bastards/ insert other insult here"

They're talking about people who are discussing men as a class.

A similar example would be "The middle classes adopted new fangled habits like fish knives". To jump in with "not all the middle classes used fish knives" is just idiotic. The point there, is that it wasn't the aristocracy or the industrial working class or the peasants or the serfs who adopted fish knives, it was the middle class. We're talking about the group of people who did this as opposed to the other groups who didn't. What contribution to the discussion is made by pointing out the asinine and obvious point that not every middle class household adopted this new fangled habit?

Link 1 point 1:

"A man is someone who pays his female employees less.
A man is someone who interrupts a woman when she's in the middle of saying something.
A man expects his wife to do all the cooking and cleaning.

What's that you say? Not ALL men pay their employees less? Not ALL men interrupt women?

Thanks for pointing that out. You're who this meme is about."

What is 'Men expect their wife to clean and cook' saying if it's not 'men are knobs"? It's saying that I, Tiggy, expect my wife to do all the cooking and cleaning. That is wrong on so many levels, including being a sweeping sexist generalisation. And then we're not allowed to complain about it?

But Tiggy the exact point is that NAM is never used in a response to a statement that says 'ALL men are...'. That would be an appropriate use the phrase, because if someone has specifically used 'ALL', it's only fair to insist they correct it to 'SOME'.

No, this is about some people being unable to recognise or accept the implication that when feminists talk about men as a class, it should be able to go without saying that they don't mean every single man. Or when recognising that most perpetrators of a behaviour are men, it is a waste of time to have to explain that that does not mean all or most men do it.

Again, I think it's only a fair phenomena to poke fun at in the context of derailing feminist debate, and that's what the links are about. It's difficult to use analogies when it's such a specific situation. It's absolutely necessary to point out 'not all men/women/gays people/benefit claimants/dog walkers/french are blah' if the statement implies or specifies that they are.

Yeah, I'm not too comfortable with the quote you've copied. I don't think generalisations that aren't based on stats or experience are acceptable, especially when they peddle stereotypes.

There are much better examples the writer could and should have used to get across what, I still think is a very real phenomena.

NAM is never used in a response to a statement that says 'ALL men are...'. Yes it is. I use it a lot at work. Other Mumsnetters use it in thread quite often too when people start making general slurs when their DP has done something stupid.

I'm not so offended with statements that start "Men are..." as I consider that to be talking about men as a class. It's the statements that start "All men are..." that I take personally as the user has gone out their way to make sure it applies to each and every man, including Tiggys. Making fun of the "NAM" response is in many cases ridiculing people defending themselves against sexism.

I said it was completely appropriate to use NAM if someone says 'all men...'

The meme is not about that at all. I can't really explain it any clearer than I have but you have got the wrong end of the stick. You can't pretend this is about anything other than feminist debate because then it's out of context and obviously not applicable.

Ooh, thanks for the link. I've been struggling to articulate this. If I'd said to someone that I find it annoying then they could return with "Well, it's not all men" for which I'd have been stumped for an answer.

I like your middle class/ fish knife example.

Tiggy you keep on going on about your work colleagues.

Women who say "all men are bastards" etc. , are generally not feminists.

The links I've posted apply to feminist debate. Actual debate, not throwaway "all men are cheating bastards" "all men are liars" "men can't see dirt" comments by people who are not participating in a feminist debate and have possibly never done so.

You are focusing on something this thread isn't about.

Which is exactly what the phenomenon of "Not all men" is about.

From the first article you linked to again:

" A man is someone who interrupts a woman when she's in the middle of saying something.

What's that you say?...Not ALL men interrupt women?

Thanks for pointing that out. You're who this meme is about."

So that sexist generalisation is allowed because all is fair in feminist debates? Feminists can be sexist too.