Not all men

[AskBasil]

Interesting article here

'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.'

I agree with this very strongly.

Anyway, back to the subject. tiggy, I get that you're bothered about this - what do you want to do about it?

I went through a phase of jumping on AIBU/Chat threads with people saying 'lol, all men are arseholes aren't they?' and pointing out it was sexist and crap. I noticed you find this kind of humour funny. It may be you're joking, but, honestly, I didn't get it.

I don't see how you can make jokes about it, and also object?

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.

Language should be accurate. And that includes feminist debate.
When people jump in and say "not all men.." why is that necessarily thought of as a derailment?
Why not just accurately debate in the first place, then that problem wouldnt arise.

I'm sorry, I don't follow.

What's inaccurate about talking about men as a class?

Thanks.

I think I struggle with this one, because IME there are two main reasons why people respond 'but not all men' (though I'm sure they overlap at times). One is because people feel hurt or convinced it's important not to perpetuate an idea of every single last man being evil.

The other is because they have accepted the idea that one man is more important than women as a class (I'd call this the Rod Liddle viewpoint). These people may think they're being helpful or plain honest, but basically, they've taken on board the idea that, unquestionably, it's more important to be sure you never say anything bad about men, than it is to discuss women's oppression.

I think there are three differently-phrased classes of statement under consideration here:

"All men expect their wives to do all the cooking and cleaning" or "all men rape women" is demonstrably false, and chiming in with "not ALL men" is a perfectly valid response, even a feminist response.

"Men expect their wives to do all the cooking and cleaning" or "Men rape women" is more like AskBasil's fish knives example -- drawing attention to heavily gendered behaviour or characteristics. Now, personally I don't like using this phraseology (a) because I am a pedantic so-and-so and (b) because it's a very small step from there to excusing phrases like "Men just don't see dirt" or "Men need things explaining to them in simple terms". I'd be more likely to say "men as a class" or "men as a group" or even "as a generalisation, men" (I suppose the distinction with the fish knives example is that "the middle class" is only ever really used as a descriptor for a whole group of people, whereas "men" can be used for anything from 3.5 billion down to two). But I think it's a perfectly valid structure for a statement, and it's where the "NAM" the links talk about just gets silly and derailing.

And then there's the structure from the first link "A man expects his wife to do all the cooking and cleaning" or "A man is someone who rapes women" and I do feel uncomfortable with that "a man is" seems very close to an "all men are" structure with its suggestion that if you pick a man at random he will (not even "is more likely than not to") fit this stereotype. I think there's room for legitimately clarifying that the speaker doesn't mean "all men". But at the same time a good few of the people jumping in on this kind of statement would just be arseholes-- obsessive NAM-ers.

'Language should be accurate. And that includes feminist debate.
When people jump in and say "not all men.." why is that necessarily thought of as a derailment?
Why not just accurately debate in the first place, then that problem wouldnt arise.'

So by your argument, I now need to jump in and say:

1. You have said that 'people jump in and say...'
2. By your argument this is inaccurate.
3. Your argument says that language should be accurate.
4. You shouldn't say 'people' because then it may be assumed you meant all people.
5. If you mean all people you should say all people. If you mean some people you should say some people.

But of course you didn't bother to qualify it with some, because actually, saying people, women, children, fish, gay people etc when you only mean some of them is an entirely conventional way of conversing in English that most people understand. And you know that, which is why you wrote people not all people. It is only feminists that are called upon to use a higher standard of accuracy when talking about men. It isn't a general language rule at all.

It is a general language rule if you are ascribing negative / potentially negative characteristics to a group, though.

"gay men are promiscuous"
"women aren't physically strong enough to serve in the infantry"
"Scottish people have unhealthy diets"
"accountants are boring"

Try saying any of those online and I more-or-less guarantee you that someone will be along to hold you to a higher standard of accuracy, even though I think the first three are statistically justified on an "as a class" basis (I make no representation on accountants).

And the same to Tiggy:

'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?'

What, all people you have ever met? Literally every single person you have ever met makes sweeping negative statements?

Or maybe when you wrote 'people' you actually just meant some people.

Or maybe as the people you were talking about in this context were, by your words, all women you think it is okay to say about a group of women that they are 'people are allowed to make sweeping negative statements' because it is okay to make such a generalising remark about a group of women.

And in fact you then generalised it out further by speculating that the reason so many men leave your profession is because of the atmosphere, thereby implying that women that you don't even know are also doing this.

But it isn't okay to make generalising remarks about men, just other groups. Why is that again?

tortoise - but isn't the point of class analysis to explore the power relationships between classes? It's meaningless if that's not the aim.

I don't see how the statements you're making would be class analysis? Unless, I suppose, you were a conspiracy theorist who believes gay men are liable to seduce all decent straight males into submission or somesuch bonkersness.

I do get what you're saying, Buffy, but no one would get away with saying "A smoker is a person who gets lung cancer", even though the purpose of that generalisation isn't to insult people based on stereotype (and, of course, sometimes it is. And sometimes it's a bit unclear whether it is or not. And sometimes entire threads where someone's made a remark about smokers get derailed discussing the minutiae of phraseology, and some sort of goady fucker klaxon goes off and it all gets ridiculous -- see the recent Caroline Aherne threads, for example). So I really don't think it's just feminists who are expected to be precise.

I do think there's a difference in [standards to hold a member of a privileged class to when discussing a less privileged class] from [standards to hold a member of a less privileged class to when discussing a more privileged class]. But I would prefer to try to use the same structures in the two scenarios rather than (as a white heterosexual female) using a blanket "men" to discuss the whole of one gender while carefully qualifying anything I say about the LGBT community or BME groups or any other group who have less privilege than I do. Trying to be precise is, for me, a good mental habit to get into. I'm sure I don't manage it with great consistency, though.

I am not going to put this very well.

But it seems to me there's a major issue here with claiming 'accuracy' on one scale, and ignoring the elephant in the room.

Smokers (or anyone else) who get cancer are not comparable to men who rape women, are they? Surely?

There is actual, measureable violence caused by men and suffered by women. It's not just another example of a group situation we can make generalizations about.

This argument reminds me of others I've seen about slavery, when someone will insist that it's wrong to associate slavery with racism in any way, because 'some African countries practise slavery too!'.

Frankly, bollocks to what men think about this - what about the women who might peruse a feminist article, chance upon A man expects his wife to do all the cooking and cleaning, and think, 'How hypocritical - feminism does not appear to speak for me'.

Well, of course they aren't comparable.

But almondcakes said "It is only feminists that are called upon to use a higher standard of accuracy when talking about men. It isn't a general language rule at all" and I don't think that's right -- I think it is a general language rule when you are saying something potentially negative. That's all. It doesn't mean that I am equating any of the groups or any of the negative consequences.

I think that there is a general rule in English (British English, anyway) that if you make any statement of the form "[group of people] are or do [something negative]" people will object and say "that doesn't apply to all members of that group". That doesn't mean that all groups that you could slot into that statement template are comparable. It doesn't mean that all negative qualities or behaviours that you could slot into that statement template are comparable.

It could be toddlers having daily tantrums or teenagers being self-centred or old people tutting on buses or truck drivers being hairy handed or men raping or politicians being corrupt or members of the Nazi party being complicit in genocide (even then someone will be along to reference Oskar Schindler and discuss the socioeconomic implications of not joining the Nazi party at the time).

This doesn't mean (I hoped that would have been obvious) that I think teenagers being self-centred is comparable to men raping women or to the Nazi holocaust -- it's just an observation that WHATEVER the context of your sweeping "[group] does [bad thing]" statement, from the trivial through to the incredibly serious, someone WILL come along and pick you up on it. So it's not just feminists who run into this. That's all.

I do think that the validity of the objections to the generalisations, and how much we'd classify them into "nitpicking and derailing" versus "probably a valid point" will vary according to what the group is and what the negative thing is. But I'm not really trying to get into that, just arguing with the (IMO untrue) assertion that it's ONLY feminist discourse where the "not all [whatever]" happens. If it weren't for "how very dare you generalise about [group]?" posts on every subject under the sun Mumsnet would have about half the traffic it currently has, to begin with...

I said that in the context of a set of statements about a pervious poster's beliefs. It is true within the context of her logic. It isn't something I believe.

What I do believe is that there isn't one consistent rule about language use and negativity. Depending on the context and intent, it is sometimes acceptable to say that the French caused problems in Algeria, the Nazis caused the Holocaust and that men are violent to women, and sometimes it is not.

What matters is not really the exact grammar of all gay men, some gay men, gay men or gay men as as class, but why, in what context and for what purpose the remark is being made. The same is true for all other groups. A lot of the time, people who say 'not all men' are not really quibbling over the grammar, they are unhappy that anything negative is being said about men, no matter how it is framed or for what purpose.

But honestly, kim, you cannot think that - as classes in society - teenagers, pensioners or Christians rank with men?

We do not live in a society that is predicated on oppression of or by teenagers, pensioners or Christians.

If we lived in England in the eleventh century, and you said 'Christians persecute Jews,' it might be different, because that was deeply rooted structural oppression. But right now, no, not so much.

Class analysis was designed to talk about structures of power in society. If we're going to be 'accurate' we should be comparing like with like.

Cross post.

'Making a blanket statement (where you really mean "most") is going to upset people and distract from the main discussion. You see that on here and other forums loads of times.'

See, this is what gets me. Sorry, kim, I'm not having a go at you, but your comment sums it up.

'People' do not in fact all get upset by blanket statements of this kind.

I'm a person.

I'm not upset.

I am upset when we're saying important statements about the way classes of people act should not be made, because 'people' (excluding me as a person) would be upset.

I dont see why feminists cant just be correct, not roughly correct.