Not all men

[AskBasil]

Interesting article here

This thread has been enlightening: I've been wondering a bit about 'not all men' recently as I've come across it in other discussions.

I summarise my new understanding by saying 'not all men'
a) doesn't add anything to the discussion except making some men feel better
b) allows (most?) men to believe it's not their problem, as obviously they disagree with the horrible sexist men
c) leads to discussions of semantics and language, rather than any insight into the problem being discussed

Also wanted to say that I'd love to see a #NotInMyName campaign run for and by men!

I was on Tumblr yesterday and a gif of Jack Nicholson bursting through the door in the Shining appeared on my dash. He was shouting, 'not all men.' Today I've read the stranger hit DD on the bus thread on here. There are various posters saying, but not all old men behave in XYZ way on buses, only some men, so this man must have not been one of the some men who hit females group, and must have had a good reason for hitting her, while also making assumptions that women exaggerate, lie, make things up, 'snivel' when hit etc.

I think we have a serious problem, which I might not have seen had I not read this thread first. It is a very short step in people's heads it would seem from 'not all men' to a man who hit a girl is probably justified because most men don't so odds are he didn't, even upon being told in the First post he did.

..

Patrick Stewart on the Amnesty Ring the Bell campaign have some tissues handy. And go on, men, sign up!

WTAF is that?!?!

Sorry, I thought it was hilarious. I've also seen one with the clown from IT popping out of a gutter to say "not all men" too.

My favorite is the koolaid man one though, but that might not make much sense to British Mners.

May I share my learning curve about class context?

I'm probably? one of the oldest on this forum i.e. in my 70s. Often in AIBU or Chat I come across the intergenerational argument. Younger women in their 20s, 30s, 40s getting really cross about entitled pensioners who get free bus passes and free this and that and who don't understand how much harder life is for young people e.g. can't get on the housing ladder, being left with debt after uni etc. And they (understandably) moan like buggery about the baby boomer generation being the most selfish of the lot and generally that pensioners are the pits.

Im a bit too old for the baby boom generation as I was born in the war but I found myself getting really riled on a personal level and admittedly once pointed out that life wasn't all roses for us growing up. Apart from little things like a potential nuclear holocaust and rationing, only 10 per cent of us ever got the chance to go to uni because that is all the places there were, I worked full time without any luxury of maternity leave, there was no equal pay, no female right to a mortgage or loan without a male guarantor blah blah and it was my "entitled" generation that fought for maternity leave, equal pay etc.Furthermore I have no bus pass and wouldn't know how to apply for one, my fuel allowance goes to charity etc etc. - not to mention the tens of thousands of pounds we have given the adult DCs to help them get by in their difficult times.

So not NAMALT but definitely NAPALT.Boy was I ranting at being swept up in such a generalisation and stereotype.

Then I realised they were doing the equivalent of class analysis but on older people and took a step back.

So 1) I really understand how some men feel when they are swept up in class analysis but
2) After one explosion I got over myself, shrugged and let it go.

So, if it was not so hard to do, why is it so hard for some men?

There is a horse and a girl/woman in that picture.

They are definitely not all men. Is that it?

I know the thread's moved on a bit, but go back to women in sport for a moment, in 1931 women were declared too delicate to play baseball, days after Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were struck out by 17yo Jackie Mitchell

Nail on head, Kim - FWR is not the place to make that point. Forty pages has hammered that home to me, and I speak as a member of the overarching oppressive class.

Check out my link. If Patrick Stewart can talk publicly like that........

That's true Kim.

But they are far less likely to be subjected to it than women are, simply because other men accept their humanity.

Hence the reason Jonathan Liew can write that article in the Telegraph without being subjected to a torrent of abuse.

Yes has Patrick Stewart been subjected to death threats?

He probably has, but not as many as say, Mary Beard, who didn't even speak up against male violence, she just made a few programmes about Romans while not going out of her way to adjust her appearance to make it look as though she was trying to give her male viewers boners and thus remind them that that's what they're entitled to - women taking the trouble to appear pleasing to them. Thinking you're entitled to go on the telly looking like you, is quite enough to get you death threats if you're a woman.