Not all Romans

[AskBasil]

The Romans built the first roads in Britain.

But not all Romans

The Vikings built ships which sailed as far as America.

Not all Vikings.

Rabbits are known for reproducing really quickly.

Not all Rabbits.

Etc. etc. I think I will add "not all" whenever anyone refers to anything ever, until people stop saying Not All Men as a first response to a class analysis of men's behaviour.

"Percentages have no relevance, if you seriously think that it's more reasonable for women to fear men than men to fear women simply because men are statistically more likely to harm women then you are seriously in the wrong."

How refreshing. So you'd advise a young woman who has been clubbing and drinking with a group of new friends and has the offer of staying the night with one of them, to make no distinction between whether she should choose one of the women or one of the men, to stay with?

And if she chose one of the men and then got raped, you would argue against all those rape apologists who say that she should have anticipated getting raped because that's what men* do after a night's drinking and clubbing and gone and stayed the night with one of the women instead? Because statistics are irrelevant and it's not helpful to generalise?

That's a refreshingly different view from an anti-feminist.

*Not All Men

I will add - this is a characteristic issue with MRAs and those who share their views.

They focus on an ever-narrower group of women - usually middle class, white, Western women - and point out they're doing ok, and sometimes better than men.

It's a diversionary tactic that allows them to ignore the big structural inequalities as if they don't matter. They do matter.

"...and we all know that every man is a violent serial killing rapist…"

Surely not all men?

I know it's not really relevant, and the thread has moved on massively - but the Normans didn't invade Britain, they invaded England. The UK did not exist in 1066.

(Sometimes my pedantry needs an outing...)

"Statistics DO matter, they just shouldn't be used as an excuse to hate on men and mock the people who point out that only a very small number of men are abusive in any way."

Actually it's perfectly valid to mock the people who point this out, because it isn't only a very small number of men who are abusive in any way, it is quite a significant sub-group of men.

1 in 4 women are raped or sexually assaulted. 1 in 4 are victims of ongoing domestic violence. Near enough 100% of women experience street harassment at least once at some point in their lives.

It's not all the same ten blokes that are doing all this harassment. Yes, we know that rapists, domestic abusers etc. are repeat offenders and chances are men who are abusive to women in the street are also the same sort of men who do it over and over again, but it isn't ten blokes going around in their ten vans is it?

For this many women to experience this much abuse, that means that actually, a very significant minority of men are abusive. Too many to argue that only a very small number are abusive.

"I know it's not really relevant, and the thread has moved on massively - but the Normans didn't invade Britain, they invaded England. The UK did not exist in 1066"

Not all Normans........

Ah yes the Normans invaded England.

Not all Normans.

Seagulls are becoming more and more aggressive and stealing people's sandwiches.

Not all seagulls. And not all people's sandwiches either. I had a sandwich the other day and there were no seagulls around, so it didn't get stolen.

You can't say seagulls are becoming more aggressive though, because they haven't got an organisation, heirarchy, decision-making mechanisms, employment, economy, stratas, government, etc. etc.

Or something.

Wasn't it a 100% of women who take the Metro have suffered harassment? They'd be loons to distrust men wouldn't they?

David Cameron is behind the seagull myth. Seagull hating tory.

We now have a company that states they are keen to promote men specifically. Is that fair? Of course it is not. So it cannot be fair to have a pro female promotion policy.

'Society' has had a policy that promotes and employs men over women since forever. Glad you agree it isn't fair. So...

LOL. Now I'm intrigued. What's the seagull, David Cameron connection?

In my experience:

Some feminists say men, and they mean some men.
Most misogynists say women are bad drivers, and they mean all women are bad drivers.

Oi!

You bunch of bigots.

The Normans had a crack at Wales too. I am shocked at your cymruphobia.

Agree with vesuvia.

Presumably your sandwich wasn't flaunting itself, or showing its delicious filling? Because otherwise there would have been seagulls aplenty, and it would have been the sandwiche's fault if it had been eaten

independent article here

He has a problem with "aggressive birds" sounds like something Larry would say

cadnowyllt wrote - "Some' is an excellent word too. So, you'd be able to say... Some Vikings built ships which sailed as far as America"

If some people prefer to change AskBasil's implied use of "some" in her Viking ships example into explicit use of "some", why bother making "some" explicit only for the makers of the ships but not for the ships themselves? I'm surprised that you (cadnowyllt) did not suggest the following more consistent version:
"Some Vikings built some ships which sailed as far as America".

(By the way, AskBasil, I should let you know that I was able to process your original example without any panicky feelings along the lines of "some vital instances of "some" are missing - cannot compute... cannot compute... cannot compute... cannot compute").

Are some people really expecting everyone in the world to start saying or writing "some" before every noun that isn't qualified already by completeness words such as "all" or "every"? I've not come across any popular call for this. Instead, what I do hear often is a growing insistence on having to qualify the apparently special case of "men" as "some men" or "not all men".

I think you'll find that's 'Some Vikings build some ships, some of which sailed as far as some parts of America, vesuvia.

White people love arguing and point scoring.

Anyone watching the cricket?

ffobiaCymraeg you mean jean?

If we go down that road, buffy, how dare we say 'as far as', which implies that Scandinavia is the natural point from which to begin measuring and locates America relative to it, in a shockingly colonializing fashion.

NAWPLC!

Thank you, jeff. I'm a half-Welsh woman who doesn't speak much Welsh.