"Not all men"

[RareGoalsVerge]

I got a video short in my social media feed which I thought was worth sharing:

• Today I heard a:man explain to his friend why "not all men" is wrong. And what he said was 'the first thing you learn in gun safety is to treat every single gun as if it's loaded, even if you think it's probably not, for everyone's safety. - and that is how women have learned to treat men.

I think this link will take you to the video in the "reels" section of facebook if you want to share it in video form. This is not an endorsement of everything this "influencer" thinks/posts.

It's one of the fundamentals of safeguarding.

To extend the metaphor a little...

• if you know anything about gun safety this doesn't mean "be terrified and hide/run away" it means "ensure this situation is under control. Check the safety catch, empty the ammo and check the chamber" - ie you aren't living in fear, you are taking sensible precautions.
• it is not reasonable for us to be told "... but this particular subcategory of gun, you must always assume is and treat as if it is unloaded unless you have irrefutable evidence otherwise."

Someone made the comment on the threads about sex is not binary it’s complicated and only those with phds understand that we do not have arguments about disabled and elderly men not being as much of a “risk” as younger men.

once you complicate safeguarding, or adjust the boundaries here and there, safeguarding is no longer effective. As predators seek out those loopholes.

I would disagree… as someone who has been involved in safeguarding for decades and is still actively involved…

safeguarding is about patterns / intent / habits / behaviours etc…

to codify that down to assume that all men are a risk is a shorthand that creates issues:

• not all men are a risk, so it demonises the innocent
• some women can be a risk - this approach can suggest they are not and lower barriers in those instances - diluting good safeguarding approaches and missing opportunities to prevent harm
• it creates issues with men who work in early-years (eg nurseries - “I am not having a man change my child’s nappy”)
• It creates issues with men working in education (esp. the primary sector) despite a bed for more men to teach in that sector
• It breaks apart society

ultimately any generic stereotype is a lazy approach which tends to bring negatives…

yes - more sexual and safeguarding harm is done by men than women… but that is not all men and it can be some women…

stick with good safeguarding practices and the sex of the person becomes irrelevant - with good safeguarding you should reduce issues from either sex and free up both sexes to play nurturing roles in society…

safeguarding is not ‘man = bad / woman = good’ it is a lot more refined than that…

But we'll never know WHICH men!!

As a man, I do not mind being "demonised" in this way. Clear boundaries can be justified, even if this makes some men feel demonised.

As a woman, I agree it's lazy stereotyping although it depends on the context.

Walk home through a dark deserted area at night? No because any man could be a danger.

Let a vetted male nursery worker change my daughters nappy? Yes. Because not all men....

(Although...Vanessa George...)

it depends on the wider context doesn’t it.

There are some very hard and fast rules that you simply don’t bend. No men in women’s spaces is a clear illustration of the OP’s point.

Yes - but that wasn’t the point to which I was responding…

If you look back at my posts on here you will see that I am a) male and b) a strong advocate for the point you make…

my post above though was in answer to this being a safeguarding principle which it is not… and there is a difference between:

• all men are dangerous and that is how we run safeguarding - which as I note has huge consequential issues for places where men are needed (eg primary schools) but on that principle will be threatened and pushed away…
• your valid point of no men in women’s spaces which stands on its own as a principle - it is not that all men are evil but that there is no need for a man to be in a women’s space whether evil or not - i.e. the two are linked but not fully correlated…

If all men were perfect, innocuous and laden with chocolate and champagne - there would still be no need for men in women’s spaces. The principle of women only stands on the needs of women - not the deficits of some / all men…