It's not all men, in the same way that not all racoons have rabies.

If you get bitten by a racoons, are you going to say "not all racoons", or are you going to get a rabies shot?

"Not all men, but enough that you need to treat it like it's all men" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

I was going to post this as a reply, but I decided to make it a top comment since it's more a comment about the post itself.

I am not gonna be the best at explaining myself, and I am feeling hurt from this so I am a bit emotional, but here goes.

I try my best to be an ally. I speak up when things aren't right or people are uncomfortable wherever I am. I haven't been in any real situations where I have had to physically intervene, but that's more because I am a homebody and I don't generally go to clubs or parties where I don't know anyone.

I do hurt from this, so I don't like how you assume I wouldn't. I don't believe I am in the group that is meant by "all men", because I have done the right thing in the past. However, that doesn't stop it from hurting.

What I interpret from the posted meme is that there is no room for discussion. All men are bad no matter what. I understand the point being made that any one random man has a greater than 50/50 chance to be bad and that the stakes are too high to take a chance.

What I understand from reading this post and it's conversation in general is that I need to continue being an ally, but that when I see anyone say "all men" I just need to shut up and accept it.

I'm not going to stop being an ally or doing the right thing just because it hurts, but I will stop talking about it since it just comes of as comparing traumas which I don't want to do or be seen as doing. I will say it does make me want to talk less about my feelings in general though.

I just wanted to put what I feel about this out there so I can let it go. I don't want or intend for anyone to think I am making this about me, or that men have it as bad as women in any way. Sorry for posting this I guess.

There are some boys who would step in, but they aren't likely to be at those sorts of parties to begin with.

Stuff like this disappointing. It is frustrating to feel that how I was born makes me something to be feared.

Are we better to live in a society where women fear all men? Is it even possible to change society in a way where even some men are considered "safe"?

When I was in my 20s, I worked in the nightclubs for a club crawl place. Some of the guys running the clubs had alleged (read: definitely had) criminal (drug cartel) connections.

One of the women I worked with was getting manhandled by the South American manager at one of the clubs. She did not want it at all, and was protesting. I was a skinny uni student, half his size. She looked at me and said, "[Zen], help!"

Now this guy terrified me. I knew he was connected and if he was willing to sexually assault a woman in public, in a club, what else was he willing to do? In addition, I had heard of guys being taken into the back rooms of the club and beaten. This was his club. They had control of the CCTV cameras. If anything happened, their narrative would be the winning narrative.

But I wasn't going to back down, because the poor woman needed help. I got in his face but tried to stay polite about it; "Listen, mate. I have a great amount of respect for you, but you can't be doing that okay?"

He was amused, and let her go. It was funny in hindsight, how much of a coward I was. Haha. Thank fuck. I was terrified. I can only imagine what she must have felt. These days I'm more willing to call out bad behaviour. The fear of being killed is primal and right there for me.

I did some self-reflecting. Why did I have to be asked to step in? Why did I not grab some other dudes to back myself up, "Hey guys, that guy is sexually assaulting that woman, let's go talk to him". If we want a decent society, we need to have the balls to call out bad behaviour.

As a Bi M I say yes=> all men.

And that's not me raising my hand going "I'm a piece of shit".

That's me choosing not to argue the point because=> I wouldn't want to diminish the point being made about the men that ARE pieces of shit. Which are quite a lot.

"Ooh check that out." "Did you get to sneak a look?" "I wouldn't mind some of that!"

All disgusting rhetoric I get to hear nearly daily.

Kinda feels like you've never been responsible for children before, and your scripted scene here isn't what you think it is. So many assumptions made to serve a nonconstructive point that doesn't really help anything except your ego. We all see this for what it is, you're not clever.

I wouldn't let my son or daughter hang out with a bunch of people I don't know, period. Maybe the men I grew up with weren't as rapey as you think, because one girl and several guys was a common thing you saw everyday. Even so, I would be as suspicious of my son hanging out with a bunch of girls, as I would my daughter with boys. What are other parent's going to make up in their heads, hankey-pankey, I can't tell if a girl is a positive or negative influence like I can tell in a guy. It just stands to reason there are so many simple explanations as to why your point is, other than men are rapists. Don't most male rapists rape other men anyway? Occams razor wept.

Looking forward to the hate.

The differences in material and social conditions per county really fuel these arguments. "All X are Y" can be completely accurate in one place and completely inaccurate in another, because toxic and non-toxic people self-segregate, especially when non-toxic men are victemized as well. I think these differences are encouraged by those in power to fuck with us even more, making our votes more controllable.

Traumatized people don't always have the right language to define the problem in a way that won't offend someone who's reasonable but ignorant. I think there's more responsibility involved when the statement is publicly on the internet, but it's hard for me to take "all men" personally when I know how abuse functions and how the problem existed before me.

I just feel sad at how ill equipped people are at having these discussions, but I suppose that's better than being constantly surprised by ideas ignored. I hope everyone reading this can be patient with those that need patience, while holding firm boundaries when needed.

The problem with any content like this is that it’s basically a scissor statement (or like “the dress”). It’s optimized for engagement through strategic ambiguity. (Not that the author necessarily consciously chose that, but platforms certainly encourage it.)

If you’re a woman looking at that, you resolve the ambiguity in favor of “this is talking about cultural forces that — though their exact nature is an accident of history — reliably act upon every single member of the culture who is socialized as a man”.

And if you’re a man looking at the same text, you resolve the ambiguity more like “this is taking a biologically essentialist view of social behavior that is actually entirely contingent on the individual, their history, their environment, and a dozen other variables”.

Both of those are fair opinions, whose opposing side is very difficult to defend. But they’re two entirely different conversations, and when you prime people to have one of those two conversations and then stick them in the same room, nothing productive will come of it.

So about this, and it took me a moment to wrap my head around this. I say this as a man. I agree with the “all men” sentiment. It doesn’t matter whether it’s truly all men, it’s enough that it might as well be all men. A woman walking on the street alone, her attitude that it’s all men will help her.

I know that the vast majority of men feel offended by this. I know I do, this message rubs me the wrong way. I don’t like that people make the statement. But that’s a failure of our collective society, not up to any one individual. I wish for a world where we don’t need this. I wish for a world where any person can walk out alone and feel safe.

Also this message isn’t about us. It’s about what women experience. If they feel unsafe this way, that is what needs to be fixed. This message should be a call to action, not a call to excuses.

Fact is, too many men are making women feel unsafe and it’s up to the rest of us to make clear this is unacceptable.

I was AMAB. I was still a boy when I was going through high school and college. I'd absolutely intervene if someone wasn't being treated right. I did back then. I'd let some hypothetical kid go to a party with all boys because either I know those kids or I'm going to be there with her.

I'm not saying all this for a congratulations, I don't give a rat's ass what y'all think of me. I just want boys to have voices out there in communities like ours saying "it's okay, you're welcome here too if you don't like what those redpilled losers are saying", because I wish I had it when I was young.

This is an excellent point

If you create hypotetical scenarios and arbitrarily decide how things go, with nothing to back it up, then yes.

will the other boys step in?

In my anecdotal experience, yes. So now is my word against yours, both of us unable to back it up.

You know posts like this annoy the hell out of me because people with this mindset put identity before character, and I really hate when that is somebody's list of priorities.

Before coming out as trans, people ditched me when I was mentally unwell. I'd done more than enough to prove the kind of character I have, but say one stupid blanket statement about women in a severe depressive episode, and people treat me as a dangerous man. This despite the fact that I've been open about how the women in my life to that point had either abused me, severely betrayed my trust, or both.

Then I come out as trans and suddenly now the full context of what happened then is understood by others? It's frustrating as hell and makes me feel extremely tokenised. Like wow guys, feels fantastic that I'm being judged by how I identify and not by the merit of my actions or the circumstances I've grown from.

A very important point about accountability and powerfully presented... but unfortunately the message is undermined by gotcha sophistry.

Not trying to hijack, trying to draw an analogy. This is precisely the same argument that draws the ACAB conclusion. And it is the same argument that reaches the conclusion of "No one is free until everyone is free". We all need to have the courage to call out those around us that are corrupt/predators/oppressors.

This kind of talk literally harms non-passing trans people and causes us to be excluded from LGBT spaces we should be welcome in.

Like I spent all of college desperately wanting queer friends and not being able to make any because people perceived me as a threat because I looked too masculine.

Not everyone misandry hurts is a man. But also, men are people and we shouldn't be hurting them.

The irony of a post with that specific brand of ragebait on x getting cross-posted to lemmy by yet another Miisha alt is so thick it borders on parody.

To throw a hat in the rhetorical ring:

All Men is to All Cops what All People is to All Rapists.

Men and People are inherited categories. They cannot be categories of choice. Cops and Rapists are, inescapably, categories of choice. The comparison of Men to Police seems apt at a glance but undermines itself by way of category error. Then it alienates via demonization the very demographic it is ostensibly meant to sway.

I doubt most good faith interpretation of the phrase anyway because it is so well crafted as a thought terminating cliche. Such rhetoric is rarely the product of dialogue or ideals focused on alliance, progress or solidarity.

A more useful rhetorical twist would be re-wording "If a Nazi is sitting at the table, and ten others are sitting there chatting with him, you have eleven Nazis at the table." into something like "Sexual abuse is common because we think of 'rapist' as an exclusive label. It isn't though. If one person abuses another at a party, and ten others notice or even suspect abuse but say nothing, then there were eleven rapists at the party". That's clunky but I'm not going to take the time to wordsmith it right now and I'm sure the point is clear enough.

There is a large number of men that stand by when something is happening, or are the perpetrators of violence. I think the reason that men are offended is because it also paints over the men who are trying to be allies. If transfolk started using the phrase "all cis" to describe who is inflicting violence, it would be overwhelming cis people causing violence towards them. It's factually correct. It also wouldn't help framing themselves as a culture war issue.

The issue isn't that its correct, it's the prevalent idea in online communities that "I ought to be right" without some sort of call to action or creation of community. If a person posting about any social issue, whether that be this or immigration rights, or black lives, is simply writing a post with no means for action behind it to simply drive home a point isn't benefitting their community, but stoking outrage to increase engagement on social media.

By using "all men" rhetoric, not only are you alienating men that are sympathetic for the cause, but you're actively driving away men that are teetering on the edge.

I understand how dire of an issue this is. If you really want to make change, stop posting culture war rhetoric and start promoting and volunteering locally. Start to make an actual change instead of getting random men angry online.

This is a straw-all-men argument. I am a man. I have routinely stood up for women at parties when other men are being a problem. I have called it out, cut offenders out of my social groups, given safe rides home, and made it clear I would not tolerate predatory behaviour. I believe a meaningful percentage of men would do the same.

it isnt all men bc they would or wouldnt do something. its all men bc if they chose to do something or avoid doing something as the post states, they wouldnt be held accountable in any meaningful way by anyone. they might get raise, promotions, whatever for such behavior more often than accountability.

the reason its not all women isnt bc women cant do bad things. the reason is who gets away with it or gets advantages for it

statements like these arent a competition of what gender or group can have the most bad people. its who society allows the most to be bad

ik it makes people feel attacked to hear such statements like "all men". but against a group that is advantaged by society, its hard for us minorities to really hurt them using these statements. and it makes us be wary and remember to be wary around men. again not bc all men are all bad, but because if they are, there's nothing to be done about it. all we can do in an oppressed society is remember to be wary

So we're just going to ignore the first fallacy where the father believes a party consisting entirely of girls is safe? It's a false assumption that absolutely should be challenged.

As a father who raised a boy to manhood I wouldn't accept the reverse scenario either, and not because I don't trust my Son but because I don't trust a herd of unrestrained girls.

As a parent, it would depend on if I know the parents and kids, not the sexes. Just saying...

So no, not always a man. Some girls can be pretty mean...

The advantage of the bear is predictability, but dead is dead.

If you were at a party with 20 girls and three of them start insulting the appearance of another would you step in? Exactly. All humans.

Very real conversation, very productive dialogue

Goddess bless you, Miisha <3