#NotAllMen Is More Than Just Needless Defensiveness
By: Elle Beau
Tags: Rape, Patriarchy, Equality, Men, Essay

So, in light of an androcentric culture that teaches boys that they are the top of the dominance hierarchy, or at least higher up than girls, and that also teaches them that girls and women exist to please and care for them, when a woman or women try to turn attention to their own needs and priorities, it feels like something isn’t quite right. Of course, all of this is happening on a subconscious level (where 98% of our thought takes place) and not every single man has embraced this programming in the same way. In fact, many have rejected it entirely, but ask any woman who has been taken to task by a man for being too openly outspoken about things that harm women, and she’ll tell you that this is exactly what is taking place.

He doesn’t like what she’s saying, because it’s not focused on his needs, where her attention “belongs” and more than that, he’s just doing what his societal programming has taught him is correct, and she’s complaining that she doesn’t like it because it’s hurt her. To the kind of man who feels the need to say #NotAllMen when a woman talks about the high rate of sexual violence against women, it’s pretty likely that unconscious misogyny is in play.

Every single woman I know who writes about this kind of thing has had multiple experiences with a man or men trying to hijack their story with one of their own. Meanwhile, no reasonable person is saying that all men perpetrate these harms against women, and no reasonable person is saying that they don’t care about the bad things that happen to men. They just want their own concerns, and those of their sisters to be heard and taken seriously, and for that to be the focus of that particular conversation. But to some guys, that just feels all wrong, even if they can’t truly articulate why.

To its agents, misogyny need not have any distinctive “feel” or phenomenology from the inside. If it feels like anything at all, it will tend to be righteous: like standing up for oneself or for morality, or — often combining the two — for the “little guy.” It often feels to those in its grip like a moral crusade, not a witch hunt. And it may pursue its its targets not in the spirit of hating women but, rather, of loving justice. It can also be a purely structural phenomenon, instantiated via norms, practices, institutions, and other social structures. Her humanity may hence be held to be owed to other human beings, and her value contingent on her giving moral goods to them: life, love, pleasure, nurture, sustenance, and comfort, being some such. This helps to explain why she is often understood perfectly well to have a mind of her own, yet punished in brutal and inhumane ways when that mind appears to be oriented to the wrong things, in the wrong ways, to the wrong people — including herself and other women. Manne, Kate. Down Girl (pp. 22–23). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

This is exactly how these guys come across — as if they were only pursuing what is right and moral — and how dare some woman complain about the society that he has bought into and upholds because that’s not what she’s supposed to be thinking about. The overwhelming sense I get from men like these is that they are seeking to rein me in and put me back in my place, as if their policing efforts are needed to put the world back into the order that subconsciously makes sense to them.

Misogynists may not expect women to be overtly submissive, but it is anticipated that they will be “cool” girlfriends, loving wives, devoted moms, loyal secretaries, and good waitresses, etc. The emotional labor and care-giving that are a part of so many women’s daily experiences, both in the family and in the larger community, is unremarked upon unless a woman is notably resisting these functions. Speaking up about the things that women face at the hands of men is seen as just such a resistance. Misogyny is the hostilities that arise in the face of that resistance, which may be intended to punish, dominate, or condemn the women who are perceived as a threat to the status quo. They’re rocking the dominance hierarchy boat.

Even though I’ve experienced this first hand more times than I can name, it’s taken me a long time to really understand this dynamic for what it is. What looks like fragility is actually misogyny. Hey, you aren’t playing by the rules. Get back in line! Misogynists don’t hate women in a broad sense. In fact, they may truly love their mothers, wives, girlfriends, sisters, and female friends as long as they maintain their perceived place in the social structure. Being too outspoken or too independent is one of the violations of this tacit social contract. And for this, one woman may be made to pay for the sins of others who are similar.

Anything that distracts from the male-centered culture is seen as aberrant and in need of correction. Sociologist, Allan G. Johnson says, “People often confuse men as individuals with men as a dominant and privileged category of people and that [given the] reality of women’s oppression, male privilege, and men’s enforcement of both, it’s hardly surprising that every woman should have moments where she resents or even hates men.”

But even when women aren’t expressing resentment or disgust with men as a category, and are just trying to draw attention to the extremely high numbers of women who have experienced things like sexual violence, the men who do perpetrate it, and the society that often turns a blind eye to it, some guys just have to say #NotAllMen. Because that’s where they think we all should be focused — on the society that is built around men and their needs. But maybe they’re just being defensive, you might say. About what? If no-one is alleging all men, then why do they need to keep redirecting the focus away from the victims in order to make clear that most men are not doing this kind of stuff, even though most women have experienced it? We all already know that.

Because patriarchal dominance hierarchy, that’s why! It’s the same reason that some white people get so upset with blacks talking about racism. The top of the dominance hierarchy is white and male, and everyone else should be serving and taking care of them. This is why a black woman who is upset is seen as being particularly out of line. She’s not acting as she should on two counts. Until 50 years ago, this was overwhelmingly how our society was structured, so it’s really not all that surprising that it feels wrong, and like an actual loss of rights, to some people.