Sometimes people (usually women, but sometimes other men) generalise men in a very negative way online, and sometimes those generalisations are so inaccurate and so ridiculous that us blokes may reply with “not all men”.

But in recent years, there’s been an increase of “ugh if you say not all men then you’re part of the problem”, usually from younger people. And I’d say this is maybe groupthink/hive minds coming into play here, as well as the fact that a lot of the younger generation lets social media form their opinions for them.

When people generalise men collectively as murderers, rapists etc, that’s utterly ridiculous. Most blokes would never commit such monsterous acts. And there’s the ‘we know it’s not all men, but how do we know which ones?’ This is the same logic racists use when talking about Muslim terrorists- I bet most of these people generalising men as being all criminals would quite rightly be extremely angry if they saw somebody generalizing Muslims as a collective as being terrorists (“we know it’s not *all Muslims but it’s enough”- so easy to hear the issue with that sentence so why not when men are the group at hand?)

It’s ironic because these tend to be people who talk about mental health and encourage men to open up about their feelings; implying that everybody hurts and that there’s nothing wrong with being fragile. But then when us men do open about our feelings, such as our feelings on these vile generalizations, the typical reaction is along the lines of “boo-hoo, men’s feelings are hurt” and insulting men for having “fragile masculinity “, even if they were encouraging men to open up about their struggles and fragilities. It’s very ironic- no wonder male suicide is so common.

There’s also the mindset that if you stand up for men’s issues, it automatically makes you a right-wing bigot. I’m disabled… why on earth would I be right-wing? If anything I’m centre-left; I feel like both sides have become so radical in recent years and trying to pit different sections of humanity against each other- why can’t we all just get on; social media doesn’t help here at all.

It baffles me even more when it’s fellow men hating on their own gender. Since when did simply stating that it’s not all men become a problematic phrase? People really have the audacity to compare it to racists using the ‘All Lives Matter’ phrase?