#notallwhatever

Last fall, I wrote a couple of posts on Nice Guy Syndrome and Gamergate.  Coincidentally (and as far as I can recall, it really was), this was roughly the same timeframe as the uproar in the media regarding sexual harassment and rape on college campuses, but apparently t'was the season for guys being really crappy to women (or at least, t'was the season for talking about it).  If only that problem went away when the media coverage did…

Anyways, out of that uproar was born (or at least gained in infamy/notoriety) #notallmen.  This hashtag was a way for caring, decent guys to demonstrate how caring and decent they were by blaming women for feeling harassed and then getting everyone’s attention to turn back to themselves, where it belongs, for being such caring, decent guys.

I’m trying to think of a way in which they could have missed the point any more thoroughly.  I just…it’s not coming.

No one would ever suggest that all men are creepy perverts.  That’s not a thing someone would say, and so #notallmen is utterly unnecessary.  It’s also not the opposite of #yesallwomen, because it doesn’t take all men being creeps for all women to be afraid of the ones who are, and of the fact that sometimes they’re really hard to tell apart.  In fact, the two are almost complementary.  (As much as I normally like homophones, because using the proper spelling makes me feel superior, I really wish that I could use “complimentary” there, because it would make for a terrible pun.  And I’d do it with no regrets.)

This seems just so obvious to me that I really, honestly struggle with understanding how others don’t get this.  I mean, obviously they do, and many of them are not stupid by any means.  I just… I can’t even.

This was driven home to me the other day by an incident on a message board I frequent.  (Which also drives home how fortunate I am to not see it more regularly, I suppose.)  A guy who, from his prior posts, seems like a generally decent guy mentioned that he likes to give women compliments.  I also have no reason to disbelieve him when he says that they’re meant sincerely, and with no expectation of anything other than brightening their day a little.

And yet, when informed that he might be making the recipients of the compliments uncomfortable, despite his good intentions, his response was to get defensive, note his caring and decency, and declaim on how lonely and isolated these women must be if they can’t even take a compliment in the spirit in which it was given.  Sound familiar?  (Also, I’m barely exaggerating here, unfortunately.)

I mean, I obviously shouldn’t be surprised that a few months of media attention wasn’t enough to wipe out the attitudes that are behind #notallmen.  That’s a ridiculous idea.  That doesn’t make it less jarring to see, though, especially from an unexpected source.

[glaring lack of segue]

Shortly after the Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and seeing many of the responses to that, I had the idea of coining a sardonic #notallwhitepeople hashtag.  However, a quick search of teh Interwebz showed that not only did it already exist (you can find just about anything on the internet if you look, which is why Rule 34 exists, I suppose), but it was being used seriously!  After the debacle that had been #notallmen, I was sure there would be no way that such a similar phrase would be used earnestly, but apparently I was wrong.

I was reminded of this a couple weeks ago after the accident incident (link) in Charleston.  On a few different articles, one of the very first comments, or responses to a comment, was a reminder not to tar all white people with this brush.  No real comment on the shootings, just a defense of decent white people.

So maybe this is really a PSA: If you, or someone you love, is considering using a hashtag of the same construction as the subject of this post, please just don’t.  Just don’t.

Because what do these things have in common?  One, they fail to address the issue entirely, and instead are focused on making sure someone else doesn’t overgeneralize and lump you in with the miscreants, even by the implicitness of not specifically excluding each and every person they should.  Second, they’re victim-blaming, pure and simple.  And third, they take the attention from whatever the issue actually is, and put it on you and your purity of moral spirit.

So the next time you feel tempted to jump into a conversation defensively and say something like “Hey, I’m not like that!” to a general statement, stop for a second.  Think.  Ask yourself, “Is this about me, or about the issue at hand?  Could what I’m about to say be accurately rewritten as #notall(whatever)?” 

And if so, then maybe, y’know, don’t.

Thanks.