As soon as women talk on social media about what men do to them, the #NotAllMen brigade comes charging in to re-centre men as victims, get the focus back to the ‘good guys’ and distract us from the stark realities. Interjections obviously vary, but they usually fall into one of two sentiments:
“You hate all men”, or
“Not this guy. I love my wife and take her breakfast in bed every morning.”
In case any “NotAll-ers are reading this, — Guys, we know it’s not all of you. Many of us have spouses who manage to behave like human beings (most of the time). How many times do we have to say this? But how many times do we also have to tell you that until you come up with a profile, an ID kit that we can keep in our back pockets, we don’t know who it will be? In the UK, Sarah Everad’s rapist and murderer has just pleaded guilty. He meticulously planned the whole thing days beforehand. Any woman would do for the purpose though, and poor Sarah was literally in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The guy?
He was a cop.
See what I mean about not knowing who it will be?
In more common incidents, like sexual harassment or assault, it can be a pillar of the community, a family man or a ‘well-respected’ boss. We don’t see them coming because like I said, there’s no profile. These ‘unlikely’ offenders rely on their positions to deny any allegations, usually winning the support of friends, family and colleagues. Currently, there are several allegations of sexual misconduct leveled at Members of Parliament in the UK, and The Observer newspaper obtained information revealing a total of 594 complaints against Metropolitan Police employees between 2012 and 2018, of which 119 were upheld.
Despite overwhelming proof that women are right to feel vulnerable, the fact that “NotAllMen” comes up as soon as you start an internet search, illustrates how often it is deployed.
Guys — think about the message –
- How dare you lump us all together? #NotAllMen behave like this.
- Let me give you examples and demand that you change your tune.
- In the meantime I’m no longer meeting with women on my own because you’ll just accuse me of behaving inappropriately.
Quick reminder — A 2019 survey by LeanIn.Org and SurveyMonkey found that 60% of male managers in the USA and 40% in the UK said they were uncomfortable working with women, including mentoring, working one-on-one or socialising
What #NotAll-ers are doing is lumping all women together as false accusers, while simultaneously shouting and screaming that women are lumping all men together as abusers and sexists. Not a single report or statistic bears this out either. While several recent studies report high percentages of women having been the victim of sexual harassment or abuse, there’s nothing to show that more than about five per cent of all rape allegations are false, and it’s usually far less.
Even then, that number doesn’t paint the whole picture because it often includes cases that are dropped for lack of evidence (which doesn’t mean they didn’t happen), recanted accusations (for a variety of reasons), and biased handling of the case to begin with. In fact, this Channel 4 Fact Check investigation in the UK reported that men are two hundred and thirty times more likely to be raped than to be falsely accused of rape.
Additionally, the report stated that
“Overall, in the CPS’ (Crown Prosecution Services) view, false allegations of rape are “serious but rare”. They estimate that there is one prosecution for a false rape claim out of every 161 rape cases prosecuted. That means — according to the best available data — false allegations make up 0.62 per cent of all rape cases.”
And that’s just “rape cases prosecuted”. As we know, many rapes are never reported at all, and of the rapes that are, an ever-decreasing number end in a prosecution or conviction.
In reporting these statistics, no one is saying that false accusations aren’t a big deal just because they’re rare. False accusations can ruin careers and lives, and where there’s proof, anyone doing this should be prosecuted themselves. Despite them not happening very often though, if you hop onto any social media platform, you’d be forgiven for thinking they’re an everyday occurrence.They aren’t, yet women are paying the price as if they were; shut out of after-work social events where relationships and deals are often made, missing out on mentoring opportunities with bosses (most of whom are male), and motives still silently questioned if they do allege anything.
So here’s a reminder that it’s #NotAllWomen. Despite the number of times it’s raised in discussions, the false accusation scare is negligible. While I’m resigned to seeing #NotAllMen trotted out to silence and dismiss women, what I’d really like are a few more glimpses of #NotAllWomen.Because it’s the truth.
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
***
You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project
 |
 |
 |
 |
