I’m sat here in my Hackney flat at half past midnight, legs tucked under me on the rug. Cherry vape in one hand, the other scrolling through yet another comment section that’s somehow managed to make me want to throw my phone at the wall. The flat white I made three hours ago is stone cold on the coffee table. And all I can think is: ‘here we fucking go again’.’
Three little words that somehow manage to suck the oxygen out of every single conversation about misogyny, violence, harassment, emotional labour, the pleasure gap, street harassment, workplace bullshit, dating apps, literally anything that involves men being held even slightly accountable.
We know.
We’ve always known.
It’s the most boring, predictable, exhausted defence in human history and I am so fucking done with it.
Let me paint you the picture, because it happens every single time.
I post a thread about how women are still doing the lion’s share of emotional labour. Or how the orgasm gap is still a thing in 2026. Or how some Tory prick said something disgusting about women’s bodies. Or how yet another woman got followed home at night. Doesn’t matter what the actual point is. Within minutes, sometimes seconds, some bloke slides into the replies with the same tired script:
“Not all men though.”
Or the slightly more evolved version: “I’m not like that.”
Or my personal favourite: “As a man, I find this offensive.”
Offensive? Mate, try living it.
I actually laughed out loud the other night when some guy I’ve never met replied to a post about street harassment with “Not all men are like that, some of us are decent.” I replied with one word: “Cool. Prove it.” He blocked me. Shocking.
The thing is, we’re not saying every single man on the planet is a monster. We’re saying the system is set up so that enough of them get away with enough shit that it becomes our problem every single day. And instead of engaging with that reality, they want us to pause the entire conversation so we can stroke their fragile little egos and reassure them they’re one of the good ones.
No.
We’re not doing that anymore.
I first clocked this defence properly when I was about nineteen, still living back in Basildon, working some dead-end bar job while trying to scrape together enough to move to London. One of the regulars, nice enough bloke on the surface, married, two kids, used to lean over the bar and tell me how much he “respected women.” Then one night after closing he cornered me in the car park and tried it on. Hand on my waist. Breath smelling of lager. The whole “you’re too pretty to be single” routine.
When I told the story in the group chat with my mates the next day, one of the lads piped up: “Not all men are like that though, Em. I’d never do that.”
I was proper raging. “Yeah? Then why are you more bothered about defending your gender than the fact your mate’s mate just made me feel unsafe walking to my car?”
That’s the move. Every time. Shift the focus. Make it about them. Make the conversation about their feelings instead of our lived reality.
It’s emotional labour in reply form.
And it’s not just random blokes on the internet. It’s everywhere.
Politicians do it. Media pundits do it. Your nice lefty colleague who shares all the right memes does it. Even some of the men in The Coven’s DMs do it, which proper winds me up because they should know better.
I remember interviewing a male MP once for a piece on violence against women. I laid out the stats — two women a week killed by partners or ex-partners in the UK, the endless reports of harassment, the way the system still treats women like they’re exaggerating. His response? “But not all men are violent, Emma. Most of us are decent.”
I nearly threw my notebook at him.
Of course not all men are violent. We know that. What we’re saying is that the ones who are get protected by a culture that refuses to name the pattern. That tells women to be quieter, to smile more, to not make a fuss, to give the benefit of the doubt. That centres men’s discomfort at the mere suggestion that their gender might have a problem.
“Not all men” is the verbal equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and shouting “la la la I can’t hear you” while women are literally dying.
It’s boring because it’s lazy. It’s boring because it’s been the same script for decades. It’s boring because it never, ever moves the conversation forward. It just stalls it so the man in question can feel better about himself without having to do any actual work.
Let’s talk numbers, because the stats make the “not all men” defence look even more ridiculous.
The majority of domestic abuse is committed by men. The majority of sexual violence is committed by men. The majority of mass shootings, violent crime, online harassment campaigns against women, men. Not all of them. But enough of them that it’s a pattern, not a coincidence.
And every time we point that out, some bloke pops up to say “but what about female abusers?” or “not all men!” like he’s discovered some devastating gotcha.
We know not all men. We live with men. We love men. We’ve raised men. We work with men. Some of our best mates are men. That’s not the point.
The point is that when women say “men do this,” we’re talking about a group behaviour enabled by patriarchy. Not a personal attack on every single individual with a penis. But the second we name it, the defensive reflex kicks in because acknowledging the pattern would mean having to do something about it.
And doing something about it is hard. It means looking at your mates who make rape jokes. It means calling out your uncle at Christmas. It means actually listening when your girlfriend says she doesn’t feel safe walking home alone. It means doing the emotional labour for once instead of expecting us to carry it.
Much easier to just say “not all men” and go back to scrolling.
I get it from my own family too.
My brother, sound lad, wouldn’t hurt a fly, still does it. Every time I post something about toxic masculinity he’ll message me privately: “Sis, you know I’m not like that, right?”
I love him. I do. But one day I snapped and replied: “Mate, if the only thing you take from my work is that you personally are fine, then you’ve completely missed the point. The system is still broken even if you’re one of the decent ones.”
He went quiet after that. Good. Let him sit with it.
Because here’s the thing that really grinds my gears. “Not all men” doesn’t just derail the conversation. It forces women to do even more emotional labour. We have to reassure them. Soothe them. Prove that we’re not man-haters. Explain, yet again, that we’re talking about patriarchy, not them personally. All while we’re still dealing with the actual problem.
It’s exhausting.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been in the middle of explaining something real, street harassment, the way men dominate meetings, the constant low-level fear a lot of us carry, only for some bloke to jump in with “not all men” and suddenly the whole thread becomes about his feelings.
Meanwhile women are in the replies going “we know, we know, we know” like a Greek chorus of the chronically pissed off.
And don’t even get me started on the dating version.
You match with someone on an app. You have one decent conversation. Then you mention in passing that you’re wary of men because of past experiences. Boom. “Not all men, babe. I’m one of the good ones.”
Translation: please centre my ego before we’ve even met.
I went on a date last year with a guy who seemed promising. Lefty, read books, worked in the arts. Halfway through dinner I mentioned something about the pleasure gap and he actually said, with a straight face, “Well not all men are bad in bed.”
I nearly choked on my wine.
The audacity. The absolute cheek.
I paid for my own food and left early. Life’s too short.
The “not all men” defence is also a brilliant way for men to avoid any collective responsibility.
Patriarchy isn’t just a few bad apples. It’s the whole orchard. It’s the soil. It’s the way we raise boys to not cry, to not talk about feelings, to see women as either madonnas or whores or objects. It’s the culture that still treats male violence as individual aberration instead of a predictable outcome of how we socialise half the population.
Saying “not all men” lets the decent ones off the hook without ever asking them to actually challenge the ones who aren’t.
It’s the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card.
And we’re expected to applaud them for it. “Oh thank you for not being a rapist, here’s a cookie.”
No.
The bare minimum isn’t enough anymore. We need men who are actively anti-patriarchal. Men who call out their mates. Men who do the emotional labour without being asked. Men who shut the fuck up when women are talking about our experiences and actually listen instead of preparing their defence.
That’s not “not all men.” That’s “some men are trying.” And right now there aren’t nearly enough of them.
Look, I’m not a man-hater. I never have been.
I dislike them at the moment, sure. And don’t any near me. I’ve dated men I adored. I’ve got male mates I’d trust with my life. I still believe most people, men included, are fundamentally decent when the system isn’t twisting them.
But the system is twisting them. And every time we let “not all men” shut down the conversation, we’re letting the system win.
I want better for the men in my life. I want them to be free of the toxic masculinity that tells them emotions are weakness and dominance is strength. I want them to have relationships where they’re not expected to be emotional support voids. I want them to be able to cry without shame and ask for help without feeling like failures.
But that only happens when we stop protecting the pattern and start dismantling it.
So next time you feel the urge to say “not all men,” try something different.
Try: “You’re right, that’s fucked. What can I do?”
Try listening.
Try sitting with the discomfort instead of rushing to defend yourself.
Try being one of the men who actually makes the “not all men” statement true instead of using it as a shield.
Because we know not all men.
We’re just waiting for more of you to prove it.
I’m done with the boring defence.
I’m done with the emotional labour of reassuring men that we don’t hate them while we’re still getting harassed, still carrying the mental load, still faking it in bed, still smiling through the microaggressions.
We know not all men.
Now do something that makes that statement worth saying.
Drop your thoughts in the comments, babes. The good, the bad, the defensive, I read them all. And if you’re a man reading this and feeling attacked, good. Sit with that feeling. It’s the first step.
The revolution doesn’t need more defenders of the status quo.
It needs men who are willing to do the work.
Emma x
