Not a single day goes by without the plaintive cry “not all men”

Really? You don’t say.

Get this , we know it isn’t the conscious act of most individual men.

It doesn’t have to be.

Heaven knows, you may even be one of those men actively spreading the message, telling other men to cease the endless rape, douchery, and general misogyny women face daily, from birth. Simply for being born female.

But if you just once, once , utter the caveat “not all men” you’ll only be proving that it’s, actually, all men.

Why?

I live in a rich, safe country. I’m white. I’m educated by Jesuits. I’ve done a man’s job, in man’s clothing, in a man’s environment. I’ve “slipped the surly bonds” of gender, made my own way.

I’m privileged.

I’ve also been assaulted. I’ve been called “cunt” , “bitch” and “man-thing” , been treated like up an unwelcome infiltrator in a secret club.

While “nice guys” stood by.

And sanctioned , thus accordingly , with the above mentioned , and worse.

It only takes the actions of one member of “man club” – one sanction on one woman, to make make the message to all loud and clear.

And ALL men benefit from this sanctioning of women, however detached from that sanction they may be.

It takes only one cat-call.

One abduction.

One mutilation.

One bullet in one cranium.

One stoning.

One flogging.

One divorce.

One rape.

Any one of these sanctions, these maims, on one woman, by one man, is a sanction, a maim, on all women.

And it isn’t happening once. These maims count in their millions.

For women. It IS “all men”.

Because all men benefit from the fear, the maim, the sanction, of “not all men”.

So of you ever find yourself uttering that cowardly, self pitying slap down – “not all men”- I’d suggest to you that by distancing yourself from your collective responsibility you are, in fact, tacitly , condoning these sanctions- these maims.

Hell. You may as well be applauding.

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