Thehashtag#NotAllMen is afeministInternet meme.[1][2] A shortening of the phrase "not all men are like that" (sometimes abbreviatedNAMALT),[3][4] it is a satiricalparody of arguments used to deflect attention away from men[5] in discussions ofsexual assault, thegender pay gap,[6] and other feminist issues.
The phrase "not all men are like that" has been in use online since the mid-2000s as a general defense of men.[4]It was used as a catchphrase amongmen's rights activists (MRAs) in response to online discussions ofmisogyny or sexual abuse which they saw as blaming all men as perpetrators.[3]
Jess Zimmerman writes that before 2013, "not all men" was absent from discussions of popular derailment tactics used in response to feminist discourse; in its place were phrases such as"'what about the men?' and 'patriarchy hurts men too'—pleas for inclusion, not for exemption".[5]Zimmerman also highlights a use of the phrase dating to 1985 inJoanna Russ's novelOn Strike Against God,[5] where a character muses:
…that not all men make more money than all women, only most; that not all men are rapists, only some; that not all men are promiscuous killers, only some; that not all men control Congress, the Presidency, the police, the army, industry, agriculture, law, science, medicine, architecture, and local government, only some.[5][7]
Writing atThe Awl, John Herrman lists additional uses of the phrase as far back as 1863.[4][8]InCharles Dickens' 1836 novelThe Pickwick Papers, the character Miss Wardle says, "Men are such deceivers", to which another character replies, "They are, they are [...] but not all men."[9][non-primary source needed]
Kelsey McKinney writes atVox that the phrase "not all men" has been "reappropriated by feminists and turned into a meme meant to parody its pervasiveness and bad faith".[4]Both the phrase and hashtag "#NotAllMen" have been used as asatire of defensive reactions by men.[3]The first appearance of the meme in popular media was a satirical tweet byShafiqah Hudson in 2013 that quicklywent viral:[4]
ME: Men and boys are socially instructed to not listen to us. They are taught to interrupt us when we– RANDOM MAN: Excuse me. Not ALL men."[4][10]
The following year, the phrase was added to an image of theKool-Aid man crashing through a wall,[4][5]aTumblr page featured images in which aspeech bubble with the phrase "not all men" was added to images from movies such as the shark fromJaws and thechestburster fromAlien,[5]and artist Mattie Lubchansky created awebcomic with the character "Not-All-Man", in which the "defender of the defended" and "voice for the voiceful" breaks through a glass window to interrupt a pink-haired woman complaining about men.[5][11]The comic was retweeted andreblogged tens of thousands of times, and shared by celebrities includingWil Wheaton,Paul F. Tompkins,Matt Fraction, andJohn Scalzi.[5]
Other #NotAllMen-related memes include references toAquaman,Adventure Time, andMagic: The Gathering.[2]
A 2024 study published inHumanities and Social Sciences Communications analyzed comments on Reddit and Twitter and found a transformative use of the hashtag #NotAllMen, finding that there were women and men supporters of both perpetrators and victims of gender-based violence. Many men in social media call out sexism, violence and discrimination, a fact that many feminist women value because their aim is to join as many people as possible in the fight to end all gender violence.[12][non-primary source needed]
#NotAllMen was already a Twitter hashtag before the2014 Isla Vista killings, but it gained additional traction after the event, because of the hatred against women expressed by the killer.[13]In response to the "not all men" argument,[14][15][16] an anonymous Twitter user created the hashtag#YesAllWomen[17] to express that all women are affected by sexism andmisogyny.This newly created hashtag was used by women to share their experiences of sexual discrimination and attacks on social media.[18][2][19]
After reports of a massmolestation occurring at India'sBengaluru New Year's Eve celebration in 2017, #NotAllMen began trending on Twitter.This drew an angry reaction from women, with many Indian feminists and women strongly criticizing the hashtag while responding with their own hashtag #YesAllWomen.[20][21][22]
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