Local woman convinced that misogyny is no longer a problem thanks to man shouting "Not All Men" every time she talks

That’s not how assumptions work though. You might be “pleasantly surprised”, then the guy realizes “wow, I super hated being treated like that just for being male” and wisely stays the fuck away.

But why have people I know given me a ton of flak for the actions of men that I've never met nor had the opportunity to try to correct the actions of, merely for having a penis? Like, sorry for not being a clairvoyant and not stopping something from happening to you before I met you.

I think the general mentality is that when a person makes broad, generalized statements about a group while members of that group, who have committed no offense themselves, are part of the audience for that statement, it's tough to not feel that as a personal attack for something they were born as and have no control over.

Don't get me wrong, the "#notallmen" gets overused (e.g. if a woman is talking about violence carried out against women by men, that is not a generalization of all men, that's just pointing at specifically the men that are violent toward women, and saying #notallmen is just derailing the conversation).

But having very reasonable feelings and bad experiences doesn't grant carte blanche to be shitty toward people who have committed no offense. If you're doing it in a close group of other women, then fine, whatever. But doing it in an audience with men (who have committed no offense) tells those men they have no place here, that they belong to the out group. We're not talking about violent men, or misogynistic men, we're talking about men, of which you are a part.

What I think other people have touched on is that in no other circumstance is it okay to generalize a group for things they were born as and can't change (in humans, anyway), except apparently men. And you may call it just letting people have their feelings, but letting that idea go leads to things like the Duluth Model, assuming any violence between a man and women must be the man's fault, and prevents men from coming forward about their own instances of domestic violence against them.

And don't think I don't understand the argument! Pit bulls can be some of the most loving, caring dogs, but they can also be monsters that could end you in seconds. Is it reasonable to by wary of a pit bull you don't know well? Absolutely! Is it a well-trained pit bull's fault that it is physically capable if mass murder? No, of course not, it can't help what it was born as. It just wants loves. So is it reasonable to say pit bulls are scary? Yes. Is it reasonable to say pit bulls are awful, vicious monsters? No. But the difference is, even if you do, the good pit bull doesn't understand that you are calling it a monster. Men do.

I understand this, but I also think it's not reasonable to expect people to always stay silent when someone's venting/feelings leads them to make broad, declarative statements about the badness/problems of a large heterogenous group.

Like, I know I have a lot of personal baggage from growing up in a household where my accomplishments were overlooked and every problem with myself or my actions magnified. The longest streak of doing well could be brought down with a single minor screw up. I know I'm far more sensitive to this sort of shit than the average person.

That said, there is a difference between all and most, or all and enough that it's a problem. I don't think it's wrong to insist that difference is important, or at the very least that the difference exists. Insisting upon that distinction does not need to be a dismissal of the very real issues, it can simply be an insistance that the distinction exists.

Just as we should allow people to have their feelings that x group is bad, shouldn't we also have some room to allow people to feel something when they've been lumped in with an amorphous blob of "badness" that they don't actually belong to?

If you want to argue that "the bad feelings men experience by being lumped in with the bad elements of men are less important than the danger to women from those bad elements" then I'd agree with you fucking 100%. Actual danger trumps feelings, no fucking questions asked.

My issue is that usually the argument is instead that "If your feelings are hurt because someone said all men are abusive, that means that you must be an abusive man upset that you were called out", "see, you saying not all men just means that I was right", or just mocking the true statement of "not all men".

Again, the distinction is important. This post is the first time I have ever seen someone suggest that the response to "not all men" is "enough men". Fucking hell I'm behind that response all the way. I'm not about doubling down on insisting all men are shit.

A lot of women will casually throw around "men are trash". So you need to listen better.