He Said, She Said: 'Why saying "not all men" is a cop-out'

There's a phrase that grinds my gears. If women are trying to discuss feeling unsafe or sexual harassment, the inevitable rebuttal from blokes online is "not all men".

I tweeted about feeling unsafe walking my dogs at night. I never have my ear pods in and I'm very aware of my surroundings after dark, because I'm scared of being attacked by a man.

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I was bombarded with men using #NotAllMen — and I felt it negated my experience and the experience of other women.

2GB Breakfast host Ben Fordham disagreed with me.

"Well, that's because not all men want to feel like people are thinking they're the type of people that are going to go around robbing and assaulting people at night," he said.

I understand that. I wasn't saying it was ALL men. But instead of using the #notallmen, which stops the discussion, how about using a bit of empathy — 'Hey, I'm really sorry you feel that way. I'll be more aware when I'm walking at night that I'm not walking behind a woman who's walking by herself'?

Ben recalled a time he went into a chemist and could tell the female assistant was nervous, and when he looked around there was a dodgy-looking guy loitering but not buying anything. So Ben decided to stay until the other man left to make the assistant felt safe.

I like that story. Women just want to know the 'good guys' are on our side.

"Every man I know would do that in that situation. And that's why, because we have this small number of human beings who are evil, we don't like to think that they represent us," he says.

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