Not All Men…
Saying “not all men” is not deflecting, it’s making a point to not use generalizing language to define a group of individuals into something they are not. This wouldn’t be tolerable with any other unchangeable aspect of a person either.
The fact is that words define and even change perceived reality.
You do not want to make the definition of a man to include bad behavior for multiple reasons:
1. its not true.
2. you are making a self fulfilling prophecy.
3. You are blaming people for behavior of others and not treating them as individuals.
4. it does not help solving the problem.
Almost half the population are defined as a man, they cannot escape that definition, so why would you try to include bad behavior into their definition? If a person is defined as something unwanted by their society based on a feature they cannot get rid of it will affect them negatively. They will feel distant from the community, and it certainly will negatively affect their communication with the people who demonize them without assessing their actual behavior.
Either they fight the definition or try to ignore it as “this isn’t about me” even when people constantly label the bad behavior to include them.
When an individual cannot fight the definition or grows tired of escaping the bombardment of “what they are”, they more easily accept it in order to keep their identity that is formed and reinforced by other definitions connected to being a man. This way projecting bad behavior in common language may become a self fulfilling prophecy for some.
The definition of a man should in fact exclude bad behavior, in this way those who identify as a man would seek to avoid the behavior that is not inline with their identity. This might be a “No True Scotsman” but in modern days argumentative fallacies still tend to effectively work on people and you’d rather use them for good rather than bad.
The truth is that critiquing behavior that is mostly present in men is possible without implying its all men, or that the behavior is inherently the result of being a man. As that is not the case and everyone knows that so why twist it?