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Grade 9: Assembly - The Illogicality of the #NOTALLMEN Trope

May 20, 2021

On May 18, 2021, the 9th-graders had their morning Assembly in the Lecture Hall of Zhentao Building where Chloe Xue from 9(2) demonstrated the illogicality of the #NOTALLMEN trope and urged students to end the use of this trope.

The trope, ironically being adopted from a feminist work of literature, suggests that "not all men" are responsible for the suffering of women under oppression. Chloe pointed out that even though not all men are directly responsible for doing injustice to women, oppression is caused by the existing patriarchal institution. Through bringing up the concept of “not all men”, the majority of men may justify themselves to be willfully ignorant of the issue and/or continuedoing injustice to women. Furthermore, it would reduce questions of the society into those of small-scale conflict, in which case the general problem of gender discrimination would not be resolved.

Thus, as Chloe called for, people should stop using and, instead, oppose the #NOTALLMEN trope. It would require active unlearning to cancel out the internalized misogyny that society has ingrained in everyone. For men, it is essential to understand the viewpoints of the opposite sex to reach understanding and a goal of eliminating the traditional patriarchy in society.

(Written by Ryogo Yamamoto Picture by Katherine Xu Supervised by Hazel Gu)