Boys Will Be Boys? Why #AllMen Should Be Offended by the Latest Kavanaugh Defenders

I used to hate the #NotAllMen hashtag. Now I want to reclaim it

Brett Kavanaugh taking the oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 4. Some of his supporters have retreated to a troubling line of defense amid allegations of a decades-old assault. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/AFP/Getty Images

By Monica Hesse

A few years ago when women started using social media to share stories of assault, some men became alarmed. They seemed to take it personally, and a hashtag was born: #NotAllMen.

The overriding message: Not all men are jerks. I’m not! Give me a trophy and acknowledge I’m not. It felt like a conversation hijack, and the backlash was swift. Women were not in the mood to tenderly reassure individual men just then; what they wanted was to raise awareness about how many women had been victimized.

But if there was ever a time for the maligned hashtag to be reclaimed and redeemed, it’s now. Right this very minute, when the sexual assault allegation against Brett Kavanaugh is being met with a nauseating rationale: If he did this, it’s no big deal. All young men do stuff like this; boys will be boys.

I want #NotAllMen back. But this time it shouldn’t be a message written by wounded men to frustrated women. It should be a message written by furious men to the dingbats spreading lies about what it means to be a decent guy.