"Kill All Men"

On Humor and Trauma

BY SOFIA LYON
 TOPIC + CONTENT

"Kill All Men": On Humor and Trauma, by Sofia Lyon argues on the purpose of the trend phrase on Twitter of
#killallmen or #KAM. The article suggests that the trend is completely pure and harmless, at the same time, calls out
men for being offended by it.

The hashtag began as a trend for women to humorously address and cope their trauma with men and misogyny.
(Paragraph. 1: While it can certainly appear crude, the phrase is ultimately a humorous method of coping with trauma)

Most of the time the hashtag was use satirically, but men consider it as an insult and be offended by it. Even worse, they
came up with another phrase to cancel and invalidate the movement.
(Paragraph 5: Some have even retorted with their own phrase, namely “#rapeallwomen2020." )

The author explains how misogyny influenced women in daily life, such in "beauty standards, representation,
academia, and beyond." (Paragraph 9)

The author also, calls out men, on the reason for them to find the catchphrase, 'insulting'.
(why ought you be offended in the first place? Why do you not have confidence in your treatment and respect for
women? If you know you are respectful, if you know you are above the insidious misogyny of our culture, where does this
offense stem from?)
 SOURCE

The author : Sofia Lyon.

Literature editor of The Catalyst Literary Arts Magazine as an intern and also the Editor of Arts and
Entertainment at The Bottom Line, which is student-run weekly newspaper of University of California, Santa
Barbara.
She has experience with journalism, non-fiction writing and editing since 2019 for student-run sites such The
Daily Nexus, The Bottom Line and SexInfo Online.
Sofia Lyon is double major student in Philosophy and English.
The author is also included directly in the article as she is also a member of the female gender. (Lyon, Sofia Lyon's
Profile, n.d.)

Published on a website known as The Bottom Line, University of California Santa Barbara.
The Bottom Line UCSB newspaper line started in 2006 by the students of UCSB.
The university alone is known to be a prestigious research institute in United States.
The Bottom Line claimed to use Society of Professional Journalists code of ethic (About Us: The Bottom Line UCSB
, n.d.)
 AUDIENCE
There are two parties that are included in the article, which are both genders of men and women.

Men:
To expose on the fact that they are offended by a simple satirical phrase. #KillAllMen is created as to discuss how
misogyny happen around women and how it has been affecting them.

Certain men created another phrase, “#RapeAllWomen2020, which received a lot of backlashes, as it simply proven
the point why the first hashtag was created and perhaps it made all the affected women and victims feel invalidated.
(Para. 5 : Though the problems with this response should be evident, the issue lies in how it trivializes the very
subject the original phrase aims to expose. The reality of targeted sexual violence against women already exists.)

Women
To encourage them to speak up about their troubles with men.
In the article, the author also refers to women’s experience a lot as evidence to support her stance.
(Paragraph 5: One in five women have experienced completed or attempted rape in their lifetime)

The article is to expose everyday misogyny experienced by women through the hashtag, #KillAllMen.
(Paragraph 9: Beauty standards, representation, academia, and beyond — all symptoms of an ultimately
misogynistic group-think we are socialized into.)
 RHETORICAL FUNCTION

The article argues on the purpose and usage of the phrase #KillAllMen after gaining popularity on Twitter, on how it
is beneficial for women, and should not be seen as a problem for men.

The article argues how the trend phrase help women to cope with issues regarding experiences with men and
misogyny, to avoid men from misunderstood the purpose.
(Paragraph 2 : The phrase began as a punchline for many women’s complaints about the idiosyncrasies of everyday
misogyny)
(Paragraph 4 : It exposes the unnoticeable nuance of misogyny that pervades the lives of all women. Further, it shows
how deeply misogyny is embedded into the fabric of our culture, and how men and women are socialized alongside
those beliefs. )

The article serves it function to expose how feminisms are often invalidated.
(Paragraph 3: In its popular, colloquial usage, the phrase has never been understood as a literal call to action,despite
many men’s rights activists believing so to further invalidate feminism.)

The article addresses misogyny in women's everyday life.

(Paragraph 9 : Beauty standards, representation, academia, and beyond — allsymptoms of an ultimately
misogynistic group-think we are socialized into.)
 PURPOSE

- To convince the audience on the purpose and harmless usage of the hashtag #KillAllMen after gaining popularity on
Twitter.
(Paragraph 1: While it can certainly appear crude, the phrase is ultimately a humorous method of coping with trauma)

- The article was purposely written to call out men for being offended of a simple hashtag, which was made for a ‘pure’
cause.
(Paragraph 10 : To the men offended by the phrase: why ought you be offended in the first place? Why do younot have
confidence in your treatment and respect for women? If you know you are respectful, if you know you are above the
insidious misogyny of our culture, where does this offense stem from?)

To expose on the fact that they are offended by a simple satirical phrase to a point where they created another phrase to
invalidate women.

(Para. 5 : Some have even retorted with their own phrase, namely “#rapeallwomen2020.” Though the problems with
this response should be evident, the issue lies in how it trivializes the very subject the original phrase aims to expose. The
reality of targeted sexual violence against women already exists.)

 PERSPECTIVE

It is seen that the author favors feminism which might have particular influences in her opinions and statements.
She is referring to the phrase, #KillAllMan, where she believes that the phrase was not created as a literal call-to-
action but instead, as a platform for women to vent on their trauma and issues with men. The phrase was created
as a safe space.

(Paragraph 1: While it can certainly appear crude, the phrase is ultimately a humorous method of coping with
trauma)

In my perspective, the author was definitely being bias against men as she did not provide the article with any
perspective or statements from men's side. Instead, she included a general question to men specifically.

(Paragraph 10: Why ought you be offended in the first place? Why do you not have confidence in your treatment
and respect for women? If you know you are respectful, if you know you are above the insidious misogyny of our
culture, where does this offense stem from?)

 POSITIONING

There are few parties that are included in the article, which are both genders of men and women.

The author is very clear with how she views men, which includes 'men right activist' (MRA), incel communities in the
article. The author is obviously displeased with how men react to the phrase #killallmen.
The author believes that men are trying to invalidate the feminist movement, as they tried to distract people from the
real problem of misogyny.
(Paragraph 5: Rather than examining the context of womens’ concerns, a common deflect is to immediately rise to
one’s defense and proclaim their progressive ways)

The author is also irritated by the fact that men are offended by a simple, humourous phrase, which was created with
the purpose of being helpful to one. (Paragraph 1: While it can certainly appear crude, thephrase is ultimately a
humorous method of coping with trauma or the prevalent possibility of it in women’s lives — and inappropriate
responses from men only further embolden the issue.)

On the other hand, the author view women, who created and uses the phrase most of the time, as innocent. She is
convinced that the phrase would help women to deal with everyday misogyny that they experience. \. (Para 1: The
issues encoded in those messages can speak to irritating nuances of gender dynamics and misogyny, or bring
attention to more serious,persistent problems in our world. Many of these emotions of fear, anger, orcontempt are
encapsulated in the phrase, “Kill all men.)

 IMPACT
The article indeed has an impact on me both, positively and negatively, as a member of the female gender, and perhaps a
greater impact on the targeted audience.

Firstly, the article was written to convince the readers on how the phrase #killallmen is harmless, but beneficial to the
women's gender. The author mentioned that in Paragraph 1, "While it can certainly appear crude, the phrase is ultimately a
humorous method of coping with trauma".

Also, the author managed to convince me that misogyny is a great deal in women's life and it should be put to an end.
Misogyny has negative influences on women in many ways such mentioned in the article.
(Paragraph 9, which are "beauty standards, representation, academia, and beyond".)

Even so, the author failed to provide the article with any statement or perspective from men's side, thus made the article and
the author, Sofia Lyon seems bias on her opinion on the matter which may have influenced impact it had on me.

In my opinion, if the trend was really created for a good cause, the author should at least address how the impacted parties
should come up with a better, less offensive name for it. The author managed to provide many evidences to support her
stance, but failed to provide perspectives from the opposed party.

VISUAL LITERACY

The author only included one image, which is placed on top

of the article. The image contains two individual which is a
man and a woman, perhaps in a workplace setting.

In the image it is seen that the men is talking to the

woman, but it seems like the woman is not listening and
feeling uncomfortable. It is obvious to see both facial
expression as well. The man has a displeasant expression
on his face while his hand was pointing to the woman. On
the hand, the woman is looking away while placing her
hand to cover the side of her face. Perhaps the image was
to portray how woman is treated by men in daily basis,
with misogyny, representations, beauty standards,
academia judgements of how woman should act. The
image strengthen the author' stance even more as it
supports her argument on how women was treated in
today's society.