16-year-old girl uses simple analogies to explain why "Not All Men" as a response should stop

The disappearance and subsequent murder of Sarah Everard left the world in shock and broached the importance of women's safety again. While the violent assault on women has been going on for years, there seems to have been no solution yet. But the one thing that has been consistently brought up again and again when women share their experiences with sexual assault is - "Not All Men."

When women say they hesitate to interact with men after a personal experience with assault, pat comes the reply, "Not All Men." Someone critiques the patriarchal hierarchy that benefits men to not take action towards women's safety and you can be sure there will be someone to let you know that "not all men do that."

Like running around in circles, women have to tell them, "Yes, we know not all men. But there are enough men who have caused violence or supported an assaulter instead of holding him accountable that makes us wary." Considering how one in three women have been subject to sexual violence, even if one says "not all men" then definitely every woman has at some point experienced discomfort at the hands of a man in some way or form. If a man was not doing his part in stopping this from happening, then as a silent spectator, he was an accomplice and contributing to the problem. 

It is that simple to understand but women have been coming up with creative, yet simple analogies to explain why, saying not all men, will never help solve the problem of violence against women. The latest set of analogies comes from a sixteen-year-old. Prithika Chowdhury is a part-time influencer on TikTok who shared her bit on the topic of women's safety and the never-ending rebuttal of "not all men." Her video went viral on TikTok and raked over 1.3 million views. And she uses not one, not even two, but three analogies to get the point across.

In the video, she says, "I take your hand and lead you to three doors. Two of the doors are safe, you'll survive. However, if you open that one door, you'll die. Gaining this knowledge would you still open the door?" Similarly, she brought up a hypothetical scenario where you go fishing and find that there is an alligator in the water. "Knowing there is one alligator, would you still continue fishing," she asked. In the third scenario, she says, "I hand you like 10 cheesecakes...you could get diabetes but that's not the point," she said with a bit of humor snuck in. "Two of them are poisoned," she continued, "But you know 80 percent you'll be perfectly fine. Would you still take a bite of the cheesecake?"

The answer to all of these is you would probably not dare open any door lest it is the wrong one, you will probably not take a chance with fishing in a lake where there is an alligator, and no matter how much you may like dessert, you would rather not try your luck knowing that two of the 10 cakes are poisoned. Yes, it is not all doors, neither was it all alligators, nor all the cheesecakes. It was enough doors, just one alligator that made you flee, and just enough poison that made you think twice about taking a bite. "It's not all men. It's just too many men. It's just enough men to be afraid of," the teenager explained.

Speaking to Bored Panda, Chowdhury said, “I created those analogies in hopes that the boys would understand. Of course, the analogy wasn’t meant for all men and men only, it was to spread awareness and to say we can’t trust anybody 100 percent.” As a victim of assault herself, she wanted to bring attention to this important matter of discussion.