No one knows ’men’ as such, any more than anyone knows ’women ’ and if they do generalise they’re probably trying to hide their own ignorance. You might know one ’man ’ yes, or even lots of individual ’men’.

Burchill’s point is an attack on essentialism: the habit of treating “men” or “women” as coherent, knowable categories with fixed traits. She argues that claims to “know men” (or “know women”) are usually rhetorical shortcuts that substitute stereotype for observation, and can function as a cover for intellectual laziness or insecurity. What can be known, she suggests, is the particular—individual people, encountered over time and in specific circumstances. The quote also implicitly critiques the way gender generalizations circulate as social “wisdom,” warning that they often say more about the speaker’s prejudices and limited experience than about any group they claim to describe.