# Straw man

*Also called: Misrepresentation*

- **Cluster:** Distraction and distortion — Moving the argument somewhere easier to win
- **Page:** https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/straw-man/
- **In Arabic:** https://fallacy.wiki/ar/fallacy/straw-man.md
- **Licence:** CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

## What it is

Replacing an opponent's position with a weaker version and refuting that instead.

## In the wild

> You want fewer meetings, so you want no communication at all.

## How to answer it

Restate the original position in the opponent's own words before answering it.

## Origin and naming

A straw man is a training dummy: stuffing in human shape, easy to knock down. The metaphor for attacking a stuffed imitation of your opponent's position — light, flammable, and victorious in every bout — became standard fallacy vocabulary in the twentieth century.

## More places it shows up

- She suggested trimming the conference budget; her opponent thundered that she wanted to abolish professional development entirely.
- A parent asks for less homework on weeknights; the school newsletter warns against 'parents who don't believe in education'.
- A reviewer calls the film's third act slow; defenders respond that critics hate any movie without explosions.
- An engineer proposes one weekly on-call rotation instead of two; management replies that some people simply refuse to support the team.

## How to spot it

- Notice when the position being demolished sounds dumber than anything the person actually said.
- Notice when the rebuttal quotes adjectives but never the original sentence.
- Notice when the original speaker's first reply is 'that's not what I said' — and it's true.

## Nearby

- [Quoting out of context](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/quoting-out-of-context.md)
- [Motte and bailey](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/motte-bailey.md)
- [False equivalence](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/false-equivalence.md)
- [Red herring](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/red-herring.md)

## Read more

- [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)
- [The Fallacy Files](https://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html)

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From fallacy.wiki — a bilingual field guide to 91 logical fallacies, published by phi holdings. Licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/): reuse freely with attribution to fallacy.wiki.