A straw man is a misrepresentation of an opponent’s position that is then refuted. A straw man argument could also involve refuting a very weak subset of the real argument, or pretending that an extreme, “fringe” version of the position is actually the commonly held belief. This type of argument is a logical {fallacy}
A classic example of a straw man would be a statement such as, “I am
not a feminist because I do not think that men are evil.” This sets up
a parody position, one that is held by very few feminists (if any) but
that is easy to argue against because it is so extreme. The speaker could then offer several examples of good works done by
men, which might seem to be arguments that malign feminism. But
really the speaker would be attacking a straw man – that is, not a real
person, but a dummy.