(Content warning, discussions of SA and misogyny, mods I might mention politics a bit but I hope this can be taken outside the context of politics and understood as a discussion of basic human decency)
We all know how awful Reddit was when a user mentioned their gender. Immediate harassment, DMs, etc. It’s probably improved over the years? But still awful.
Until recently, Lemmy was the most progressive and supportive of basic human dignity of communities I had ever followed. I have always known this was a majority male platform, but I have been relatively pleased to see that positive expressions of masculinity have won out.
All of that changed with the recent “bear vs man” debacle. I saw women get shouted down just for expressing their stories of being sexually abused, repeatedly harassed, dogpiled, and brigaded with downvotes. Some of them held their ground, for which I am proud of them, but others I saw driven to delete their entire accounts, presumably not to return.
And I get it. The bear thing is controversial; we can all agree on this. But that should never have resulted in this level of toxicity!
I am hoping by making this post I can kind of bring awareness to this weakness, so that we can learn and grow as a community. We need to hold one another accountable for this, or the gender gap on this site is just going to get worse.
Okay, but, speaking as a woman, we try to explain these issues nicely, with gentle terminology and a big helping of ‘not all of you, but some of you…’ and we get ignored, dismissed, belittled, or flat-out gaslit.
ok so, as a result of the bear debate, i wouldn’t exactly say it was all roses and sunshine over there, probably a thunderstorm and bristles more like.
I think most people want the statement laid out very literally in front of them. Usually being pretty fucking obtuse about shit, tends to get peoples attention. Sitting in a corner and vaguely looking in the direction of someone isn’t going to.
maybe i’m just really fucking autistic or something, but if that shit doesn’t work, i wouldn’t do it. I’d click into a thread titled “men raping women is a problem” and see what’s going on, and chances are, it’s going to be more civil than the bear incident.
i’d be up for just fucking talking about it. I’m sure a number of other people would as well. You aren’t going to appease everyone, that’s impossible, you just need to appease the majority. And frankly, anybody who is reading about “hey uhm, rape bad, no do?” and gets fucking pissed off about it? They’re probably not a good person to be honest.
genuinely, i just think straight up, open conversation about it. People can’t play nice? Don’t let em, i guess? there are a few options there. I’m not an admin/mod, so don’t ask me lol.
