(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.

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
    715·
    2 months ago

    So, You’ve experienced a similar trauma to what a good chunk of women experience, and the remaining women live in fear of experiencing, and instead of being sympathetic and understanding… you are angry at them for trying to protect themselves from similar fates.

    Yeah, you sound like a real upstanding guy.

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
      94·
      2 months ago

      he’s contributing to the conversation in a positive manner.

      rather than being a butthurt bigot who whines about downvotes.

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      95·
      2 months ago

      Close, but no cigar. I’m empathetic to those women, and in fact I agree we can all be more vigilant to protect ourselves from harm of any kind. What I do not agree with is the unnecessary inflammatory gendered language which actually does more harm than good and alienates male victims while praising woman perpetrators, and with people like you who minimize my experiences and viewpoints because you’d rather dismiss them than treat me like a human. I do not agree that because some men are abusive we should treat them all as if they probably are, just as my experiences with two of the many women I have met are expected not to taint my view of their entire gender.

      I’m not angry at women, I’m angry at individuals like yourself, who are shitty people masquerading as a moral authority, fucking do better.

    • Poik@pawb.social
      63·
      2 months ago

      I can tell you haven’t dealt with drama before. If I’m wrong, please forgive me. Everyone has to deal with it differently, please be a little more patient. Maybe they could have worded it more carefully, but I don’t think they deserved this escalation.

      This is a problem we need to deal with in society. You acknowledged that yourself. This almost comes across as victim blaming, but definitely comes across as straw manning.