(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.

  • rottingleaf
    15·
    6 months ago

    Like, if I’m walking down a sidewalk and the person walking towards me decides to cross the street because I’m a man, I get it. It’s not hard to grasp that some people don’t want to be close to someone who might objectify them.

    I feel insulted because I’ve never hurt anyone in my life enough to even remotely justify this, and also because some men I would be cautious about usually don’t get the same treatment. At least it takes them more time and effort to get it, LOL.

    • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
      4·
      6 months ago

      So is this sarcasm or do you really not understand that it isn’t your right to decide what other people discern as safe vs unsafe?

      Because if it’s not sarcasm, I’m really not in the mood to have a 6th argument with another person whose entire position boils down to “well it hurts my feelings because not all men are bad”

      • rottingleaf
        17·
        6 months ago

        So is this sarcasm or do you really not understand that it isn’t your right to decide what other people discern as safe vs unsafe?

        It’s fully my right to decide what I’m upset about though, and go fight someone else.

        with another person whose entire position boils down to “well it hurts my feelings because not all men are bad”

        Now with ascribing positions to others you should be used to be called a clown.

        EDIT: Also this your comment didn’t seem intelligent or subtle. You may have gotten such a wrong impression of yourself, thus I’m helping you.

        • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
          2·
          6 months ago

          This concept isn’t hard to understand and every time someone has a problem with it it’s always some variation of being personally offended because they think someone else’s safety is actually about them.

          You’re not different. I didn’t ascribe your position, you literally said you’re insulted because you’ve never done anything to justify that behavior.

          That’s a variation of making it about you because you don’t feel like you should be lumped in with other men, even though in the situations this happens in it’s because the other person doesn’t know you.

          You’re the exact type of person I was talking about with the exact point the last 5 have all made. I thought it might be sarcasm because you can’t seriously be trying to assert the same thing they all did on a comment calling them all out for refusing to get it, but here we are.

          Calling me a clown is a cheap cop out to deflect from the fact that your feelings are hurt. Go bait someone else.

          • rottingleaf
            12·
            6 months ago

            You’re not different. I didn’t ascribe your position, you literally said you’re insulted because you’ve never done anything to justify that behavior.

            I wasn’t this specific, so this statement is false. That someone lives in Japan doesn’t mean they live in Tokyo.

            To not completely waste this, I was talking about people who know me and interpret autistic behavior as a sign of danger.

            It’s not even about men. I never had that problem with women with the same traits.

            You’re the exact type of person I was talking about with the exact point the last 5 have all made. I thought it might be sarcasm because you can’t seriously be trying to assert the same thing they all did on a comment calling them all out for refusing to get it, but here we are.

            Calling me a clown is a cheap cop out to deflect

            A person saying “you’re the exact type of person” is a clown.

            from the fact that your feelings are hurt.

            Specifically for clowns - having your feelings hurt doesn’t make you wrong.

            • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
              1·
              6 months ago

              I was talking about people who know me and interpret autistic behavior as a sign of danger.

              You came into a conversation about unknown men being an implicit danger to women, a subject that’s a title post and 3 comments deep, to talk about how people treat you like that because of something completely different, not clarify that you’re talking about something completely different, and then you’re wondering why I’m thinking you’re talking about the subject of the post?

              I’m willing to chalk this up to a misunderstanding, but your insistence that I’m a clown for defending a point that you made no indication wasn’t what you were even talking about until now has left me completely unwilling to talk to you further.

              This is pointless. Goodnight.