I saw this play out and there were more than one of these users breaking the rules on that sub. I guess it’s tempting to want to comment on a first page thread, but boundaries exist for a reason. I don’t really see women going into incel spaces, making incels uncomfortable. Still, what it looked like was most of these men knew this wasn’t a community for them, but figured that their comments were so invaluable, how could it exist without their imput. It’s pathetic.
I don’t really see women going into incel spaces, making incels uncomfortable.
Maybe they should, though I’m not sure that would discomfort incels.
Well, the fact that women are existing and don’t want to interact with any of them is already discomforting to them; so I don’t suppose it takes much.
You don’t think anyone trolling incels is female? That’s a poverty of imagination.
i usually browse by all and have sometimes accidentally have commented on the women’s stuff comm. The first time I did it they left my comment up (I didn’t know it was exclusively a women’s comm I thought it was a focus on women) but gave me a friendly reminder that it is womens stuff. Anyways I’ve also almsot commented in that comm a few times and only noticed it after reading comments
ANYWAYS that was longer than I anticipated but all I can excuse is accidentally commenting, the actual behavior is not especially since they said it they knew it was a women only community. IMO that’s not ok since I’m sure of what OOP was doing was allowed or “as a man…” was allowed, 90% of the comm would be men effectively destroying the women only space
I can understand a mistake, and like I read on the original thread and on here; the mods are really nice. It just really shouldn’t happen more than once imo. I also feel bad for the mods literally trying to keep a space designated for woman safe. When I first saw the group, and the rules- It was confusing but I think it’s understandable. There’s not 100 of these spaces, and the rules should be understandable for anyone who thought of participating.
I agree the mods are lovely. IDR who the mod that replied to me was or even if they were a mod but they essentially said it’s ok mistakes happen just don’t let it happen again
I think they’re really good at differentiating people who accidentally step into the space like me, VS people invading like the person in the screenshot
But yeah if any women’s stuff mods are reading this, yall are great
Exactly, dude is just proving them right that all men are self-important assholes. It’s like a woman going on /r/redpill and telling them they’re just angry, ugly geeks. Not helping. That being said I can’t help but think trying to create a safe space on a public space is never going to really work. I’d see more something like a private matrix space, or even properly authenticated IRC (that’s where I have my safe space about my addiction).
I can agree with that, but I think for privacy you lose some inclusivity. I understand you want to feel comfortable when talking about sensitive topics. On the other hand, is being a woman really such a sensitive topic that we shouldn’t be able to have a space that’s respected? It’s depressing that it’s not just intrinsically understood that these spaces are important, deserve to be public and proud, and really should be more prolific- but here we are.
That’s true. For privacy, you need anonymity, and that safe space I use is truly anonymous but as such it as its downsides. As much as we’d love to meet, or organize ourselves into a job seeking network because boy do many of us need it, or simply game online together… we can’t do any of that.
That’s rough.
I do think that’s the rule of life though, to get something you have to part with something. I bet it would be really nice to be friends in real life with the people on that matrix, but right now at least that group needs anonymity more. It doesn’t always have to be that way, life is odd and there are no concrete outcomes. Though for now, I’m sure you appreciate having somewhere to go to be able to talk about things that maybe most people wouldn’t understand or lay judgement upon. I genuinely wish you and everyone on that matrix the absolute best.
Nobody posted it!?
I agree that the guy in the post is mildlyinfuriating at best, and much more likely a douche (never hear a woman use male as a noun like that, a very particular shibboleth). But I’m not sure I love. This community becoming half posts picking on specific users. Should we blur the usernames? Otherwise its an easy path to brigading and bullying.
never hear a woman use male as a noun like that
I heard ‘male’ the same place I heard ‘female’, and this wasn’t surprising. I’m jealous at your certainty that you haven’t yet and thus never will. Apparently, though, “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”
That’s on me, there’s a few typos in my reply. I was just saying I’ve never heard it, not that I think I will never hear it ever. And genuinely the only menfolk I’ve heard use it earnestly were akward teenage boys, and the older lads mocked them and told them they sounded lame.
This is in the UK (and ten years ago), so maybe it’s much more common in Australia or the US or something. But from the reaction it generally gets online, I get the feeling it’s generally looked down on (outside of humor, or sci-fi).
same. it’s so weird to me when people pretend like women don’t act this way… and can’t be sexist douchebags.
there are entire media outlets past and present that are basically dedicated to female douchery spouting crazy sexist hateful shit. but it’s normalized and not seen as a threat to society.
Ya I don’t think folks need to be called out twice in a row in two different places. This would be a pathway for repeat offenders who refuse to acknowledge feedback perhaps?
Should we blur the usernames? Otherwise its an easy path to brigading and bullying.
Nah, it’s a public, open forum. “Brigading” is reddit nonsense & bullies can be reported.
The real crime is breaking accessibility & usability by not linking to the comment.
Ironic given the community you’re posting to, and its own rules. But 🤷♂️.
Which rules do you mean?
“no inciting harassment”
this thread is def inciting harassment against the OP.
Explain how merely showing publicly visible content (without requesting to threaten, intimidate, or demean) necessarily “incites harassment”. Is this type of harassment merely irritating or bothersome behavior or would it meet a legal definition?
I honestly don’t know what you’re offended by. Maybe I wasn’t reading closely enough, but could you spell it out for me?
Segregated anything is fucking dumb. Segregated internet communities are especially fucking dumb because anyone can be anyone on the internet.
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exactly. this is the whole problem with trans stuff and gender essentailism.
who the fuck is to say what a woman is? a lot of people tie to totally arbitrary nonsense.
the concept of gender specific spaces is loaded with the notion that one sex/gender is worthy and the other in unworthy.
It’s entirely about self identification. There’s no gender policing, they just kindly ask people who start their comments with phrases like “as a man…” or “not a woman, but…” to refrain from further commenting. They don’t even delete the comments unless the guy keeps going. Even still, inevitably if the post reaches the front page all the women in the comments will be drowned out by highly upvoted “as a man…” commenters. They just want to have a conversation without being shouted over.
That’s really ignoring a mountain of history. Up until a decade ago, “there are no girls on the internet” was a common saying.
I just see it as a way to foster and encourage an under represented segment of the community. It feels completely valid when that segment is still often met with hostility from weirdos.
Was it a common saying or were you just on 4chan too much?
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/there-are-no-girls-on-the-internet
It seems like it started before 4chan. 4chan probably amplified it and helped spread it though. All the bad things either start there, or it’s users violently clutch and hang on to it until it seems like it started there.
That is were I heard it first though so you are right in calling me out. It’s been a while, longer then just a decade ago thankfully, but I spent a bit of my teen years on there. It really feels shameful to admit. Overall, just a gross place.
I spent a couple of my teenaged years there too. I remember I printed out the “rules of the internet” post, which includes that “rule” and had it on my desk in high school. “For the lulz”. It’s important to grow and change, both as individuals and as a society. My friend group back then was a bunch of supposedly straight cis teens who threw around all kinds of slurs, and we thought it was okay as long as we weren’t actually being mean to other people and we kept it amongst ourselves. Largely, it was. But a lot of the same people who loved to throw the F slur around back then have boyfriends now. At least one person transitioned.
But my broader point is that it’s very easy to convince ourselves that something common in our own bubbles is ubiquitous across the internet and across time. Other people close to my age had very different experiences with the internet because they were in different communities. I’m sure that the youth today, with TikTok and Roblox and whatever else they are doing, have an entirely different culture. The older people on Facebook have a very different culture. I’m sure non-English speaking communities have different cultures.
And that’s also part of why I’m against segregated spaces. They create an echo chamber and reinforce societal divisions.
Any time some bigoted anti-trans law about bathrooms is proposed, progressive people advocating inclusivity point out that it’s impossible to define what a “woman” is in a manner that both excludes all trans-women and includes all cis-women. And I fully support that, which is why I have a hard time supporting exclusionary policies on the internet too.
things aren’t any different today dude. my teenager nephews do the same thing.
Your teenaged nephews may do the same thing, but my teenaged nieces do not. The internet is a gigantic place, and it’s dangerous to extrapolate our own limited perspective onto the whole.
It’s definitely common and it’s been around forever. We’ve always been here, but the vast majority of guys on the internet are so fucking toxic we just hide it. It’s true for me, at least. There are reasons I avoid PvP games like the plague, avoid toxic places like the Steam Forums, and refuse to use voice chat unless it’s a private game among friends. It gets hammered into you the first time you make the mistake of thinking you can participate with a group of boys, and that goes back before the internet. The internet creates an illusion of anonymity that makes those bad traits infinitely worse. So we mask and hide, but we’re here.
My experience has been the same and I’ve been on the internet since the mid-90s. I have always avoided voice chats unless with friends or trusted guildies and avoid things that will identify me as a woman because people can get so toxic. This happens in real life too, especially in gaming spaces. I’ve been laughed at when I said I taught my male partner how to play MTG until he confirmed it. I used to hear I’m “not a real woman” because I’ve been playing video games since I was a kid, it’s a lot better now, but it’s still there.
The womensstuff space is a huge breath of fresh air and I love having a space to speak about topics with fellow women. Quite a number of men have commented there and are very polite when they are corrected.
Extremely common. In gaming, twitch, YouTube comments, forums, 9gag comments, Reddit… The presence of women has been minuscule for a long while, and that’s translated as hostile to women.
9gag
Really? I don’t even remember the last time 9gag was known for anything other than being uncool and irrelevant.
Sounds like you’re in a bubble of a lot of sexist communities. That’s real unfortunate- you should maybe try to get out of that.
Why are you saying I am in those spaces now? You asked in past tense, I answered how it was 15 years ago.
I left most of those a long time ago and several have changed. It’s important to remember history, 15 years is pretty recent.
some people in certain communities get high on their own farts by thinking everything there is sexist, any anyone who participates must also be sexist. and then also participate.
you can’t fix stupid. i remember being part of dating communities in the past and everyone thought the community was sexist against their own sex, mostly when people challenged their sexist assumptions about the other gender being another but awful and horrible. like all the women who said men were shitty and awful sex fiends thought the community was pro-male. it was hilarious. and vice versa for all the women haters.
what it was was shitty people being shitty and engaging in self-fulling prophecies, for the most part. and it would be funny when they dated someone who didn’t fit the ‘x is awful’ trope… they would complain how ‘boring’ and ‘weird’ the person was. the funny thing about the people who weren’t sexist as hell… was they never really whined about things being sexist.
the point of the saying was that your sex/gender shouldn’t matter for internet comments.
it wasn’t to exclude women.
self identifying yourself as a man or women will radically change how people interpret your comments. a lot of people assume i’m a woman from the way i comment. then they would find out i’m not a woman and harass the shit out of me for upsetting/subverting their gender expectations.
there are no girls on the internet
You misunderstood the meme. Unless anyone verifies IDs, anyone online can claim to be whoever, and everyone’s a fucking liar. 12/f/cali? Definitely FBI.
Simping for someone online claiming to be female is senseless. Personal characteristics shouldn’t matter. Better to assume they’re a nameless, sexless avatar.
Also I wonder how it would look if we made a Men’s Club community where only men were allowed and women were openly mob-scolded for participating. Would probably be considered a pretty sexist environment.
Literally nothing is stopping you from creating a community for men with a rule that only men participate. The difference is that in the community you’re thinking about though, women wouldn’t be constantly trying to mess with it. There are hundreds of communities to choose from. We’re not entitled to participate in them all.
The major point isn’t whether or not it’s possible to create it. The major point was that it would be considered sexist, I imagine. Or at the very least a little cringe.
women wouldn’t be constantly trying to mess with it
Is someone purporting to speak for all women? Seems arrogant.
I know I’m sending mixed signals, but those things are not equivalent. All of modern society is patriarchal and women face exclusion from spaces their entire lives because of their sex or gender. Things have improved slightly over the decades but this kind of misogyny is still a global pandemic. When men are called privileged this is why. That ignorance is a privilege. Lucky you, that you haven’t experienced this constantly for your entire life. Want to create a “Men’s Club” community? We’ve all been living in it our entire lives. Nothing new to see there.
I still feel dirty thinking about the womensstuff community, though. The first time I stumbled in there I had no idea where I was and someone said “As a man…” and then asked a question, and they were told to be quiet. Women experience that constantly, and it’s worse for girls. So much worse. Especially if you are the chatty type of autistic that I am. Having experienced it, I would never subject others to that. I felt that interaction viscerally and immediately blocked the community. I understand wanting to have a safe space, and I do have those with certain private groups, but seeing that behavior was awful. Even queer spaces are welcoming to allies, and I feel inclusion of allies in all social matters is critical for progress to happen.
It exists. Or did. Menslib over on that other platform.
The official Dull Men’s Club website encourages women to participate as well, so I don’t think it should be considered as a men-only community:
Though it started with men, women now belong too.
If 99.9999% of users are men, it’s effectively a place where men can express themselves without the fear that some women will flood the comments.
That’s what women want with their women only spaces. And while that man wasn’t being that rude, until women feel more comfortable let them have their bubbles.
That’s quite an “if” that you’re starting with.
If 99.9999% of users are men, it’s effectively a place where men can express themselves without the fear that some women will flood the comments.
The point of the community is to share the dull things you’ve accomplished, not to go there and talk about stuff with the expectation that only men will respond. I was trying to tell that commenter that, despite the name, it’s not trying to be a man-only space, and people hopefully should not react to or expect the community to be as such. I just wanted to clarify since I think the comm is cool.
There’s another similar community called !dullsters@dullsters.net if anyone objects to the name itself.That’s what women want with their women only spaces. And while that man wasn’t being that rude, until women feel more comfortable let them have their bubbles.
I agree with you.
FWIW that community is just inspired by something that already exists outside of social media. The community owner kept !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world up since it’s pretty active, but the new official/recommended one for dull stuff is !Dullsters@dullsters.net . They explicitly wanted it to be more inclusive (not that DMC was only restricted to men posting).
The mens club you’re talking about DOES exist though. Since men are not a marginalized minority, that club is just called society.
Your logic mirrors asking, ‘Why not create a whites-only club?’ Technically, you could, but people would rightly view it negatively because white people, as a group, are not marginalized. Exclusive spaces for minorities exist to provide relief from the discrimination or bias they routinely encounter. For groups that do not face those barriers, everyday society already functions as their ‘exclusive space,’ which makes it difficult for non-minorities to understand why others might need a separate environment.
Society doesn’t allow women? And openly scolds them for participating? I dunno. It’s “similar”? I guess? Anyway, the other person makes a lot of the points I would make too so I’ll let y’all hash that out amongst yourselves.
We’re talking about Lemmy communities here, having a men’s-only space to discuss men’s issues is totally fine. Also, demeaning men’s-only spaces and placing men in a uniform category as “the oppressor group” is awful for society
I didn’t place them in the oppressor group, I said they weren’t oppressed.
Ok, let’s walk through the implication.
-Women are oppressed.
-Men are not oppressed.
Who again are you saying is doing the oppressing? You’re blind to the fact that most men are also oppressed, and pretending that men can just go out in society and be safe being vulnerable is willfully ignorant
You’re putting words in my mouth and confusing the difference between a demographic and an individual. AS A DEMOGRAPHIC, women are oppressed. AS A DEMOGRAPHIC, men are not. We’re talking about statistics here, not individual experience.
The fact that some men are oppressed does not imply men are equally or more oppressed than women.
The fact that women AS A DEMOGRAPHIC are oppressed and men AS A DEMOGRAPHIC are not does not imply all men are oppressors. It DOES imply that men opress women, but like… fucking duh? If men aren’t pressing women, then who is? It doesn’t mean all men are oppressors, but are you seriously going to sit her and act like the majority of domestic abusers, sexual harassers, and discriminators AREN’T men???
You’re interpreting a defense of women exclusive spaces as an attack on individual men. You should unpack that.
Well then not all man are oppressed isn’t that okay to have a man-only communty?
Men are also being oppressed by the societal norms. Sure. Thing is, the severity of such oppression is not on the same level, and while real, is not a valid comparison to female oppression.
The oppressor is patriarchy, both men and women enforce it. Not everyone, but many. The way our societal norms, and other people in society peer pressure us into boxes is oppressive, and again, while men also are affected negatively by it, it’s just not comparable.
So yeah, you made up that implication due to, and this is me being benign here, your misinformed self. Given that the percentage of male/female users on Lemmy being so male skewed, its effectively a men only online space. Let women have their women only online spaces.
Hey, go for it! If c/mensliberation became men-only, I’d support them! There are some communities where women wouldn’t have anything to contribute, and that’s okay and wouldn’t be sexist.
But just don’t go full kiwifarms with a men-only community and I’d say that’s fine.
A segregated internet would be more like if they had a whole version of Lemmy for all topics but only for women, and then didn’t also participate in the other one.
This is just one community calm the hell down they can have their space.
If they want their own space, they are just bigots. That’s what they called me when I excluded them from the general space in the past!
-the people arguing against that comm, probably
You’ve angered the incels.
Fuck em. “Oh but it’s a free Internet people can participate wherever they want”
Yeah you have a right to be a total dickwad and scream in people’s faces at the grocery store, don’t be surprised when everyone thinks you’re an ass though. They don’t want your input. That. Simple.
Bingpot.
Congratulations, you’re the man they’re trying to forget exists for 10 fucking minutes a day in their off time!
Who said I was a guy? Again, anyone can be anyone on the internet.
glances at profile
Def a guy
Give up, brah: you lack conclusive proof. Lemmy doesn’t require ID verification, so anyone can be anything.
Funny how some people downvote even the most innocuous comments.
You can assume my gender or race all you want. It doesn’t make you right.
So based and repelled bro. You’re for sure postmaxxing. Absolutely mewing on the haters. more dunks than a 90s kangaroo. You sure told those bitches.
Anyway to be serious for a moment: “the internet is full of wreckers so why even bother” is a fucking wrecker argument. You are the problem. Do you see?
I think you’ve replied to the wrong person since my comment is about assuming genders of people on the internet not wreckers on the internet whatever that might be.
I downvoted because it was a deflection that didn’t address the very real issue presented to you
The issue being what? And how did I deflect? I refuted their comment, that’s not a deflection, that’s showing how dumb it is to claim you are anything since people can claim to be anything on the internet.
Now I’m a ghost and will start a ghost only community.
You did in reply to this post
I am in full support of the community rules but that’s an interesting claim when like 1/3 of the posts are about men lol
Downvote me all you want but there’s there’s literally 4 posts about men on the frontpage. The community should be a safe space for women to talk about men but don’t misrepresent it as a place to forget about men
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Yeah, you guys. We shouldn’t let women talk among themselves, they’re so irresponsible it ALWAYS leads to the EXACT SAME place. Let’s make sure we keep an eye on these females, just to make sure they’re not getting out of line. Pfft, “women only?” You’d think we’d learn by now! These women NEED a man to keep them track, we know what ALWAYS happens. Jesus christ.
Are you suggesting that women are such dainty and delicate creatures, they can’t handle a man’s internet? They need protected from the smarter and meaner 14 year old boys from 4chan?
Maybe the real solution is to just keep everything separate but equal? That famously works out well for everyone and never leads to any issues /s
I enjoy that community as a non-participant. A user’s decision to merely interact can reveal much more than they intended to reveal - super interesting to me. Just the existence of the community pits dudes with insecurities against their own lack of self control or social tact, for all to see.
Future me might comment there too quickly after overlooking the community name. I’ll get a warranted Tsk and I’ll see myself out. No big deal. It’s not a kick in the nuts unless I make it one.
I have seen men comment there, get the reminder, and then FLIP THE FUCK OUT. As if every part of the internet should have to put up with them.
A community like that is hard to monitor, and they are pretty chill about people making honest mistakes like coming in from /all. I feel like it’s obvious (or very quickly becomes obvious) which comments are mistakes, and which are butthurt males. They don’t seem to be hostile to the honest mistakes.
suggestion: make a separate community that is “replies to womens stuff”.
actually don’t, sounds like a cesspool.
I forgot that community existed. Segregation gives me the ick to such an extent I blocked it. I think it’s the only non-german-language community I’ve blocked.
A publicly visible forum isn’t a safe space. I can go to a discord channel for that. I would never think to tell someone to shut up because of physical characteristics. That’s precisely how social poisons like transphobia propagate. Could Elliot Page post there? What about Hunter Schafer? What about enbys? Jack Haven? Do we demand genital inspections like MAGA gestapo? Would you exclude my partner for failing to pass some feminine-enough test?
Segregation of public and publicly visible places is fundamentally and ethically wrong. I will help build the louisettes to dismantle the patriarchy, but I won’t exclude people even their “type” has traditionally held a position of privilege. It’s not right and it makes us the baddies the misogynistic claim we are.
My point is, I don’t like anything about this. ESH. I don’t support or endorse any of this, from the community to the alleged interlopers. It’s all wrong.
We are fully allowed to read it, just don’t post. Reading it is very insightful.
What community is that?
I’m not sure the specific name of it. Something like “women only” but I’m not finding it in search. I browse lemmy by all, so it comes up every now and then for me.
If only they had it explicitly laid out who is allowed to comment.
…oh wait, they do. So your “transphobia” strawman is entirely baseless.
The community you’re complaining about actually allows trans and nonbinary people. I believe you can acknowledge the value of single-gender+enby spaces while being critical of single-sex spaces without being a TERF.
Right now women make up 2.5% of the overall Lemmy userbase. They’re more likely to be downvoted and dogpiled by the remaining 97.5% of Lemmy in coed spaces. If we want Lemmy to grow and be open for everyone, for now we need women-only communities so we can create positive associations with the platform where we can express our opinions freely without worry about being brigaded. If womens’ spaces on Lemmy were open to men, it would be majority men commenting on all of those posts, and our voices would get drowned out. Most or all of us would get fed up and leave. The thing is, if you don’t allow protections for women, you still end up with segregation.
So there’s an important crossroads that we need to decide. Do we allow X-exclusive communities in the hopes of building up Lemmy and the Fediverse? Or do we defederate instances with communities that support minority communities, and accept the inevitability that Lemmy will continue to be a male-only space for good?
Maybe the exclusivity can be eased when the gender gap gets closed more. I know it feels unfair on the surface. For now I’ll say if c/menslib’s moderators decided the community would be men-only, I’d support that.
Thank you, I didn’t realize that. My only experience was stumbling into a post some time ago and seeing someone asking a question being told to shut up because they started the question with “As a man…”. Seeing that was genuinely triggering for me.
While knowing it’s trans inclusive does make me feel better, this still reminds me of the ally debate we had in the queer community 20-30 years ago. Queer spaces should be welcoming to allies but allies must be aware that there are certain expectations for them. There is still zero tolerance for anyone that steps out of line. I think that has worked very well and won us a lot of progress and unity and support and love and acceptance, which is what I want.
I’m always torn about these things. I love the idea of having women-centric spaces where we can be ourselves without masking. I want that. But I can’t resolve the ethics of excluding allies, and so it’s not something I can personally justify being involved with. I don’t want people to be treated like that or excluded because of their sex or gender. I’ve lived through that and it’s awful.
That’s interesting, and I do think the ally-welcoming queer spaces are a good idea too. My thought after reading this goes like this: Can spaces that are welcoming to allies coexist with spaces where only people within a group are allowed to contribute? Like, is it an all or nothing thing?
This is key because there are other spaces on lemmy (witchesvspatriarchy) that are both women-centric and open to allies. So Lemmy has both. But c/witchesvspatriarchy is constantly brigaded by male Lemmy users who get defensive. Often the top upvoted comments will be defensive ones from men, and many posts get derailed from their original topics. It can feel really discouraging. So guys on Lemmy regularly can and do step out of line, and Lemmy’s ecosystem rewards them for it because there’s more of them than us.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad witchesvspatriarchy exists. It’s healthy for ally-friendly women-centric spaces to exist. But I’m also glad there’s a community where I don’t have to deal with the constant derailing. And due to the specific circumstances of this platform, it feels like not allowing comments from men is the only to achieve that. At the end of the day, I’m glad that both exist. And I feel like if women-only spaces were taken away from Lemmy, I would just leave.
Edit: There’s another component to this as well, the idea you expressed that you felt excluded either because of your gender or because you’re an ally, and you don’t want anyone to feel like that. I don’t want to presume about your life or identity, but I’m a trans woman and I lived through being excluded because people thought I was a man. It was really awful, honestly. When I was in the closet, I would present as a woman on the internet because it was the one place I didn’t have to reveal my appearance. It was the only time for the entirety of my childhood and adolescence that I felt seen. I guess what I’m saying is that closet trans people aren’t the people being excluded from single-gender spaces on the internet – I certainly wasn’t. I don’t think a “no men” policy in internet forums affected me at all.
I don’t think my experience can or should be directly compared with those of male allies. There are some women-centered spaces where women will gladly welcome mens’ input, but in others, we’re asking for men to respect our right to gather independently, and I don’t think that’s unreasonable to ask. And it’s a boundary men have the right to ask of women too.
one of the few communities I have blocked one of the things I value is being able to chip in
So you blocked it? Lol seems strange
I blocked it too. It’s not strange at all. If a community disallows people to contribute based on gender, race, etc… I disallow them to appear in my feed.
Oh good. I don’t follow this com, another comment tipped me off.
While I do enjoy a little bit of chaos and schadenfreude, it would be nice to block out user names. Call out the mistake, not the person.
Most people here are lovely, but it only takes one match to start a fire. Might as well address some bullshit in these comments since I’m gonna get trolled by incels anyway…
side note: I’m not a mod there.
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The women’s com is trans and non-binary inclusive. Anyone who feels at home there (and is respectful) is welcome.
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It’s not all bitching about men. Looking at the last twenty posts, one was about men and two were related to men. We talk about pads and health and essays and positivity memes and do fun activities on fridays.
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I support men making their own support groups. Although the internet itself often feels like a menfolk support group(to me,) I’m sure there are plenty of things an easy to find, curated space, could offer men who want to be just a little more vulnerable, knowing they would be supported by the mods if any toxic women came in to devalue their opinions and experience.
I support men making their own support groups.
While women are allowed to keep men out of their groups, it doesn’t work the other way around. Even gay men’s groups have trouble keeping invasive women from changing the nature of their groups.
I haven’t noticed anything like this online. I only one time saw a woman post in a MSM community and it was to ask a question, which was fine.
Whataboutism is a non-sequitor that disrupts and discourages productive discussion.
As you can see, women have trouble keeping men out, too.
I’d like to see your data.
I’d like to see your data.
Just try finding a men’s opinion group that successfully bans women.
So you don’t have data.
While I do enjoy a little bit of chaos and schadenfreude, it would be nice to block out user names. Call out the mistake, not the person.
Showing public information isn’t immoral: we should be able to simply link to online content. Blocking out public information & breaking accessibility to do it, however, is patronizing & wrong.
Never said anything about morality. I said would be nice.
Then it would still be not nice (ie, patronizing & wrong) for the reasons stated in the rest of the message.
I disagree.
The disabled disagree with you.
People overthink this: just linking the web as designed is not that hard & it doesn’t break everything like accessibility/usability, digging for context, etc.
Why links?
Images of text break much that text alternatives do not. Losses due to image of text lacking alternative such as link:
- usability
- we can’t quote the text without pointless bullshit like retyping it or OCR
- text search is unavailable
- the system can’t
- reflow text to varied screen sizes
- vary presentation (size, contrast)
- vary modality (audio, braille)
- accessibility
- lacks semantic structure (tags for titles, heading levels, sections, paragraphs, lists, emphasis, code, links, accessibility features, etc)
- some users can’t read this due to lack of alt text
- users can’t adapt the text for dyslexia or vision impairments
- systems can’t read the text to them or send it to braille devices
- web connectivity
- we have to do failure-prone bullshit to find the original source
- we can’t explore wider context of the original message
- authenticity: we don’t know the image hasn’t been tampered
- searchability: the “text” isn’t indexable by search engine in a meaningful way
- fault tolerance: no text fallback if
- image breaks
- image host is geoblocked due to insane regulations.
Contrary to age & humble appearance, text is an advanced technology that provides all these capabilities absent from images.
I can agree everyone should get to enjoy equal access to the web and still believe censoring user names is nice. There’s gotta be a balance between accessibility and preventing harassment.
Have you asked OP to link the comment in the post text?
How about a transcript for the image? That way user names could stay blocked.
Have you asked OP to link the comment in the post text?
Yes: that would certainly reveal the names.
There’s gotta be a balance between accessibility and preventing harassment.
Easy: don’t harass. There are better controls on harassment by others than breaking accessibility & all the other considerations (usability, web connectivity, authenticity, searchability, fault tolerance) like reporting abuses.
Transcripts still break web connectivity (to explore context) & authenticity.
Your approach requests OP conduct/sustain definite harm[1] to speculatively prevent indefinite harm someone else won’t necessarily perform. How is requesting definite harm to an uninvolved party nice or right?
Everyone has moral agency to do the right thing here, and respecting that would be just.
impairing access ↩︎
- usability
@Wren @lmmarsano I think I might use that as my email signature
I support men making their own support groups. Although the internet itself often feels like a menfolk support group(to me,) I’m sure there are plenty of things an easy to find, curated space, could offer men who want to be just a little more vulnerable, knowing they would be supported by the mods if any toxic women came in to devalue their opinions and experience.
They should. the issue with this is they get branded as hate-groups or for ‘losers’. more or less automatically irregalrdless of what kind of community they are.
the bigger issue is that generally people think men are evil by default, and women are good by default. and that’s not a cultural assumption most folks are willing to look past.
A lot of male-only spaces descend into places to hate on women rather than proactively dealing with issues within our own community. It takes active moderation for these support groups to not become hate groups. If it stays focused on healthy self improvement (not hawking supplements and talking about a person being high or low “value”) and providing emotional support for men, it can avoid the “hate group” moniker.
The “loser” thing is actually a symptom of why we need spaces like we’re talking about. There will likely always be people out there who judge people for needing help and emotional support, especially men(thank you toxic masculinity), but the goal should be an overall less toxic society and greater acceptance that everyone needs help at some point.
Your “bigger issue” is not something I think I have experienced, I don’t think I’ve ever had someone assume I’m evil because I’m male. That sounds like an internal belief that you’re projecting on society, something that should be looked at in detail and questioned thoroughly in a therapeutic setting. Looking at other comments you’ve made on similar subjects, you seem to be someone who needs a place where your views can be safely challenged by reality, which is another way of saying we need better support groups for men like you, not just incel groups where you reinforce each other’s toxic beliefs.
I understand that this may come off as insulting, I just want you to know that that’s not my intent. I think you are lacking in self worth and that is leading you to project toxicity into the world. I don’t think you’re hopeless, mostly because I used to be on a similar course as you. I got therapy and learned to better love and value myself and I started seeing a lot more positivity in my interactions with people of all genders. The first step is wanting to change things.
I think the “men evil”, “woman good” is just worded to strongly but is generally true (not actually true, but people considered it to be true).
Its more “men dangerous”, “men threatening” and not “evil”. A man in a women’s bathroom is a threat. A women in a mans bathroom is there because there was a line for the woman’s bathroom. The actual reason for those scenarios does not matter, the man will be seen as an invasion and a perpetrator. I have personally experienced examples of neutral situations as well (going to the woman’s bathroom as a man without negative reactions) but the general discourse about the topic is pretty clear.
removed by mod
oh hey, it’s the person what from the op screen cap. Here doing an encore performance. Everyone clap.
Thank you! I have mental health problems so even negative attention is fulfilling.
AND I don’t think rehashing someone’s minor mistake for public theater is cool without the user names removed. People were shitting all over him when he already got clapped back, so I said something.
You could be more supportive. Men have issues specifically hurting them too, and not dismissing that fact won’t make women’s issues less relevant.
Could we just be more supportive to each other?
Absolutely! I encourage support spaces for everyone. I’m calling out the irony that this user is up and down this thread arguing against the women’s community and spouting female priviledge ideology, while now complaining that men can’t have the same thing… or else people will complain and spout male priviledge ideology.
There are many ways that sexism hurts men, which is why I’m down with support spaces and actively discourage all men bullshit when I see it.
Claiming those spaces doomed from the start, because of people behaving exactly like Tittyfrog here, is bad faith as hell.
because that would be gay. part of the evil homosexual agenda we must stop!
it’s manly/womanly/hetero to beat up on other people and harass them for their issues and problems. or at least, to pretend that their problems are less than those of this more oppressed group. plus it feels really good to call people names rather than acknowledge their humanity and/or their fallibility.
but hey, we all know that billionaires are the most oppressed group on the planet. they are the true victims.
You’re the only one here harassing people for their issues and problems and pretending they are less than those of a more oppressed group.
That first sentence is not a good look homie. I say this as a cis-het dude
Wow. That was rude
Calling out shitty people isn’t rude.
the bigger issue is that generally people think men are evil by default, and women are good by default. and that’s not a cultural assumption most folks are willing to look past.
I consider myself a feminist and I vehemently disagree with that take, nor does it reflect in any way the commonly held views in the relevant communities.
Women and men are people. All people hold the capacity for good and evil within them. The real differences are 1) our respective socialization, and 2) the way we are perceived and treated by society based on our gender. That’s not an individual issue, but a systemic one.
I’ve been part of a few support groups for men that regularly received appreciation from women specifically because they were aimed at helping men in recognition of this fact, and thus didn’t revolve into inceldom and gender war nonsense.
generally people think men are evil by default, and women are good by default
i think this is a misunderstanding of the dynamic
we see this play out pretty regularly with the “not all men” arguments and the like: men getting annoyed by women being careful, and taking “you could hurt me” behaviour as some kind of insult. the statement is true: not all men are evil to women, but any man could be evil to women and thus need to be treated as though it’s possible in order to protect themselves
Don’t make them a hate-group for losers, then? This speaks more about the places you’re hanging out at.
There are support groups for men out there that are not generally charectirized as toxic. Toxic folks may attack men for going to them, but I can tell you before I transitioned I used to go to one, and no one ever verbally attacked me for it.
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That community hits “front page” quite often. It’s easy to miss the community name (and rules) unless you pay attention.
It would be nice if there was a brother community that had the same topic, and a default text in all posts explaining this and redirecting the men to that.
I don’t hate the idea in principle. Actually on principle I think it would be really cool. But, MAN do I think that will not go the way I think we’d all like it to.
You’d have to really police the place for shithead incels. And soft core porn.
On Reddit I’d agree, but I’m slightly more optimistic about how it would play out here
That would be an understandable mistake if the poster hadnt literally quoted the rule they were breaking.
Yes sure. I am speaking in general. Half the time I read that community, I only realize where I am when I see the mods calling other people out in the comments. It happens in every single thread, which is why I think they ought to make it more visible in every single post. It’s a great community and I do read it occasionally, so I don’t want to block it, just because I’m not allowed to comment myself.
not any different than any community that random gets frontpaged and gets flooded by randos.
on reddit i was a part of several smaller subs that would get front paged a couple times a year and things got nutty for a few days. usually a flood of users who just came in harassed everyone and made lots of posts about what losers we were, or posted self-help ‘guides’.
the assumption that people are going to read your sidebar rules and self regulate is just… dumb. that isn’t what people do. provocative posts are going to be a beacon for provocative people who have to ‘educate’ the rest of the community.
I read through that thread, the mods were very patient.
And individual community members of course had their own individual reactions, depending on the content of the post.
I saw that post too. I noticed it was a woman-only space and muted it. Godspeed to them, people deserve to have communities like that.
Same. I have a bad habit of shitposting into a comment section only to later see which community it was in. So I preemptively blocked them. The only community I did so, not to protect myself, but others.
When I first started here I had a relevant point for a women’s only community on the front. I asked if my opinion was welcome, told it was not (but fairly respectfully), and the only comment I left was an apology.
Like it’s not hard to be respectful, even if you hold a slightly different opinion. I don’t go to any of the “on grad” posts and let my opinions about Stalin fly(which are largely negative despite me agreeing with a lot of the tenants of communism).
The only exception I make about being respectful is anyone bragging about not voting last election in the US. You all suck and I will not let you live it down peacefully. Ffs vote third party! But don’t brag about being a lazy POS and standing by while fascism takes over!
I find it interesting how men regularly insert themselves into places or communities that are not designed for their specific label. I want to wonder what it is about women specifically that really makes men so uncomfortable about women having a place to discuss the world amongst themselves. But it doesn’t take long to see a common trend that appears which is a man is attempting to push their dominance over a situation.
Often times a comment begins with “As a man…” and it’s obvious the commenter is positioning themselves as an “authoritative” voice. Placing themselves higher than the women in a woman’s community. As if their words, experiences or perspectives hold more weight then the other people in this community not designed for men.
I often see this behaviour also within men’s communities such as Men’s Liberation. It confuses me greatly to see “As a man…” comments in the Men’s Liberation community because why do you need to declare your man status, in a men’s community, talking about men’s issues?? It seems to me it’s about placing their own thoughts, experiences and perspectives over the other, “lesser” men in the community. Often those comments ignore the message of the article or video while adding absolutely nothing additional to the conversation. They just stated they are men. That’s it.
The same men that argue against a segregated internet would not hesitate to join a men’s only community in real life or not. It’s not even a conscious effort for them to join a men’s only community. So when a community appears that doesn’t include them, I imagine it must feel insulting to be excluded this one time.
There’s over 8 billion people on this planet with over 8 billion different experiences, not everyone is going to relate to everything all the time. An individual’s experience is not universal. An individual’s experience does not give them authority over another groups experiences. Spending a life trying to dominate everything around yourself is an impossible task because there will always be people who will defy your authority. Nature in general doesn’t have a single fuck to give about one person’s dominance.
Good on the women who persist to exist in men dominant spaces. It’s a steep uphill battle. It’s an exhausting battle that seems never ending. I recently read how some of these women only communities operate behind the scenes and how they deal with certain issues. It showed how much effort they put into their community. I have an even greater appreciation for their existence now and I hope they continue to exist and grow.
women insert themselves into men’s spaces too.
why is it that you inherently value women over men?
women insert themselves into men’s spaces too.
Is this all there is to comment after I pointed out my observations about men dominating spaces? Should I have also pointed out how much more frequent it is for men to invade other people’s safe spaces and not other people invading men’s spaces?
why is it that you inherently value women over men?
Where did I say I inherently value women over men? I can appreciate others without putting others above me from a hierarchy perspective.
because that’s the default social perspective you seem to be implicitly reinforcing.
man bad. woman good.
In my life experience someone being an insufferable twat has nothing ot do with their sex identity and the distribution of twats is more on less on par among sexes. However, people generally give shitty women and their crappy behavior a way larger pass than men for the same offensive actions. And that’s institutionalized in our laws.
and as for the authoritative voice… that’s just what people do. pulling rank is part of the social game way all play to push ourselves up over one another. ‘as an x’ can be anything. it’s a rhetorical device.
because that’s the default social perspective you seem to be implicitly reinforcing.
If I was quoted directly I might be able to understand what I am implicitly reinforcing. Otherwise this seems like a personal attack and a distraction from the conversation I laid out in my first comment.
However, people generally give shitty women and their crappy behavior a way larger pass than men for the same offensive actions. And that’s institutionalized in our laws.
There are many laws in the world that vary greatly from region to region, are we totally sure women have more freedom in comparison to men in the way they act? I would like to see support for such a claim. A claim that involves half the population.
and as for the authoritative voice… that’s just what people do. pulling rank is part of the social game way all play to push ourselves up over one another. ‘as an x’ can be anything. it’s a rhetorical device.
Being social is not a game. It’s a thing people and also a wide variety of other animals do. It’s done for a wide variety of reasons. There are people who dedicate their lives to observe other animals and understand the complexity of being social. It’s not fair to reduce 8 billion people to a single category from a single person’s social experience.
That sucks that people have to experience social moments as a constant struggle to push themselves over each other. It’s definitely not the only way to live. There are communities online and offline, past and present that are able to exist without constant conflict within their social circles or communities. It involves being open and willing to accept others just as they are. If someone does not want to be open or accepting, then of course they will be angry or miserable.
Personally, I’ve made efforts throughout all my life to distance myself from people who think being social is a game. Today I surround myself with people who caring and loving without the need to be dominant over each other. It’s possible with a lot of work and persistence. I could blame others for feeling miserable but then I would never ever be happy.
