Lemmy is a worse platform for women than Reddit was
Lemmy is a worse platform for women than Reddit was
(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.
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I commented about it and some guy replaced every instance of the word “men” in my post with “Jews” to prove to me that I am a bigot. His comment was removed by mods, but later un-removed because we’re big fans of bad faith arguments and invalid comparisons on this platform.
e: argue this point with women in person and see how well it goes.
It's a totally valid comparison. If you are saying things about a group of people, and replacing that specific group with a different random group makes you feel uncomfortable, don't say the things.
"Men are terrible"
"Women are terrible"
"Jews are terrible"
Just don't say those things. Better yet, don't think those things.
I think saying "an unknown man with no consequences is very dangerous if you're a woman" is fair, and also sexist in a way. That's just the reality of how things are.
If I replace woman with "an unknown jew... is very dangerous" it's similarly saying "this group is bad" but is also completely untrue. Understanding that it's sexist is important, but swapping the word out can be an invalid comparison imo.
That's a fair point, but only to an extent. I think most of the time what I said holds true. And I think it's pretty clear when you cross the line from reasonable to bigot, usually.
Like, I would agree that it's reasonable to have a healthy fear of being alone in the ghetto at night if you're a white dude. But there's a point where that becomes racism.
Yeah 100% I think the post was kinda ragebait though so people were being angry and hyperbolic.
it's objectively not true however.
statistically, the danger to women is known men. most women are assaulted by men they know and trust.
How about “an unknown black person is very dangerous”?
I'm getting roasted in another thread right now because of this, someone saying all Americans don't care about the world, which is crap
Men are not a marginalized group, neither historically nor currently.
Correct.
It's still bad to be a bigot? Don't get your point here.
So since we can agree that men are not a marginalized group, we can agree that it’s an invalid comparison.
Hatred against Jewish people is a real thing, hatred against men is mostly confined to strawmen that live in the heads of angry men.
That's a non-sequitur. Being marginalized isn't a prerequisite for being a bigot.
you can't argue with people who are convinced that 'minority' status grants them a moral superiority, and therefore their attacks on a non-minority group are justified.
this is the same reason right-wingers are obsessed with pedos. by fighting the 'ultimate evil' everything they do is automatically justified.
I’m saying something very simple. If you seriously can’t understand it then I can’t help you.
You know how a privileged white person couldn’t point at some random inconvenience and say “This is just like what slavery was like for black people”? That’s the kind of comparison you’re defending here.
No, what You're saying is a non-sequitur. It doesn't follow and your logic is wrong.
🤡
I’m saying something very simple. I
Just
Asking
Questions?
If anything I’m answering questions, are you fucking kidding me?
I’m confused how that is a bad faith argument or comparison in anyway. They changed nothing about your commentary except for the group you were singling out. Lol.
It isn't a bad faith comparison, you're just seeing cognitive dissonance in action. A person who believes that bigotry is wrong is having their deeply held bigotry pointed out.
Rather than reject one of those two incongruous beliefs, they tell themselves (and insist to others) that the person pointing out their bigotry is in some way wrong despite their argument being rock solid.
Men are not a marginalized group. With the concerning amount of antisemitism becoming common in the US, it’s VERY bad faith to try comparing the perceived discrimination against a hypothetical man to the actual struggles of real people.
Stereotyping people based on aspects of their personality they were born with is wrong. Period.
Die on whatever hill you want to, it doesn’t make it a valid comparison.
Making judgements based on your past experiences is vastly different from doing so on cultural stereotypes. I have never pointed to stereotypes or “vibes” or anything else non-concrete. I am drawing on my lived experience to inform my opinions.
Let’s just be explicit, are you saying rape victims are biggoted for having trauma involving men? Because that is absolutely the core of the issue here.
By your logic a person who gets assaulted by a black person allowed to prejudge all black people.
I feel perfectly fine saying that's morally wrong.
By your logic, it’s the assault victim’s fault that they have any notions at all. Trauma can manifest in all sorts of fucked up ways bud, we don’t get to choose.
It’s whacky to say something is “morally wrong” while completely ignoring it’s cause, context, and any other relevant factors. There’s this little thing called nuance that you’ve been stomping on all this time you’ve been trying to paint me into a box.
I was sexually assaulted by a female family member as a child. Repeatedly. I was then made to believe that that was "fun" and to seek it out.
My experience does not under any circumstances allow me to be a misogynist.
I find bigotry wrong. It took a lot of years to process what happened to me at the ripe old age of six, but it was my moral responsibility to do so rather than to take the shortcut to hatred.
Never have I ever in this entire discussion said anything other than “I am cautions around men” and “It’s not wrong to feel that way”. Everything else has been me defending those two very simple statements.
I’m very sorry that happened to you, that’s absolutely abhorrent.
I am by no means trying to minimize your experience or compare our traumas. I will just say that I was sexually assaulted by a stranger. My circumstances haven’t changed at all since it happened. I could still be easily physically overpowered by just about any random stranger, and my experiences force me to consider that as a very real possibility.
Victimhood does not magically bestow virtue.
Victimhood is not a free pass to behave immorally.
Victimhood is not permission to be prejudiced.
Victimhood does not give a person permission to hate.
Mistrusting half of the human population because of the genes they were born with isn't being cautious, it's being prejudiced.
I didn’t pretend to know what your life is like, you shouldn’t with mine. You’re asking me to trust every stranger and all I’m asking for is some empathy.
Here you are bestowing such judgement while berating me over being cautious. Really cementing all my preconceived notions of random strangers and reinforcing the very behavior you insist is morally wrong.
Nah. It’s not bad faith at all. You are perceiving it that way due to external factors. But the truth of the matter is the same. Change it from Jews to Asian. Or any other group and I bet you’d never say it.
So because you state “men are not a marginalized group”, men aren’t able to be used as a comparison as a group of people?
Sounds like you are marginalizing men totally and are so sure of your “fact” that it clouds your judgement.
What the fuck ever dude, big apologies to all the men I offended. VERY glad I don’t know any of you clowns in real life. Good luck interacting with women.
It’s not about offending anyone. It’s about you marginalizing groups because you believe XYZ. You are doing the thing you hate.
🤡
Name calling doesn’t really change my opinion. But you do you lol.
I already see people running with the same rage bait shit again and this is not the place for it. As for you, thank you for sharing your experience and I am sorry it was greeted with such toxicity. :)
For the rest of y’all, please see this and this comment which explains how this is a bad faith argument and be civil to one another.
This post is about combating harrassment. If you absolutely must discuss the nuances of feminism in relation to xenophobia, I ask you to make a post elsewhere about it.
God it sucks that people are replying to you just repeating that same argument.
PSA for those in the back: fear or even hatred of men is not equivalent to racism of any kind. Women have years of lived experience of men being shitty, from casual sexism to sexual assault. Knowing that any man could be dangerous is not prejudice, it's the truth, and remembering it allows us to exist and survive in the world.
Idk, to use another lemming's comment from this very post,
My proverbial beef isn't the pointing out of how manny men are predators and that the risksfor women are non-zero; my problem more specifically is that the meme stacks handily on top of the already vexing racial profiling I deal with as a black man who's had false allegations leveled in the past and lost jobs because of the weaponization of this fear. I have already spent damn near a half century being presumed some kind of feral Mandingo rape beast purely for existing while black. The presumption of interest in all of these women like a scene out of Kentucky Fried Movie gets really old and they get super vindictive when rejected.
To me it does seem analogous to the whole racist "black people are 12% of the population but commit 50% of the crime" thing, in that while it is true it is still racist to assume every black person will commit a crime against you and use it as a basis to fear them. Furthermore white people also commit plenty crime and get away with it, padding the numbers, and many women also get away with coercing/forcing men to have sex because nobody believes or gives a fuck about male victims (trust me, am one, 2 diff women,) so it often also goes unreported. On that note actually in many places in the us "rape" requires penetration, so if a woman forces you to penetrate her "you must've liked it" and no court case for you!
Personally I think it'd be prudent not to vilify an entire gender while also excluding victims from said gender.
Hell I understand though, at least with the bear I'd only be brutally mauled instead of forced to have sex with it, and 2/infinity women I've met have forced me to have sex with them so imo all women could, I'll take the bear too.
Thanks for the PSA :)
I'd argue that it's still prejudice, as the word only means to assume behavior from the appearance alone. But in a positive way, as prejudices originally existed for self-protection.
prejudices originally existed for self-protection
Huh?
I worded that badly. What I meant was that the reason humans have prejudice-y thinking hardwired in the brain is for self-protection. If individuals of some ape species have a 30 % chance of being super aggressive and trying to kill you on the spot, your first reaction to seeing one will be negative and retiring – even if this specific one is super nice and wouldn't hurt a soul.
Ohhhh yeah
PSA for those in the back: fear or even hatred of black people is not equivalent to racism of any kind. White people have years of lived experience of black people being shitty, from casual mugging to murder. Knowing that any black person could be dangerous is not prejudice, it's the truth, and remembering it allows us to exist and survive in the world.
God it sucks that people are replying to you just repeating that same argument.
PSA for those in the back: fear or even hatred of Muslims is not equivalent to misandry of any kind. Women have years of lived expericen of Muslim being shitty, from casual sexism to sexual assault. Knowing that any Muslim could be dangerous is not prejudice, it's the truth, remembering it allows us to exist and survive in the world.
Ok but wtf is your name