(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.

  • Seleni@lemmy.world
    1·
    4 months ago

    Alright, but…

    When you’re arguing on an online space large enough for a position that doesn’t yet have overwhelming support, you’re always going to get some pushback of some kind.

    Why wouldn’t the safety of women have overwhelming support? Why are we always on the back foot when it comes to discussions like these? Why is this such a ‘small position’ that women find themselves making ludicrous arguments about bears in the first place?

    I would hope that a discussion of safety for any group would have majority support.

    And we do know it’s not all men. There are many men who would never do such a thing. Or who have even been abused themselves.

    But, according to the CDC, over half of all women have experienced sexual violence, and 1 in 4 women have experienced attempted or completed rape. With those numbers, it’s not all men, but it’s not just a few men either.

    With those statistics, we can’t afford to just… trust. And the fun part? Many times, it’s someone the woman knows. So we can’t always believe we’re safe even with friends and family.

    And sadly, nature hasn’t supplied us with psychic powers to know when the big burly guy leaning in too close to talk is just socially awkward, or up to something more unpleasant.

    So I ask… please be understanding. Men are, on the whole, bigger and stronger than women, so a bad encounter has a much stronger chance to go very, very bad for us.