Lately, I have been quite fed up with the amount of misogyny I’ve had to deal with online and in my life. So, I apologize in advance for the pent-up anger that is coming out in this post. But I just wanted to say that I am so happy that this space exists. It’s quiet, there isn’t a lot of activity on it, but it’s just so much better.
Every time I find myself in a space where cis men are not allowed, I realize how much better it is. All the trans men I know are absolute sweethearts. They’re wonderful. But every time, even the cis men that I know and love, I can’t help but be exhausted by them, by all the space they’re taking, the amount of energy I need to put in to cuddle their feelings. It really feels like men are 50% of the population and they’re taking 90% of the space available.
I just made a joke to my girlfriend that what the world really need is a Minecraft server where cis men are not allowed, but for real, I would play the shit out of this. It sounds like such an amazing place to hang out in.
Because, if you would indulge me in my frustrations… I’m so done with cis dudes. As in, I’m done being patient and I’m done putting up with bullshit. I should never have to deal with in the first place. I’m so done with them acting as if they own every space I’m also in, as if I need an invitation and a man by my side to just be tolerated in it, which for me is most of what it’s like to be a girl in gaming spaces, but it shouldn’t be. I’m done having to justify and explain myself because dudebros are always convinced that because i’m a woman, I don’t know shit, acting as if they are an authority on the things that I am living through every day, talking as if they know better than me, denying my experiences. And I’m done with – again, to go back to the thing that I mentioned about gaming spaces – men calling me slurs or just being fucking creepy as hell with me for what I am.
I’m sorry to say this, but every time I see a toxic community, every time I see a place that is just a Nazi haven or whatever the fuck, it’s all men! All the time! It’s not that women can’t be Nazis or whatever, of course they can. Women can be fucking awful! I mean, there is a reason why the UK is nicknamed “TERF Island”, you know? But that kind of shit is definitely the exception, not the rule.
I love cis men, I really do, but, and I hate to say this, for me to be able to keep loving them, I need moments and places where I can just fucking vent about how exhausting they are to be around. And getting that online is near impossible. I wouldn’t be able to say or write any of this in a space where they were allowed. And I know that you know why I can’t do that. I know that you know what it would turn into. We all know here what comes of poking this hornet’s nest.
So I’m thankful for this space. I’m thankful for all of you in it. And I want more of them.
(depending on how this goes, I just want to say in advance that I’m sorry to the moderation.)
UPDATE:
So with all the responses I got, I’m gonna be honest, I kinda deeply regret making this post and I don’t think I’m gonna be active in this community anymore. I don’t think I’m gonna be really active on this account much anymore either at all for that matter. I’m sorry that I made this post, I should have kept this to myself.
UPDATE 2: Nah, fuck that. I stand by everything I said.
I was initially confused by update 1 as it seemed like most of us agreed with you. I’m delighted to see update 2 welcome back!
This bunny is suffering from a very intense anxiety disorder. It’s difficult. Thanks for your support. <3
Yeah, Lemmy seems to have a misogyny problem, and it’s really sad to me, and even seems unnecessary (like, it’s one small step from the community’s otherwise general egalitarian views to also include gender egalitarianism; you would think self-described leftists would be more feminist and less misogynist).
I completely hear you about men being creepy, denying your experience, assuming you know nothing and talking down to you, etc.
I also hear you about how Nazism and other right-wing ideologies attract predominantly men - it’s not just you, it’s actually backed by the data, particularly young women are far more likely to be left-leaning and young men are far more likely to be right-leaning.
I tend to think this has more to do with influencers and who is targeting young men as a demographic than anything inherent in the ideology (though maybe it’s easier to use right-wing arguments to appeal to men’s insecurities and frustrations than left-wing ones, I don’t know). In general I tend to think people are irrational in their religious and political views and find it easy to rationalize acceptance of an ideology or religion that victimizes them (e.g. see women and Christianity).
an aside about trans men
I intuitively understand what you’re saying about trans men being better and this being a cis man problem (because I think trans men often can be better, maybe due to their past), but in the end they’re dudes like any other, and there are plenty of toxic trans men. For example, a significant portion of the detransitioners and anti-trans activists are trans men, just off the top of my head: Buck Angel, Chloe Cole, Sage Blair, and Aaron Kimberly are all trans men (or “ex-trans”) who are conservative anti-trans activists.
So while my personal experience IRL with trans men are mostly positive, I think we should remain aware that trans men are just as capable of being toxic, and at the end of they day they too are just men.
an aside about trans men
and at the end of they day they too are just men.
huh. well. this is some progressive ass stereotyping lmao
Trans inclusive radical misandry
Man I wish misandry existed
Edit: insofar as I wish for a world where women have enough structural power for misandry to even be considered in the same ballpark of meaning as misogyny
The only thing I can think of is parental leave not being equally and widely available for all. Like yeah the birth giver does most of the work, but parenting should be something done by all parents, not just one.
Likewise the shaming of men for sharing their mental health issues. Though that’s often between men. I always tell my guy friends to speak out if something bad happens.
Misandry often is ironically still perpetuated mostly by other men who don’t want to understand, nor who want to work on it. The power dynamics is a large part of the problem.
You could make an argument for parental leave being primarily offered to the birth giver being misogyny, honestly. The expectation is that the birth giver should be the one and only parent taking time away from work and spending time taking care of their newborn. Obviously a man shouldn’t take time away from work, those are ovary-havers’ jobs
I wouldn’t call the mental health issue a structural one but it is a very real issue. And yes, mainly perpetuated by other men. Dudes should cry and get therapy, too <3
I also just get a big ick at the term misandry since its origin was literally as a kneejerk reaction to feminism, and has also since been a big buzzword in the manosphere
yeah, I was going to say - patriarchy ironically is the biggest source of misandry - it perpetuates norms about men being predators, blames them as a category for the crimes of a minority, and distributes power unevenly among men participating in the oppression of men through class and race differences, etc.
I don’t really want to imply we should stereotype either way (sorta the same with cis men, tbh - there are bad men, there are good men, there are men who are both; I’m not going to pretend it’s not complicated) … but it is a good reminder that trans men are just men and there are plenty of shitty trans men.
I mean the whole point of this is we’re othering men … right
Like. This is a “I dislike the other” post.
I don’t think so, this is more like a venting / frustration post over bad experiences with men, and a statement of relief and gratitude for safe spaces.
You don’t have to twist that into strict “othering”, even if that’s often how that goes in practice.
I would prefer we hold both as true - that we don’t invalidate women’s experiences with men, but that we also recognize that those bad experiences are not absolute or guaranteed with every man. I see no reason we can’t be mature and recognize the compatibility for both truths here.
I don’t intend to say we shouldn’t complain or ought not or that complaining in and of itself id bad, just I find the space to give me the ick when that starts to become the theme. Idk if that makes sense?
Maybe I’m being reactive and being anxious about the discourse changing, but some of the comments in here have given that ick.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to feel anxious about this turning into a toxic space where generalizations and othering are common, because tbh I think that’s usually how it goes. Victims often generalize, I think it’s part of the fear and survival response to constantly be looking for similar patterns and anticipate threats - so to some extent I even think this is hardwired.
Not that every bad interaction with a man results in PTSD-like symptoms or anything, but some of those bad interactions do turn out that way. I’ve been inappropriately touched by a man and once I was in a safe place my body started to shake uncontrollably, and I assume based on that, that I had some kind of trauma response from my experience. I just assume this experience is going to make it harder for me to trust men, esp. men who remind me of the person who victimized me.
I definitely think as a culture we have to find a path to both validate women’s experiences, but also not let that turn into dehumanizing rhetoric based on inappropriate generalization. It’s admittedly hard to do both.
othering is a pretty baked in human trait, we inherently do it down to cross race facial blindness being near universal so I’m not really trying to even throw shade at it.
I just think we need to recognize that bias in all of us.
I appreciate that we’re not arguing about this even if at points there is disagreement in perception.
Yeah, the misogyny problem on lemmy is annoyingly bad
Tap for spoiler
On trans men they’re men who happen to be trans. I love so many of my brothers in transness. But also I’ve had my fair share of trans guys just being guys, especially when the topic of transmisogyny comes up.
And like, ultimately, that’s also how I feel about cis men in general as well. I acknowledge that the offering of patriarchy for the average cis man is a raw deal, I acknowledge that life’s rough for everyone and many cis men are awesome and many people who aren’t suck. But sometimes I need spaces away from men, and it can be very easy to extend that to resentment.
yes, I have a nephew who just announced his transition through a meme talking about how he will man-splain and be unrepentant about it (to be fair, probably just intended as a joke, but it was a joke that bothered some women in the family), and ironically since he has transitioned he has become far more dismissive and a lot less willing to listen … I’m not certain this is because of his transition alone, but it’s an interesting coincidence …
Lemmy is just software, if your instance isn’t banning misogyny immediately on sight then that’s a moderation problem. I’m not saying you’re doing this, but I don’t think we should let instance owners off the hook for what happens on their platforms.
hi friend!
Thanks for your comment, but this community has a rule that only women are permitted to comment or post, so please refrain from commenting further. I hope you understand, thanks! 💛
And kind of proving my point, too. Taking the problem you mentioned and making it about you and how it’s your fault for not having picked the right instance.
Every time I complain about misogyny online, I get one of these. I get somebody giving me a tech solution to what is a human problem.
Recently I was saying that playing video games online as a woman is hell and I had a guy that just wouldn’t have it. He kept telling me that it was a me problem. That I had to change server. Play another game. I had to play with other people and so on and it’s like it’s everywhere. It always comes down to this, me having to change my behavior for the shit that others are putting me through.
It’s hard to ban misogyny without banning 90% of the users. We can only ban overt and obvious misogyny. But you can’t really ban the constant passive misogyny. And that constant misogyny that is always there, it’s something that you can’t see as a man, you just can’t. Like, even me, I thought I was trying to be the best ally possible and so on. But it really took me coming out and starting to live and experience the world as a woman to actually understand what it’s really like. That is something that mostly you only get to understand what it’s like as a woman because you develop a sense for it, you have to, it’s almost a survival instinct, you can tell the vibe, you can tell that you’re being talked over and so on.
And I think that, to come back to your point about trans men, while I’m lucky in my entourage, I think it’s also easy for trans men to lose that sense, to get used to not having to deal with it and to eventually forget what it’s like.
But even then I will always trust them more than cis men and that's for a very simple reason which is kind of awful and needs to come with a trigger warning for transphobia, homophobia and violence.
I know that I don’t have to fear hooking up with a trans guy, because I know he isn’t going kill me because they feel emasculated by having seen a woman and realizing that she’s trans. I know that this is not going to happen, not them. But cis men? Many of my trans sisters found out the answer to this question the hard way…
I don’t think the people giving you a tech solution to a human problem are trying to do so in bad faith, they’re probably really trying to be helpful. Yes, I validate your experiences and people like that absolutely shouldn’t exist, but also, if you want to be happier, changing your own behaviours is the only lever you have to do that - you can’t change others (as much as I wish we could :( )
You shouldn’t have to, but if you do it might make you happier 🤷♀️
And you could also argue that better moderation is not a tech solution to a human problem but a human solution, since it’s humans who do the moderation work.
And kind of proving my point, too. Taking the problem you mentioned and making it about you and how it’s your fault for not having picked the right instance.
Excuse me, but I specifically said “I’m not saying you’re doing this”. You’re also twisting my words to mean the exact opposite of what I said. Calling a network of people “Lemmy” I feel lumps all instances together and ignoring the very real agency of admins to remove bad actors.
I believe the problem of harassment should NOT be up to the individual to “choose an instance”. Instance admins need to be held accountable for what they expose their users to the same way Mark Zuckerberg needs to be held accountable for the harassment on his platforms. If an instance admin is exposing their users to harassment, they need to take actions to protect their users. If they don’t other admins have a responsibility to defederate.
And just so we’re clear, I’m not “giving a tech solution to a human problem”, I’m specifically saying this can only be solved by humans. Specifically the humans who have a responsibility to their users.
I don’t disagree with you, but you are replying in a comment thread in which you were explicitly told this is a women only space and that you should not interact further.
I get the same kind of ick in these spaces when they’re used to blanket complain about an entire group of people as I do when they’re talking about “females”
You do you though.
Idk, I feel like blanket complaining about an entire group for an aspect of their identity which isn’t chosen - being a cis man - is just disguised sexism, disguised because it’s ‘punching up’. But I wonder if the reason so many young men are becoming right wing is because they see women and nonbinary people complaining about how awful their demographic is, and how even the “good ones” - which are the majority - aren’t really talked about, just mentioned as like “well, of course they should be treating people with basic dignity”, and they’re like, “well, if we’re going to be demonized anyway, why not play into it?” It might not even be conscious, just subconscious, but maybe recognising that people are individuals and that it’s factors who can change, like being a bigot, that are wrong, not identity stuff you can’t change?
Sorry, that was kind of rambly, I do apologise
If you think you are “one of the good ones” and you think “why not play into it” you were never a good person.
It’s easy to draw a parallel between that and this when you ignore the power dynamic at play
Please note: this community is women-only, please read the rules before commenting.
I totally see where you’re coming from, and it really sucks that the loudest and worst offenders online are almost always presenting as men. I often find that women’s and queer spaces IRL are so much more inviting and less aggressive than general admission spaces.
Since this is a public post, I just want to say to the men lurking that this is a vent post and so it says “all” a lot, but please try to see that she’s expressing hurt and not intending this as an attack or an expression of hatred for men. 🙏
Additionally, to the men that read it, and understand why it’s necessary, y’all cool, might be handy to head to spaces like !dadforaminute@lemmy.world - there should be more inclusive spaces like this one, really. Having more spaces ≠ exclusion; there are plenty general spots as well.
On that regard, those general spaces can sometimes be nice, but I think it’s because they then have a focus on queer peeps (eg. !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone, or because they coordinate with queer spaces. Those tend to kick out the annoying people more actively.
I’m a mod myself on !egg_irl@lemmy.blahaj.zone and !lgballt@lemmy.blahaj.zone , but yeah.
Dad for a minute is great! We’re twinned with them they’ve been gung ho supportive of us from day one. I pop in regularly for DIY advice or hugs.
to be honest I think it’s only a minority of men who are a real problem - but they’re numerous enough that it makes it hard to know who is safe or not, and even among the safe ones I think there can be some behaviors that can easily come across the wrong way (like, it’s a fine line between being helpful and mansplaining, for example)
It might be true that a “minority of men who are a real problem” but there’s also a minority of allies. I think the largest segment of men just go with the flow. They’ll laugh at a sexist joke if the majority are laughing or stay silent if the majority stay silent. I’ve seen some real allies shut down misogynistic comments here on Lemmy, and it’s really heartening. They get downvoted for it, but they shut down the circle jerk. I think it’s because they’re men signaling disapproval. The other guys might not like it, but they listen. I think Gen Z will not be quite as progressive as I was hoping, but I’m really hoping the next gen will tip us over the edge and we’ll hit a critical mass of allies so that men are less confident being openly misogynistic.
You’re right, and I think the minority of allies is much smaller than the minority of problem men, too. To be honest I don’t know a lot of male allies (and one of the biggest ones I know IRL is a trans man).
I have little hope for future generations without a path forward for education and impacting positive change in society - and as far as I can tell at least the US is significantly sliding backwards on those fronts. It would be nice to think the future will be more progressive, but I have concerns and doubts.
For me it really boils down to basically everything men do making me think “wow, I’m definitely not whatever you are” - I find myself so baffled at why they act like they do.
You’re right and you’re valid for saying it
Being in FLINTA spaces is so fucking awesome and cozy and safe. Its easier, its less energy, it doesn’t fill me with anxiety.
FLINTA? I’m picturing something from the Flintstones but I’ve no idea what the abbreviation means
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLINTA*
“Frauen, Lesben, Intergeschlechtliche, nichtbinäre, trans und agender Personen”, meaning women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, trans and agender people.
It has made its way to being used in the UK queer/kink circles at least, and I like the term!
just to be clear, !womensstuff@piefed.blahaj.zone is a women-only community that allows trans, non-binary, agender, etc. folks decide whether they feel they belong in a women’s group
(as opposed to a “women + others” group)
I know! I love this space for that :) my mentioning of FLINTA spaces wasn’t in contrast to this space, rather sharing that I love FLINTA spaces in relation to the OP’s desire for more spaces without cis men
oh, that makes sense - sorry for misreading you, I was confused and thought !womensstuff@piefed.blahaj.zone was being viewed as a FLINTA space.
Thanks for teaching me about FLINTA as a term and concept, too - that’s helpful to know!
You’re welcome sis!
Flinta means in my irl communitys
Female Lesbian Intersex Nonbinary Transgender and Agender.
(Wich is probably also the official meaning but i am not 100% sure.)
Neat way to say no cis men welcome, tho in my experience not every flinta space is completly open to nonbinary or agender “men” so its nicer to ask if one can be there before one barges in.
deleted by creator
Hey Omega I just saw this post tonight sorry for not giving you support earlier. It’s a real shame this post has been negative for you, it’s given a voice to a lot of members and it’s got a lot of interesting chatter going, but the main thing is how you feel about it. It was your post, and your feelings matter the most. We’ve got your back whether you stay with us or not… I don’t want to invade your privacy by DM you but you’re 100% welcome to DM me if that would help you feel secure here heart ❤️
