(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.

  • beardown@lemm.ee
    1·
    6 months ago

    How would you feel if the hypothetical was asking if you’d rather encounter a bear or a Muslim?

    What about a bear or a person who is black?

    Or a bear vs an immigrant?

    See the issue?

    Also, when we dehumanize or other an entire sex (which is what we’re doing here) who do you think suffers the most irl from that dehumanization?

    Because it isn’t rich white men in gated suburban communities. It’s the black and brown men who are already viewed as inherently harmful and are disproportionately violently victimized by police and the state.

    If we want more George Floyds then we should keep spreading memes like this. Because this contributes to the mindset that allows us to view men of color as inherently dangerous superpredators