So I just discovered c/womensstuff, commented in a thread that took my interest and got a somewhat abusive “eff off” comment from a mod with added sarcasm.
I then saw it’s “women only”. This is the only community I know that bans based on a protected identity of a person, e.g. in the UK, it’s illegal to discriminate based on gender, sexuality, religion etc.
How does everyone feel about this for Lemmy communities?
If they served the best pizza in town, I would join your flight. But all they have to offer is women who want to talk with other women. If you are not a woman, I don’t see what you think you would contribute.
This is so obvious now that you’ve written it, but it never occurred to me. What a great way to phrase this.
I think it’s reasonable that some communities will want to cater to a specific topic / group of people. If you want to discuss a similar topic, there’s nothing stopping you from posting about it in another community or making your own community/instance.
If someone doesn’t want to engage with you, it’s silly to try and force them to engage with you.
If you want to discuss a similar topic, there’s nothing stopping you from posting about it in another community or making your own community/instance.
But that’s stupid.
How so?
Its a tradeoff, it’s discussing things with people that understand you and being protected from outside interference while doing so.
Then again this creates a bubble which leads usually to radicalization. Which leads to a lack of respect for otherl peoples experience and point of view.
I wish communities like this would introduce labels to invite outside views or maybe a “male input Monday” or something. Just to stave off the effects of isolation to a specific mindset.
Y’all seem to think that those people only exist in one random Lemmy community and never use anything else.
Women getting too much and too bad male input is literally what leads to women only spaces, not the other way around. And yet they still get male input everywhere else. It’s like thinking going to a Warhammer shop will radicalize you because they don’t play poker there, it’s not even stupid, it’s absurd.
This is the intelligent answer, not the facebook answer.
This is the intelligent answer, not the facebook answer.
You do see the mirror right? Not sure what you expect for a response when your whole stance consists of “that’s stupid.”
If its worth anything you seem so dense that you got me to block you so I dont have to see content from a pissy cunt bitching about a community for women being a community for women. Your social worker can prolly point you in the direction of communities for retards… I think they call them group homes.
You’re going to make an amazing, beautiful mother.
Your vitriol makes you sound really bitter and hateful towards men. Groups like what I’m talking about strengthen your existing sexist opinions and make them more extreme, and in your mind, this hatred becomes normalised that you post things like the above.
You have just proven why exclusive groups like this are bad for communities.
(Though the entire response reads very gen-AI-ish)
🙄🙄🙄
its their community, they can run it how they please, if it rubs you the wrong way you can feel free to make a competing space instead of simply complaining about it, but i think most will find its harder to moderate than they think, so i say having a hard stance on moderation to ensure quality for a minority is perfectly acceptable imo.
Minority?
the majority of lemmy users are male <3
Source?
there are no official numbers. but women’s stuff community never reached about 800 members before migration. I’m not saying that every woman is subscribed to that comm, but if it’s any indicator, women are a minority on lemmy. if we look at other communities, the two biggest communities that indicate they are for gendered groups are women’s autism, and men’s liberation. while they both have around the same subscriber count, the men’s liberation comm has twice as many posts and frequently more comments. as for other comms that have some sort of gender distinction, for women never go about 800, whereas men’s ones can each as high as 2.5k users. based off these figures, and my own experiences on lemmy as a woman, I conclude that women are a minority, or seriously unrepresented if they are more present than it appears.
If people want a respectful space to discuss among themselves I don’t see any good reason to force myself into the conversation. Not every space on the internet (or real life) needs to be a stage for the free marketplace of ideas, especially when you’re talking about already marginalised communities who are easily disenfranchised by many of the kinds of people attracted to that style of space.
Personally, looking at the interaction between yourself and the mod, it reads to me like you was the one who was sarcastic and rude.
Are women considered marginalised communities outside the minds of feminists?
Women have been historically and presently marginalised, yes.
Yes
As someone who opposes lots of what feminist theories claim and what some feminist groups preach and do my answer is: Yes, obviously, you have to be a special kind of stupid to not realize that women are marginalized in our society. Next you’ll tell me that outside of black live matter no one thinks blacks are marginalized.
I would agree with you but I don’t think women are marginalised in my society. They may feel as if they are though because they’re generally told they are. I will accept Muslim women are but most who I know actually accept being told what to do and not do and the abuse they receive. Less of the personal insults, huh?
I would agree with you but I don’t think women are marginalised in my society.
Then you don’t agree with me, and you should look closer at your society, it’s easy to overlook how certain groups are marginalized if you’re not part of them. I recommend you read some posts in some women only communities (instead of trying to tell them how they should feel) to see the sort of thing they have to go through.
I get where you’re coming from, on paper our society treats women equally, there are no written rules or outlandish inequalities, and some of what feminist complain is not even real, such as the gender pay gap. However that’s not the same as saying there aren’t any inequalities nor that it’s even comparable. Yes, men do have issues in our society; Yes we need to address those; No, we shouldn’t laugh at me for opening up about their issues; Yes, men can have safe spaces where they talk about their issues without having women judge them for it. And all of that is the same for women, there are lots of ways in which our society treats women as inferior and if you can’t recognize that there’s really nothing else to tell you than “pay more attention”, but there’s no worse blind that those who don’t want to see, so I’m sure there’s nothing I can tell you that will make you stop and listen and look around, talk to your mom, sister, or some women you know and trust, listen to their stories about that time their boss slap their ass or their ex-boyfriend forced himself on them, or even the time the creepy guy started following them around.
I think it’s nigh impossible to come up with strict rules about these things.
I also think it’s fine that women have spaces that are just for them.
I also think it’s fine that women have spaces that are just for them.
Interesting? Why? So it becomes an echo chamber? Why not make the group private in that case? How about fake women profiles by men?
Why do you feel that you have the automatic right to insert yourself into a conversation that your opinion isn’t wanted in? There’s no issue with the way they’re presenting or moderating their community; they make the rules plain on the sidebar.
How about fake women profiles by men?
Again, why do you assume this is an issue? Most men can simply respect that women would like to have a conversation with other women. Why are you not able to just accept this?
Why do you feel that you have the automatic right to insert yourself into a conversation that your opinion isn’t wanted in?
Your opinion isn’t wanted.
Why are you not able to just accept this?
Tough titties, kid.
literally asks people for their opinions on a community dedicated to asking people their opinions “Your opinion isn’t wanted”
ok buddy 👍
Not only that, but literally directly asked them why immediately beforehand. This is a master class in missing the point.
I’m an afab something for whom these communities always felt a little iffy (they’re very welcome and it’s lovely to not have to hedge what you say as much, but I always felt they were somewhat unfair), but this comments section has helped me understand why it’s unproblematic to have them.
OP, you’ve done a fantastic job demonstrating exactly why some people might want spaces where they don’t have to deal with the likes of you.
c/womensstuff is punching up, you’re punching down
Can you give a real life example of a community banning folks only for these identifiers and not their behavior?
i am fine with it and think it is neat
Let me try to phrase my opinion:
It’s unfortunate that gender-exclusive communities exist, but it’s a consequence of deeper societal issues.
Forcing the issue on social networks like Lemmy will actually make it worse, because those groups will feel in danger and want to separate even further.
Being able to access the community in read-only mode is a very good thing, because you’ll be able to gain insight into why they feel the need for a separate space. Read, learn and understand, even if you disagree.
But read, learn, understand what? Do you really think the problem you claim women need the space is because (presumably men, the alleged oppressors) don’t “understand” women and if only they’d take time to read and understand women it would all be ok?
But read, learn, understand what?
Why they feel the need to be separate. What exactly are they afraid of. You’re focusing too much on being “technically correct”. Human emotions don’t work like that.
Humans work generally like this:
- we have a bad experience
- we try to avoid bad experience repeating
Sometimes it leads into coping mechanisms like needing a safe space. Trying to break down that barrier by force will not work, it will only make it stronger. You can hope to be invited in, but that requires understanding.
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The legitimacy of exclusive spaces aside, how did they know you were not a woman?
Probably because they made a comment saying “as a man” or something to that effect, especially considering they hadn’t previously realized it was a woman only space
I subscribe to c/womensstuff and I’ve seen the messages to men who post there accidentally. They go like this: “thanks for your comment, but unfortunately this community has a rule that only women are permitted to comment - hope you understand 🧡”
How is this “somewhat abusive”?
You seem like a bit of a dunce but thanks for helping me find a new community!
Feel free to make a positive men’s space on Lemmy explicitly banning hate speech if you’d really like to support and uplift other men :)
So many “marginalised” women throwing insults around like candy. Maybe these people feel they’re marginalised because they already hate men and men avoid them?
You miss the point. A “positive men’s space on Lemmy” would explicitly ban women. not “hate speech”. Maybe you seem like a bit of a dunce?
Yes, I’m saying it would be totally okay to hold a space for Lemmy that was explicitly for men, as long as it (like the community you’re referring to) explicitly banned hate speech. Because it’s okay to hold spaces for certain groups sometimes, especially when it’s in order to hold safe positive spaces to connect.
If we had more positive men-only spaces, men would overall be happier and healthier, which would be a win for everyone. Unfortunately, since a lot of spaces online often don’t ban negative or extreme takes, they often just lead to worsening mental health for their members. This isn’t exclusive to men, I’ve seen women’s spaces do the same, which is why I mention they need to be well moderated and ban hate speech, again, like the community you mention here does.
