(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.
the response to the bear vs man thing is basically proof why most women chose bear.
Responses like the one OP is talking about were for sure, but since those weren’t the only kind of critical responses I wouldn’t band the whole thing together
people who are unable to get over themselves:
also people, unable to get over themselves: “you are actually just like hitler”
(this is satire, i’m not legitimately comparing hitler to you people, calm down.)
the irony will never cease to be indescribably funny to me.
downvotes on this are nothing but a tally of guys who are legitimately worse than a bear. So at least speak up and reveal yourselves, you coward ass bitches.
I’ve never raped anyone but I’ve been forced/coerced to have sex with two different women, and yes I’m a little offended at the fact that simply due to my gender I’m lumped in with the perpetrators rather than the victims, and that the perpetrators are lumped in with the victims in my stead. It goes beyond the bear post and is partially the result of the fact that nobody gives two shits about male victims, and the fact that in many localities rape requiring penetration excludes men from seeking justice by default, the being treated as a predator whilst being preyed upon is just the icing on the cake, really.
If that makes me worse than the bear, because I’d rather we not use inflammatory and gendered language to vilify a whole gender and exclude its victims for the lulz, then so be it.
exactly.
it’s about abusers vs abused, not about men vs women. women can be abusers. trans people can be abusers, non binary people can be abusers. asexual people… can be abusers.
but that’s too subtle for most folks, for whom man = bad, woman = good.
god forbid we focus on the act, rather than the identity of the person(s) who did it, and making stupid discriminatory generalizations based on the identity of that person(s).
You have a fair point, but that doesn’t make the original point less important. You are on the statistically safer side of the coin, but NO one should be treated this way.
Historically, rape victims on both sides have been ignored, blamed, and chastised. This needs to change. We need to have better treatment and justice for SA victims. Gender or sex shouldn’t come into the picture for how the situation is handled.
I get why you’re mad at this, and I do not want to talk about details of my life, but I get why you’re mad at this for personal reasons. I just think it’s slightly misdirected. I wish people would take you seriously, again, for personal reasons. I hope you find support and safety.
men don’t get support and safety for being victims. we get ostracized and many see our confession of previous abuse as ‘evidence’ that we deserved it and brought it upon ourselves.
For many things, yes. I used to want to adopt kids, but I don’t think I can deal with the public perception of being a male(-ish) person caring for children anymore, having heard so many rough stories from close friends, who at least have a wife to yell at sexists. Having a less traditional partnership won’t win any positive counts in the public eye, no matter how good of parents we might be.
There are quite a few stories of the same ostracizing for females (regarding SA), just less public attention on the stories for males who go through similar problems. All in all it’s fucked and we need people to take this seriously. I see the stand that this is making everyone defensive, but at the same time it is at least calling up the issue and maybe after people calm down, more people might acknowledge it? Yeah. I am too naive. Or wishful.
i am naive too, but experience has taught me that with age people only get worse, they don’t get better.
i’m now at the age where if i walk my dog and someone’s kid wants to pet it they think i’m a pedo trying to seduce their kid. nothing is just innocent and pure anymore. the well has been poisoned and people assume the worst when they have zero reason too… (well other than that the internet/tv told them to do it)
This is basically my entire point. Don’t make posts like “I’d rather the bear than the women because a bear will just maul me but the woman will force me to have sex with her,” which are designed to evoke a negative reaction. Instead, a real conversation where it’s victim v offender instead of man v woman is likely more productive. Now that it has become an inflammatory gendered thing all we’re doing is talking about that instead of the “original intent” (frankly I think it was intended as it came, but “benefit of the doubt” I guess.)
Yeah. Definitely fair on the probably not pure intentions part as well, but I’m frequently too quick to give the benefit of the doubt, even after all this time.
I’m sorry if this conversation is rough for you.
Thanks, but I’m over what happened now, it was years ago, but it just bugs me to deal with all the bullshit surrounding it, like this issue with the bear thing.
I just think we should all come together on this issue for the betterment of everyone instead of bicker about “men this, women that, and nonbinary don’t exist in this conversation.”
so much this. The entire point of this statement was LITERALLY to talk about this problem, and here we are with people saying “yeah actually, you’re why i choose the bear”
This is genuinely turning into LAMF material as we speak.
So, You’ve experienced a similar trauma to what a good chunk of women experience, and the remaining women live in fear of experiencing, and instead of being sympathetic and understanding… you are angry at them for trying to protect themselves from similar fates.
Yeah, you sound like a real upstanding guy.
he’s contributing to the conversation in a positive manner.
rather than being a butthurt bigot who whines about downvotes.
Close, but no cigar. I’m empathetic to those women, and in fact I agree we can all be more vigilant to protect ourselves from harm of any kind. What I do not agree with is the unnecessary inflammatory gendered language which actually does more harm than good and alienates male victims while praising woman perpetrators, and with people like you who minimize my experiences and viewpoints because you’d rather dismiss them than treat me like a human. I do not agree that because some men are abusive we should treat them all as if they probably are, just as my experiences with two of the many women I have met are expected not to taint my view of their entire gender.
I’m not angry at women, I’m angry at individuals like yourself, who are shitty people masquerading as a moral authority, fucking do better.
I can tell you haven’t dealt with drama before. If I’m wrong, please forgive me. Everyone has to deal with it differently, please be a little more patient. Maybe they could have worded it more carefully, but I don’t think they deserved this escalation.
This is a problem we need to deal with in society. You acknowledged that yourself. This almost comes across as victim blaming, but definitely comes across as straw manning.
ah yes, gatekeeping rape.
wouldn’t be the fucking internet if this shit didn’t happen huh?
Apt username
im no coward, in fact i’m not even a bitch, i don’t downvote shit unless it’s just like an actually wrong opinion.
actually you know what fuck it i won’t even expand upon my thoughts here, if you care go look at my post history. There’s plenty there.