(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.
Dunno man. I’m not a woman, but I have met a bear while hiking. We just stopped and looked at each other for a bit, then he grunted and went back to shoveling blackberries into his mouth and I just walked away. They are pretty common in the city too. They just knock down five or so garbages to pig out then go home. We’ve had a few tranqued and moved but nobody has been eaten. One guy got mauled and somehow survived after failing to take a selfie with a bear, I figure he went easy on the guy to teach him a valuable lesson. Maybe bears and the people here are just too used to each other.
Anyway anyone who feels attacked by the whole I’d rather a bear thing needs to stop being a pansy little shit. I guess all these “not me though” or “but a bear will kill you” types don’t get that they are outing themselves as being of questionable trustworthiness. The bear is imaginary yet men all over the place have come out of the woodwork to fight it. It’s weird really. And I don’t believe such a high amount of men who aren’t predators are bothered by it. They might not be sexual predators but I have no doubt they would gladly vote away womens rights because its their party or its the christian way or some other shit like that.
Truly innocent men would just leave women scared of them alone and that would be the end of it. There is no reason to convince them and doing so only makes them more afraid.
I mean, the casual misandry stung a bit. Not sure why that’d make me a “pansy little shit”, lmao.
Anyway, the whole thing was ragebait and a big part of the internet fell for it (me included, at least initially).
It doesn’t bother you when you’re referred to as a predator because you share a gender with some of them?
No. All I have to do is not be a predator, and no creepy glare, no threatening posture etc. It shouldn’t be difficult yet somehow here we are with literal tons of my fellow man feeling attacked with the need to retaliate, over someone else’s feelings. Actually I’ll let the creepy glare slide even since I have that built into my face and I’m not about to get surgery for it.
I guess another way to look at the whole thing, is a bear isn’t going to shoot or stab you. There are unstable fucks that shoot at people for accidentally going in the wrong driveway for food delivery or to turn around. In my city you dont even own the first several feet of the property whether you have a sidewalk or not.
There’s a difference between “men can be dangerous and so I have to treat any unknown man like they are a threat” and “every man is dangerous.” Being treated as dangerous when you are not is not a pleasant feeling, but I understand the need to do that. However, crossing from “you might be dangerous” to “you must be dangerous” happens all too often and IMO crosses a line.
There are dangerous people out there but try to remember that most people are just like yourself. I remember having to walk home several miles at an inhuman hour after work do to transportation challenges and for the most parts the streets were empty but there were some folks out and I remember feeling paranoid at the sort of people who are out at 3AM.
Then I realized how ridiculous my thoughts were I was out here after all so why was I judging them. They were most likely coming home from work or going to work, or out for some cool air or any number of things. They were people not caricatures. Objectively the level of danger was actually no much different than driving in busy traffic and probably less than the folks commuting by bike given how people drive.
I’m comfortable enough with my behaviour to know it’s not about me. I’m not bothered, even a little bit.
It would be easier if everyone else felt that way too, wouldn’t it?
I’m not engaging further with what I think is a bad analogy.
Maybe outing themselves as pedants who don’t like shitty analogies. How do you get from disagreeing with labeling all men predators to … must be a predator. That just seems like you glued two concepts together and expected it to make a coherent thought. If A in some universe and B in some universe then if A thus B.
I’m not a predator. I’m bothered by it
So because I disagree I might be a rapist. Super real there.
I’m an Atheist who votes Democrat and supports women’s rights
This is a discussion forum. The poster started a thread to discuss the topic. I’m discussing the topic. Nobody is attacking anyone with their words.
This is a many to many discussion forum people aren’t just engaging with the poster they are engaging with other readers interested in the same topic. Notice how our discussion is a sub-thread to each other and merely about the topic broached by the original poster.
You are infantalizing the poster by imagining that she creates a topic but is rendered afraid by the mere fact that some people don’t agree with her. I don’t think that is even slightly reasonable.
This post could be a subject of an entire paper on how to write dishonestly and for emotional impact instead of honest argument. Please stop doing this.
to pull a page out of a book that some fuck that spent an entire thread worth of material to yell at me for being homophobic over.
I would just like to share with the world that “pansy” is technically used to refer to “fags” specifically. So do with that what you will.
So they are a bigot basically.
according to the person that spent time informing me about the definition of that word.