(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.
To be a woman online means to feel unwelcome. Leaving a new community is pretty much inevitable unless you are willing to swim in toxicity.
I’ve lost count of how many ‘welcoming’ communities for game/hobby/interest that I have left because of the inevitable creep of (male) toxicity and harassment.
And it sucks to watch so many people not speak up, and to be targeted for further harassment simply because I said rape jokes weren’t funny. (Or tying and drugging up a woman so T could have a girlfriend, if the group I play online games with are stalking my account read this. You guys are part of the problem.)
I just want liked minded people to share my interests and play games with.
I, and other women shouldn’t have to navigate or ignore toxicity to simply exist in public spaces.
[Downvotes prove my statement. I’m not welcome or wanted, I get it. See you after my funeral.]
Thank you for expressing this experience. 🧡
i think this is a rather interesting take, as someone who lives on the social fringes myself, and has no “support network” or real “social group” I’m what’s best described as a social drifter, i don’t like hanging around places all that much, and i don’t like, and or am incapable of having proper friendships with others.
So when it comes to feeling unwelcome, for all intents and purposes here, i’m just going to argue that for the latter half of my life, that has been pretty much my experience of life. This also means i don’t have certain types of experiences with people being dicks, because i can just fucking ignore them. But what i do understand, is how the isolation plays a factor, and how to pretty effectively deal with people you don’t like in these situations.
And what i’ve learned is that you need to keep a distance. You shouldn’t be attached to the community if possible, because being able to leave them is often a valuable asset to have. Notably, it doesn’t solve the problem but it does keep you nomadic, and in control, which helps alleviate it.
Also for what it’s worth, i don’t think that this is uniquely female. I think it’s a unique female account of the problem, but men also experience similar things. They just happen to be in different manners, so this is very much an “internet problem” more broadly.
Has been for the past 20 years, and will probably continue to be as such.
I don’t actually want to be nomadic, I’d love nothing more than to have a group of gaming friends that lasts. Inevitably, each time finding a new group gets harder.
I have no support network, No real social group either. I am for all intent and purpose a ghost. My opinions don’t matter, my presence isn’t wanted. No one notices when I leave.
yeah i get it, i don’t really want to be nomadic myself. But to me the value of being able to appear in places and disappear in others is massive. So far the best theory i’ve come up with is putting together a friend group like it’s a card deck for something. I don’t think putting groups together in a literal “hey i’m here now” tends to work out all that often. There are a couple of groups of people that i’ve clicked really well with over the years, and even though it’s drifted i’m in good light with them, and likewise, there are other groups out there that exist in a sort of liminal state, those also tend to be pretty nice. Though much harder to find.
One of these days i would like to spin up a public/private instance of a chat relay/server or something, and spend a few years collecting some of the more interesting people in the bunch to be in a personal circle. I think that’s probably about as close as i would get to having a social group/support network. And being the head admin there, i have sole discretion at the users expense, so i don’t have to worry about moderation bullshit.
I think the idea of “join a group of people like you about this specific thing” is dead now unfortunately. I think we’re at a point where you need to build a group specifically for the purpose that it exists.
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Behavior like what you act out here, calling out women over a nuance that barely matters, is exactly the stuff that inspired me to make this post.
Thank you for illustrating my point.
it’s funny to me that they’re instanced on solarpunk. Which is ostensibly the very worst instance you could possibly choose to be mad at other people. Though i suppose it might be doomer enough over there to matter? IDK, i’m not a solar punk nerd myself.
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Nobody owes you a response. Especially when they’re blocking you.
IME of online communities it was the women who supported the abusers in the community and ostracized anyone who called them out as ‘attacking the community’. Quite a few of them were also abusive.