With more people joining Lemmy and other decentralised networks there is a growing shift to the common misogyny and sexism we find on other social media networks (YouTube, Reddit, etc.).
I think it’s pretty obvious that the reason is that there are even less women here than other places online. What are your ideas on how to change that? Or do you feel it is a lost cause?
I think that lemmy suffers from being a resource that’s difficult to discover and use relative to commercial services and so more closely resembles the old usenet than something like reddit in terms of user base. I think it’s partly the responsibility of the app developers to make the useful but confusing aspects of a federated system (dozens of communities caled “politics” with most having zero traffic but all showing up on a search for communities) transparent. The low key and sometimes blatant misogyny certainly drives women away, and it’s a factor in everything from ham radio to CS majors.
If I were to look to build a community, I’d establish the infrastructure for one first. That might be building a women-focused instance or it might mean establishing a cadre of women mods who could run subs like 2XC and others in a coordinated fashion with shared ban lists and such. Solidarity and control and setting up a safe space. Then I’d actively recruit from Reddit and from other women’s online communities, and promote AMAs and do community functions. That all means having community organizers, and being able to offer a forum for women in tech, abortion rights, political discussions, and so on.
You can also just wait to see if it grows naturally, but if you want to make sure it happens I think you would be better off seeding it.