(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.

  • @TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Narrowminded cisgender ragebait did what? Please tell me it ain’t so!

    The bear thing isn’t controversial, it’s just ragebait. You ragebait, you get rage. It is not a serious argument, which is why it constantly has to spark as ragebait over in the meme communities. The people taking it as a serious argument are making their serious arguments look bad.

    • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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      172 months ago

      This was such obvious rage bait, I skipped over it the first few times, but it kept coming back. So, who’s toxic now, the rage bait demonizing an entire gender because some are bad, or all the deniers/haters? I hate to say both sides, but both sides should have dropped this rage bait and opened their discussions in a more serious thread

      • KillingTimeItself
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        21 month ago

        you wouldn’t believe if i didn’t tell you, because you wouldn’t know about it (some light humor, humor me, ok sorry sorry.)

        I’ve been having some conversations with people in these threads, and i’ve had a few long winded very civil threads. It’s literally just the sensational aspects being sensationalized that are causing problems lol.

    • @Delphia@lemmy.world
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      122 months ago

      It was so obvious bait to dumb misogynists it was painful, which isnt to say that if I posted “If I found myself alone in the forest with a bear or a feminist I’d pick the bear because it cant destroy my life with a baseless allegation of sexual assault” that the feminists wouldnt have bitten just as hard.

      Rage means engage. Any time someone is trying to piss me off I look for the money. Are they getting booked on talk shows? Is there a book? Do they do speaking tours? Do they have a sponsored podcast?..

    • @Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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      21 month ago

      Just a doubt. Isn’t rage bait the whole tactic of andrew tate and his like? Why is it qualified to be called misogynistic but this is not misandrist?

      DISCLAIMER: I DON’T LIKE TATE, NOT ENDORSING OR SUPPORTING HIM. JUST FOUND THIS THING CONFUSING ME RECENTLY. PLS PROVIDE NON TROLL ANSWERS. I’M AWARE THE BEST WAY TO DEAL WITH CONSTANT RAGE BAITERS IS TO BAN THEM LIKE TATE.

      • KillingTimeItself
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        21 month ago

        because in this case it isn’t about hating men, there seems to be a few subtexts about hating men. So it’s technically misandry adjacent more than anything.