(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 irony is that the poor behavior explains why many women would pick the bear
Source for the hostile comments? I know that these types of people make up the minority of users, but I would still like a source for these hateful comments.
The bear thing; good god, yes… the number of people just not getting it was/is incredible. It’s a good example of how arguing for the logical position completely misses out on any nuance over why someone might say they’re choosing, for example, the bear.
I know some of it is folks having difficulty reading between the lines, spectrum stuff, male socialising, etc etc… but man. That was a tough one
It’s because of the way it was presented, which is very much a “you are enlightened, or you are the monster”. This is not the reality of the situation of choosing the bear and is as disingenuous as the incel arguments.
amen. the whole thing is bad faith.
The whole “bear vs. man” thing proved that there are still a lot of people out there totally unable to get over themselves. On one side you see people piling on women not knowing the everyday struggle the average woman goes through everyday, on the other side there are people that get mad at memes not accepting that the statement was meant to be over the top in the first place, so it’s ok to find irony in it
the response to the bear vs man thing is basically proof why most women chose bear.
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.
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.
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.
The most accurate response I can think of is many people on Lemmy want to be technically right (and I am no exception to this myself). You can see this in our many debates if the Democrats are a hindrance or the “best of the temporary solutions we have” in our debates in the best way to eventually form a working government.
The post in question (man vs bear) summarizes how much fear men have caused women throughout history in meme hyperbole fashion. Most people would “just get the point” that the meme is actually making. Women have suffered a lot from men. However, some of these Lemmy users correctly point out that its predatory behavior that should be called out; not “man vs woman”. After all, anyone regardless of age, religion, sexual orientation, gender, etc. can be a predator. The meme is correct but those who oppose the meme are “technically correct” as well.
Here’s my take: the bear thing is causing such a visceral reaction that it is very hard to take a step back, not take it personally and have a rational discussion about it. Even if you know the statistics. Even if you’re absolutely certain you’d do the right thing (or maybe especially then).
I was exposed to a somewhat similar experience in college: while walking through the campus one evening I realised the girl in front of me was a good friend of mine, so I rushed to catch up. When she heard me she quickened her pace close to running, and only stopped when I said her name and something like “wait up!”. I was just happy to meet a friend. She, on the other hand, was absolutely terrified, and told me all about it as we walked towards the exit.
That evening I realised that women experience the world much different than men. That there’s an underlying level of potential violence that they evaluate and weigh against potential benefits from encounters and interactions with men in almost all social contexts. And knowing that has recalibrated my behaviour to a certain extent, as I realised women can’t afford to give me the benefit of the doubt, especially in contexts where they feel vulnerable.
I wish more men would get this point, especially in their formative years. It’s not a judgement on their character when women that barely know them are careful around them. Trust needs to be earned. And for a woman, the cost of misplaced trust is too damn high.
Here’s my take: the bear thing is causing such a visceral reaction that it is very hard to take a step back, not take it personally and have a rational discussion about it.
Imo the bear thing was phrased in a way to cause that visceral reaction. It was intended to be antagonistic. If the same point was phrased the way you phrased it above, I want to believe we would have much more civil discussion about it. But instead, the posts put many male readers on the defensive and those that tried to explain were seen as defending this antagonistic stance.
That is no excuse for DM harassment or harassment on other posts, just my take on the reason the discussion turned so uncivil.
Yeah man, thanks for sharing your story, genuinely very poignant.
But at this point I genuinely don’t care about the bear thing. Women were harrased into leaving the platform, nothing was done to the accounts who did it, and that’s the story here.
Do you have any of the accounts doing the harassment? If you would, DM me those that you have, and I’ll personally look into it, and reach out to instance admins with my findings.
done, thank you
People get really upset over a hypothetical. I don’t like posts that put all men down, but this wasn’t one of them.
Also bears generally mind their own business as long as you keep your distance, with statistically less than one person per year dying from a bear attack in America. The last time it happened in my state was several years ago and due to some dumbass intentionally getting close to it to take photos.
People keeps downplaying the situation as a “hypothetical”. Plenty of comments can be made in the hypothetical that should be reacted to, and some hypothetical comments can even get you sent to jail. Tbh
The bear scenario is the perfect division inducing shitstorm.
It’s understandable what the memes portrays the danger that women face, daily. The fact that they frequently don’t feel comfortable or even just basic safety is definitely valid and worth discussion.
However, the bear vs man thing was just the worst vehicle to induce that discussion. On one side men who may not be the most well informed about women issues; will get immediately defensive at being compared to a large animal known for tearing people apart and eating them alive.
The members of the other side who see all the angry men getting defensive at them for expressing this view and think it’s purely because they aren’t empathetic to these issue, they “hate” women or they’re marginalising what is a real and daily danger.
Of course there are actual trolls, toxic arseholes and people who have 0 interest actual discourse or understanding but fuck them, I agree ban em.
It was never going to end in a productive, calm or rational discussion and frankly I think tarring the entire of lemmy for it is equally as unproductive. I’ve seen plenty of people initially aggressive to the meme, come around. I’ve seen more and more people make light jokes about the same meme without the accusatory tone. If you want discourse theres space to do so; it just has to be done better(imo). Preferably without snark or accusatory tones.
Okay, but, speaking as a woman, we try to explain these issues nicely, with gentle terminology and a big helping of ‘not all of you, but some of you…’ and we get ignored, dismissed, belittled, or flat-out gaslit.
So, we try going for the shock value to get you to at least pay attention instead of dismissing what we say as background noise or ‘us silly little women worrying our silly little heads over nothing’. And then we get told we can’t talk like that, that it’s insulting, that no man would listen because we’re belittling them, that it ‘doesn’t foster discussion’.
Although at least you heard us say something so many of us take it as a small win…
So, honest question. How do we explain it to you, so we don’t offend you, but you actually hear us? Actually get an idea of what it means to be afraid of footsteps behind us when we go out at night? To get leered at when all we’re trying to do is get a good workout at the gym? To have men just take liberties, like touching us, grabbing us? To not want to mention that we are a woman online, especially in gaming circles, because of the sexist bullshit and dismissive attitudes that will inevitably show up and run us out of a group we just want to be in because we like the game, damnit?
To weigh the decision to even make a post like this, because I know it will be brigaded and will attract sexist jerks who will try to shout me down? Or even attract stalkers who will follow me across instances to harass me?
Please, tell me how. Because we want you to understand. We don’t want to chase people away from discussions. But it’s so hard, and gets so discouraging…
I just want to let you know that when women share their experiences, some men like me will process what they’ve read and understand, and not reply or anything. I don’t have anything to add. I’m probably part of a large silent group.
That was before the bear thing. I actually hadn’t even seen the bear meme.
When I read a woman share her experiences, I just get sad about it all and move to the next post in my Lemmy feed or whatever I’m reading on the internet.
This is an excellent analysis of the reasoning that led into this. Thank you for sharing.
Plenty of people are dismissing this as “ragebait,” which, sure. But like, what on earth is more rage-worthy than systemic rape culture and silencing of women?
There is definitely a time and place for tone policing. But that’s never the exact minute a woman expresses her lived experience in a way that actually grabs attention. ❤️
which, sure. But like, what on earth is more rage-worthy than systemic rape culture and silencing of women?
idk probably the fact that instead of talking about that fact, we were sat there yelling at each other about bears in a hypothetical forest?
Like don’t get me wrong i like talking about issues, but there’s a point where you just have to sit back and wonder what the fuck you’re doing with your life. This was one of them.
How do we explain it to you
you cant explain it to someone who don’t want to hear it, but hear me out: bear vs cop.
picture this: you are in the woods smoking some weed in an illegal country. bear or cop?
the whole country is illegal? When the fuck did this meta drop?
yea cop bout to bust you with slovak republic what do
well shit i better be on the move then jesus
I want to put out there, that as a man I shared my story… And I was down voted and disrespected.
So you can probably remove ‘for women’ in the title. Lemmy is very much an echo chamber. You don’t have to look around very hard to see that there’s a large amount of intolerance on Lemmy.
i’d like to make this about me, a man, who will think of the men etc etc
Case in point
