1y ago

"How can we make lemmy a safer place for women? Is it even possible to?" - literature.cafe

Conversation ongoing over there, inviting anyone who wants to participate to please consider sharing their thoughts if they are willing to. If you wanna post in the original thread from your instance copy and paste the link into your instances search panel

As I said in the thread, if you aren't comfortable posting feel free to DM me here or on matrix and I can post anonymously for you.

Women @lemmy.world

literature.cafe /post/1426139

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What do they mean by talk over someone? This being online and text based i do not understand
- On lemmy it comes in the form of being dogpiled with comments, and upvote/downvote counts.
  For example, go into a thread about porn and make a vaguely porn-negative comment about how porn can alter relationships with women, romantic and non-romantic. Or do something like imply AI generated porn of a particular person (especially a non porn star) is actually nonconcentual porn and is bad. You’ll see.
  
  But nobody knows the gender of that poster. It could be a man's opinion.
  And nobody has to know your gender on lemmy in the first place.
  Would the discussion be more productive if it were just about how to best engage with unpopular opinions?
  
  I specifically chose feminist-adjacent opinions that would be unpopular on lemmy as a stand in for posters that are obviously women. These opinions will draw quite a bit of vitriol, spaces that are hostile towards feminists are often hostile to female perspectives.
  For example, the AI one, how many lemmy posters are worried nonconcentual porn are made of them? The ones that are are most likely women, wouldn’t you agree?
  
  how many lemmy posters are worried nonconcentual porn are made of them?
  I'm not worried about AI porn made of me, but I do agree that it's weird and wrong. I would support banning not consented AI porn. If the generated AI character is similar enough to a real person that didn't consent the clip, that person should be able to take down the clip. Same thing for images.
  I'll admit that I checked the AI porn community because I was curious about what it was going to be, but hell no, that's creepy.
  
  That's not really feminist adjacent. That's a very specific part of feminism that's against porn. There's like half the feminist that are not so prude and even in favour of porn or sex work in general.
  Just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they're misogynistic assholes or anti-feminists.
  
  I called no one misogynistic assholes or anti-feminists, nor did I say porn was bad. I pointed out some things that are concerns for women.
  Let's revisit my comment. Here's what I said:
  porn is immoral and should be controlled, discouraged and made illegal
  Oh wait, I didn't say that, I said:
  vaguely porn-negative
  Even using this gentle phrasing I'm finding myself having to defend points I never claimed.
  I think you'll find that the over-sexualization of women in general is a concern for feminists (and for women), and part of that problem (this is my opinion, since you are concerned with it) is the over-sexualization of women in media, not just porn, but it includes it. I don't think porn should be illegal, and I don't think it's immoral to view porn, nor do I think anyone that views a lot of porn is a bad person. I do think it can alter someone's perception of their fellow humans. I don't think porn makes misogynists. I also think even the most sex positive feminists will have trouble with exploitative practices in the porn industry. Sex positive feminists want sex positive porn, which does not include all porn created. I actually consider myself a sex positive feminist, but I don't really want to hear about how much you don't agree with that statement, so I'm not going to elaborate.
  All of this is besides the point: The over-sexualization of women is an issue for women. This is just one example of a women's issue. You can remain "stealth" on Lemmy as a woman (and who would prefer to be visibly female here? What good would it bring?), but as soon as you start talking about your own experiences in regards to gender and sexuality, well, suddenly a lot of anonymous people have a lot to say about it, sometimes it requires typing paragraphs in explanation. Some commenters are waiting for some cantankerous feminist on the internet to call people "misogynistic assholes or anti-feminists" just so they can find a good target to debate. That doesn't seem like people wanting to listen to woman's experiences, does it?
  Anyway, I think I've said my part. You clearly feel some way about this stuff, and I'm feeling like commenting on Lemmy is a mistake, so I will probably not be writing anything else in this thread.
  
  Ok, I misjudge your stance on the matter. The big words I used when mines, I wasn't giving them to you.
  Anyway, my point was that when you express ideas on Internet, you will see them challenged, regardless of your gender. Feminism is a hot topic, so you will find a lot of people to argue about it. It's not because you're a woman, it's because it is a hot topic.
  If you don't want your ideas being discussed, indeed you shouldn't express them on Internet.
  That being said, there are certainly men targeting women specifically, and I'd call that harassment, but it wasn't the case of the example you gave.
  As for the topic itself, it seems my only disagreement would be that I think that any kind of exploitation is bad, so women and their body in this case is no better than in construction for example. There'd be more to say about the subject, but it doesn't seem you want to talk, so have a nice day.
  
  That's irrelevant to your gender. You have controversial opinions so people will jump on you regardless of your gender.
  Your gender might call for specific comments or insults, which would still be mostly irrelevant (it's personalised answers). Then there are those who will jump on you because you are a woman, and that will be when it's relevant, and usually the comment itself will be unrelated to original question and instead be about their misogynistic problems.
  
  That is how forums like this function. If people disagree with you, they will downvote you and comment about it. If you simply don't like people disagreeing with you, then maybe don't post dissenting opinions online.
  If you can't take the heat stay out of the kitchen as it were. Be prepared to back up your opinion with evidence and if you have the conviction, fight back against the pitchfork wielding mob that downvotes / comments against you.
  If you can't do that, whats the point of saying it in the first place? What's the point of an online forum where its a circlejerk of people agreeing with each other? And I can't see how any of that has nothing to do with gender, either.
  
  This is true, but I provided examples where the attitudes of the responses will be somewhat hostile, and unwilling to consider the perspective of the poster.
  The examples that I pointed out did not mention gender but are, well, somewhat adjacent to a feminist perspective in regards to how women are viewed in porn. While men can be feminists, spaces that are hostile to feminists are typically also hostile to women and their points of view.
  To be clear I have no solution for ordinary interactions of discussion on lemmy, I was pointing out what it would look like to be spoken over in the context of a lemmy thread. The only true way for this to be a more friendly space to women is to have more women here, a tall order for the tech-focused social media site Lemmy.
- Out yourself as a woman on here and you'll see. I made this mistake once on a post and was absolutely shitpiled by a bunch of dudes complaining about how women are responsible for men's mental health issues.
  
  I've never outted my gender because its never been relevant. But i'll take your word for it i guess.
- Like, for example, being deliberately obtuse in an attempt to derail a discussion.
- I think we can already see a case of this in the replies to your comment.

21 comments