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submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by spujb@lemmy.cafe to c/unpopularopinion@lemmy.world

(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.

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[-] Kedly@lemm.ee 10 points 6 months ago

Meanwhile its the opposite for me. Character assasinating everyone who wasnt a fan of the bear meme and mods deleting any post that wasnt fully inflammatory has made me second guess whether I want to be here far more than the Tankies ever did

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[-] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 10 points 6 months ago

the internet is a machine that turns attention into currency, it does this at the same rate for negative and positive attention, and negative attention is a lot easier to get. you just burst onto a platform unbidden and say something that will piss people off. You get rewarded, the platform gets rewarded, everybody wins except the users who have a gross toxic time in the comments. Lemmy may not run ads, but it's structured the same way that other platforms are and we already have a way of using those types of platforms built into our cultural knowledge, so Lemmy just turns into a loose confederation of reddits.

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[-] piefedderatedd@piefed.social 9 points 6 months ago

I hear what you are saying. It makes me think of the LGBTQ people when some Mastodon instances gave them a safe space to communicate. Safe spaces do however depend on well working moderation.

[-] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

I don’t know how you can solve this. Lemmy has become a refuge for outcasts. Men with social/personality issues are the biggest group of outcasts. Women are much less likely to be outcasts and so have far less interest in being here.

To create an environment that is welcoming to a particular group takes a certain critical mass of people from that group. If you’re such an extremely small minority you’re going to have a very difficult time reaching that critical mass and the negative environment further discourages people from joining.

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[-] Cannacheques@slrpnk.net 9 points 6 months ago

I'm not a bear but on behalf of bears I think it's funny that many women prefer bears which unironically explains how deranged everyone is

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[-] _Sprite@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

wtf been going on around here

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[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 9 points 6 months ago

Who will win: Gender equality or a funny bear

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 8 points 6 months ago

i'm just a little disappointed woman seem to consistently be a minority here

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this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
315 points (73.3% liked)

Unpopular Opinion

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