this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
36 points (87.5% liked)

Unpopular Opinion

8303 readers
54 users here now

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!


How voting works:

Vote the opposite of the norm.


If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.



Guidelines:

Tag your post, if possible (not required)


  • If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
  • If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].


Rules:

1. NO POLITICS


Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.


2. Be civil.


Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...


Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.


5. No trolling.


This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.


6. Defend your opinion


This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.



Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

(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.

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] yuri@pawb.social 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (19 children)

I commented about it and some guy replaced every instance of the word “men” in my post with “Jews” to prove to me that I am a bigot. His comment was removed by mods, but later un-removed because we’re big fans of bad faith arguments and invalid comparisons on this platform.

e: argue this point with women in person and see how well it goes.

load more comments (19 replies)
[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

[–] Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Well my block list on lemmy grew a whole lot faster and is longer now than on it ever was on Reddit.

But This was even before the bear debacle.

Lemmy is not as good as advertised.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Same goes for harassing those men who rejected the notion of the meme with civility.

Plenty of simple trolls trying to insert the word "incel" wherever they can, and plenty of people trying to invalidate everything men have to say.

Lemmy is becoming more known, and with that comes the point at which bots and trolls emerge. We have to respond accordingly - and remember to be united and civil, even in disagreements.

And yes, ragebait content should be banned. The bear hypothetical is one of those, since it does imply anti-male sentiment, but does it in a way that can be minimized to "women just complaining". It is a very malicious attempt at generating a lot of hostility, to the point where it's hard even to give benefit of the doubt.

As per "how we attract women" in particular, I think the most important part is to make Lemmy less about tech and politics and more about all sorts of hobbies, occupations, and a fun time. While women are very welcome in the tech and politics spaces, those spaces are historically dominated by men, and for as long as those are the pillars of the Lemmy conversations, we'll see this gap over and over.

We can't take bias in support of women just to attract more of them on the platform, this won't end well. We need to protect everyone from the harassment and trolling, regardless of gender.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] DragonsInARoom@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] NightAuthor@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

If the fear for a typical woman is this bad, then we need to be better about teaching boys. I’m a pretty empathetic person, just ask my new very rapidly made female best friend. But despite the wife, and a few pretty damn close female friends, close mom, sister…. The fears expressed in my short reading on the current discussion have never been as clearly communicated, well the fear was definitely clear, but not the magnitude.

I agree with the sentiment that it’s just a bad premise. It puts everyone straight into a defensive posture, and no one learns anything when they’re trying to defend their sense of self.

On the other hand, if people are going to DMs to harass beyond the context of the heated conversation… well they ARE DEFINITELY the kind of people who are a threat, and need to be dealt with.

[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Honestly yeah, Lemmy overall has seemed like it's gotten a bit iffier over the last few months. I feel like maybe it needs to be tweaked a bit in how it functions. Or maybe just needs more people.

[–] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago

You're right. It's also hostile to enbies.

[–] michaelmrose@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (9 children)

Regarding Man v Bear I think the topic is rather silly. Most bears aren't looking to have a meet and greet if you do come across a bear one of three things are true. It's here to eat you, it didn't leave because its a she-bear and it has cubs its protecting, or you just startled it. If any of the above is true you are at best in serious danger. If it is actually trying to prey upon you then you are probably fucked. Whereas 100% of the bears you surprise in the woods are extremely dangerous 99.99% of people you meet man or woman are just people like yourself not looking for trouble.

It's not shocking that the 99.9% of men who aren't predators waiting in the bush feel justified in feeling unfairly vilified.

[–] MrCrankyBastard@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (10 children)

My proverbial beef isn't the pointing out of how manny men are predators and that the risksfor women are non-zero; my problem more specifically is that the meme stacks handily on top of the already vexing racial profiling I deal with as a black man who's had false allegations leveled in the past and lost jobs because of the weaponization of this fear. I have already spent damn near a half century being presumed some kind of feral Mandingo rape beast purely for existing while black. The presumption of interest in all of these women like a scene out of Kentucky Fried Movie gets really old and they get super vindictive when rejected.

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

I feel for you, the casual racism and sexism against black men is pretty crazy. Used to work with a guy that wore a suit every day in a very casual office, because women wouldn't get on the elevator with him otherwise.

load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 1 points 2 years ago

The introverted tech nerds have always had a problem with dismissing anything they don't immediately understand

[–] n3m37h@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I literally have no clue what man vs bear is and honestly sounds like it should stay that way1

[–] Dearth@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (7 children)

It's a thought experiment. Women are asked if they'd rather stumble upon a bear or a man in the woods. Most women choose bear. Some boys got really offended at the women's choice.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›