Hi comrades, want to give you all an informal update on the discussions around the site's misogyny problems that've been happening over the last several days. I wanna make sure you know that the admin/mod team has seen all of that discourse and we've been actively discussing solutions in the matrix mod chat. We're taking this shit very seriously and acknowledge that we haven't used a heavy enough hand on misogynistic rhetoric. As some of you saw we nuked that cheating thread from a couple weeks ago and handed out temp bans to the most egregious offenders. Idk how that was allowed to run it's course but we apologize for that oversight. We're going to do better.

We've come up with some ideas for how to improve this part of the site culture and we want to get suggestions from y'all as well, since the alarm was sounded on this by our beautiful c/traa posters to begin with. Our ideas so far include:

  1. A zero-tolerance policy towards any even remotely misogynistic/patriarchal posts or comments, as too much has slipped through the cracks on that, establishing a clear protocol for bans for violating rules against misogyny, and ideally tracking repeat offenders in a way that makes deciding a course of action easy when they reoffend.

  2. Uphold TC69 thought by starting up a book club (and hopefully more to follow) on feminist theory and encouraging mass participation, particularly from the he/him's on the site. "The Will to Change" by bell hooks has been suggested by multiple people as a great starting point but please feel free to suggest any other works.

  3. Relaunching /c/menby with a trusted educated mod team and a specific focus on countering mainstream narratives about masculinity, relationships and sex that breed reactionary, patriarchal attitudes

  4. Encouraging [namely femme] participation in /c/womenby and taking steps to revitalize that sub as an excellent source of discussion on feminism and intersectionality

  5. Holding another mod drive to get more folks into mod positions in our communities who can help weed out reactionary attitudes

  6. Encouraging users to use the report button often on any post that seems even remotely sus, with the promise that no one's going to be punished for "report abuse" for reporting posts in obvious good faith

Please let me know your thoughts on the above or any other ideas you have for making the site better, safer and more inclusive for our femme comrades. Once we've fully hammered out plans and updated policy we plan to make an announcement post highlighting these changes for the whole userbase. Thank you all for being here and being who you are feminism trans-heart

  • belligerentkitten [they/them, it/its]M
    ·
    2 months ago

    in continuation of my previous comment about people asking to be educated in this thread, specifically over the cheating thread. previous comment here. i realised i forgot to add this earlier

    i genuinely find it kinda disturbing that people who presumably consider themselves feminists, in a very leftist space like this, need to have this explained to them. yeah it's much better to ask (in the right context, not this thread) than not to know. but i can't help see it as a significant failure in empathising with women and others marginalised by patriarchy, and understanding how the violence of patriarchy affects our existence. so maybe you need to work on developing that empathy, and i mean this regardless of the gender of the posters in question. people of any gender can make that mistake.

    in the context of the cheating thread, the question is not about whether cheating is okay, or whether the husband deserved to know. yeah, if you're gonna be monogamous that's a commitment you should take seriously like any other you make in a relationship. but it has nothing to do with that, not really. the question is,

    violence against women

    does the woman in the thread deserve to be a victim of domestic violence, abused, or murdered? because intervening in a relationship you know nothing about has a very real chance of making that a reality. that is the reality of living under patriarchy.

    that supeceeds any concern about the ethics of cheating.

    • ashinadash [she/her]
      ·
      2 months ago

      a significant failure in empathising with women and others marginalised by patriarchy, and understanding how the violence of patriarchy affects our existence.

      I wish I could be shocked by this omori-miserable

      • belligerentkitten [they/them, it/its]M
        ·
        2 months ago

        oh yeah i'm way too jaded by uh, men tbh, to be surprised. the problem goes way deeper than just needing to be informed about this one the thing they don't understand. if they can't stop identifying with the man and how he is being wronged long enough to imagine what it's like to be on the other side of the power imbalance, having it explained to you isn't gonna help.

    • mathemachristian [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      I think the issue runs deeper than dudes forgetting that DV is a thing that exists and might play a role.

      Its this simplistic worldview, matching the situation at hand to a predefined response. "This thing is bad and needs to be corrected case closed." It's thought terminating laziness. "If I can't think of other factors there aren't any". It's arrogance. Best case that is. Often enough it will be them imagining a scenario where they get to exact violent (aka heroic) "justice". And blowing a situation up like that is already violence, regardless of any potential DV. The goal is to put the offender (i.e. cheater) in their place.

      The whole concept of people "getting what's coming to them" is revelling in violence. But then you see your kind get called out on it and suddenly you're unsure what type of situation this is and how to correctly respond to it and pull the "I'm just a small bean cishet male uwu please educate me on the correct take oh sage feminists I come in peace and to learn" card. Give me a break. Unless there is a specific question they are just looking to expand their catalogue of Good TakesTM so they can earn some brownie points (and often just for asking).

      Ask this cishet guy how he knows...

      If they aren't putting in effort to their question they aren't gonna put effort into synthesising the response no matter how much effort the responder put into it.

      • belligerentkitten [they/them, it/its]M
        ·
        2 months ago

        i agree but i do think that what you describe is made possible by a lack of empathy - and the decision to analyse the situation by taking the man's feelings into account and not really considering the woman at all.