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

  • xiaohongshu [none/use name]
    ·
    6 days ago

    I wish I hadn’t wiped my comment on that thread which still sits at the top of the deleted post, but the gist of it was that OP should find out about the marriage situation first before unloading what he assumed was the “truth” on the husband.

    There are legitimate reasons why women had to hide certain information, for example abusive husband, and that the woman he was having an affair with could already have plans of leaving the husband but could not tell OP for various reasons.

    Basically, OP assumed that it was a simple case of “promiscuous woman cheating on her husband” and did not even bother to find out the situation (again assuming that the woman in question would simply “lie” because that’s what women like to do, huh). If this turned out to be an abusive husband case, then she’s pretty much screwed over by the OP.

    (As I mentioned in the last thread, there have been several times I seriously thought about quitting this site because some of the misogynistic comments can be really uncomfortable to read. I stayed mostly for the news mega these days (best place on Hexbear) and steered clear of any dating/relationship threads whenever I can)

    • ProletarianDictator [none/use name]
      ·
      5 days ago

      So much male privilege in that thread.

      Like this notion...

      he deserves to know he was cheated on.

      Bruh, so you know he isn't going to react well to that information, you know she chose not to tell him, and you haven't had a discussion with her about it.

      If you have been around men AT ALL before, it would be extremely obvious this is a situation that can quickly escalate to real physical danger. And he just fucking exposes her to that danger without even trying to get more information before making a weird escalation.

      THEN THE CONSENSUS IS DEFENDING THAT!

      I dunno, I expected better from my fellow Hexbears. You'd think a materialist outlook would make it so people would be inclined to prioritize physical safety of over idealistic moral self righteousness.

      Idk if being poly makes me numb to the degree to which jealousy and possessiveness pervade normative cishet relationships, but I can't even imagine feeling so motivated by empathizing with someone's jealousy to the point where I risk pissing him off and hurting her or trying to fight me.

      (BTW, very glad you stuck around because it seems you're having a positive impact on site culture that will hopefully spark much needed self-crit and change. Also great name btw)