Hey all.
I know everybody's looking to put the pronoun struggle session behind us and I don't want to reignite it or anything, but now that everything's calmed down a bit I thought it would be a good chance to reexamine it and talk it over a bit.
I was hesitant about the issue from the start because I didn't/don't think that trans people are singled out in listing pronouns on this site specifically, because we don't have profile pics or anything so cis people also have to list pronouns or risk being misgendered. I definitely wouldn't assume anyone on here was trans because they listed pronouns or cis because they didn't, and I don't see why anyone else would think that either, so I didn't understand what the problem was. Imo, since this site's inception, it has never been reasonable to assume that someone is trans just because they have "He/him" listed.
However, a point that multiple posters made in response to that was to talk about the "default assumption" that anyone you encounter on the internet is male, and that women can feel singled out if they're the only ones that have to list pronouns, and I can understand that argument a bit better. I guess because pronouns are typically associated with trans issues, and because it is more like that on other platforms with profile pictures, the struggle session was framed more as a trans issue. But as I said in a couple conversations, I feel like it's more of a women's issue. Trans men are not harmed by the default assumption of masculinity, while it affects women regardless of whether they're trans or cis. Maybe we should've been calling everyone sexist rather than transphobic 🙃
Like I said, I know everyone's eager to put this behind us and wrap it up with a bow, but personally I don't think the site default being "any" rather than blank actually fixes anything in regards to that default assumption. But I don't know what the best way to deal with that issue is. My only thing would be to try to avoid gendered language if you don't know the person's pronouns, if they're listed as any, default to "they" rather than "he." As for setting your pronouns, I don't think anyone should feel pressured, but if you're male and the only reason you don't want to is because people assume you're male anyway, then it'd be cool to set them as "he/him" as a sign that that's something that needs to be said and shouldn't just be assumed (though I'm guessing at this point you probably have anyway).
But more generally, I thought this would be a good time to examine our community in general and ask whether there's anything to be done to make women feel more comfortable here. I think a lot of people here are either male or AMAB, and I think for both groups there's more of an expectation growing up that you're allowed to have strong opinions and political views. The "dirtbag left" aesthetic is probably more appealing to men than to women. So I think to an extent it's acceptable that our demographics skew the way they do, because some of it is due to big societal issues and some of it is part of our identity as a community - if we gave up our Sonic/Luigi Mpreg shitposts, would we still be Chapo?
At the same time, I feel like there's room for improvement on this front. This post is already quite long and I don't want to dominate the conversation - instead, I'd like to open up a space to voice any concerns and to brainstorm if there's anything we can do better as a community to address any latent sexism, make the space more welcoming to women, or otherwise fight the patriarchy.
Thanks for reading, and I hope I haven't stepped on any toes. I love all y'all, and I hope we can work together to make the community the best it can be ❤️
I’m a cis woman trying to unprogram decades of assuming that every person I interact with online is a man. So I appreciate the pronouns, in that I feel way less alone as a Woman on the Internet.
My intention with that was not to say that one group was more important or anything, but rather to identify the root of the problem, which I believe is the default assumption of masculinity. Of couse the issue affects trans women because they're women, but it doesn't affect only women who are trans, nor does the assumption of masculinity negatively affect trans men, as far as I can see.
It's like, people with red hair tend to get sunburned more easily, and there are women with red hair so to that extend it affects women, but I wouldn't call it a women's issue so much as a red-hair-haver issue. My intention was merely to clarify the issue and who it affects, not to imply that there's a scarce resource of rights or that trans people and women have competing interests.
Ok, yeah, I can see your point now. Strange as it may be, I wasn't thinking about how it affects NB people because I personally don't care much about my own pronouns, but obviously some NB people do. Thank you for calling that out.
I really appreciate this post. you put to words something I felt most strongly in the last couple of days but has been just on the edge of my awareness for a long time - that masculine energy here is really real and it does in fact get toxic from time to time. one thing I've noticed is that since the pronoun tags got added, a bit after the site launched, that attitude of never sharing your feelings has diminished. people show each other genuine affection now on a regular basis and stop to express care and concern for each other. this obviously comes more from the womenby side of the house - but there are also menbies that have really broken the mold here in visible ways and I'm incredibly grateful to them for doing so.
the thing I've noticed that hasn't really gotten much better, though - I think because while leftism encourages you to care, it can't make you see the collective impact of small actions without real work and empathetic investment - is that the level of entitlement and presumption by the userbase, even on issues they freely admit they know nothing about, is painfully high. this, maybe a dozen genuine transphobes, and the usual cis/masculine fragility is really at the heart of the struggle session we all suffered through. I hope we find ways as a community to build self-awareness on this front.
Also, personally, I feel hesitant to bring up issues surrounding sexism. Since we’re the minority I kinda feel like it just doesn’t matter enough
I won't say you should because it's really, really difficult to deal with the backlash but I will say that it's more important because we're a minority, not less. I and others are committed to combating misogyny, transphobia - bigotry in all its forms, small and large - and after the last couple of days I genuinely trust that we have real support from the mod and admin teams. so at the very least, do please take any sexism you notice to someone - the mods, frequent posters you trust, etc..
solidarity :heart-sickle:
yea, I can see discord being a better environment. it's impossible for me to keep up with so I never tried to interact there, though.
As for speaking up, I know it would be better to do so, but yeah it’s really hard. I think it’s more difficult for me as a minority of a minority, being young as well. It is a personal issue in some ways
yeah, absolutely. I totally get that which is why I suggested asking someone you trust to do it on your behalf - the mods too, they're very helpful.
but it’s definitely magnified by the things people say on here.
I'm sorry.
(so not to mention the discrimination against young people that comes from some of the users on here as well (not gonna start that struggle sesh cause I know no one would back me up there lol))
actually, I think there's a decent gen-z segment here. like I know there are a couple of trans people who talk about high school classes. and regardless, we band together - I'm always going to have the back of any marginalized person, and I think that's true of the rest of the trans community as well. promise!
thank you :) the last few days have been rather difficult, so that means a lot.
After all this, I honestly just don’t understand people’s issue with being kind and accommodating to each other
I wish I had an answer. I will say that most people came to their senses once they were pushed to think about that, in the end.
yeah I was saying this because of that poll that was taken a few days ago
I had no clue there was a poll, whoops
:heart-sickle: solidarity
Sorry, I was worried that it might be problematic, but is it not true that a person can be influenced by being brought up as their assigned gender, even if it isn't their actual gender? Men and AMAB people share some commonalities in terms of the societal expectations placed upon us growing up, and that's what I was trying to talk about. Is there a better way that I could talk about or phrase that?
My perspective is that I'm AMAB and NB, and I don't want to act as if I haven't benefitted from some forms of male privilege, including being encouraged to form strong opinions and political beliefs. I believe that if the same expectation is placed on a women, whether she be cis or trans, then she is more likely to develop strong opinions and political beliefs. I don't think it's like, tied to one's gender that women can't have strong opinions or something, I'm just trying to say that society encourages people who it perceives as male in certain ways.
Obviously when we talk about categories we're painting in broad strokes and making generalizations that do not apply to everyone, but I don't know how to talk about various forms of privilege and inequality without doing that to some extent.
I hope that makes sense, I'm just trying to talk about gender inequality and my own experience with privilege without stepping on any toes. I don't really know anything about socialization theory.
I'll freely admit I can get kind of intimidated in some of the big comment threads, especially if emotions are running high (which, tbf they usually are). I'm not sure if it is my personality or what but I often feel like I have to do so much research per comment/interaction on chapo/etc to ensure I'm not shooting from the hip with my responses. Even easy-ish responses. I find it easier to participate in smaller subs where there's less 'talking over.' Its likely mostly personality. Anywho, there's my 2 cents.
What was it like being banned? Did you go outside, or see the sun? I haven't been outside in years. Please let me log off.
I actually did go outside. A part of me wanted it just so I'd get a break from the struggle session. It'd be nice if they had temp bans for that reason, I think they're permanent unless reversed.
Took Jesus three days, I did it in like three hours. Get on my level, scrub.
Maybe we should’ve been calling everyone sexist rather than transphobic 🙃
All transphobes are also all sexist so it's a touch redundant. I agree with the post though and was one of the people bringing up the point in the last thread.
I have seen fem-presenting posters post pretty explicitly femmish things here and then everyone in the comments assumes they are a man, so I believe that the general internet issue has carried over to here from our mean father reddit.
My policy has generally been for years now to entirely avoid gendered language except when dealing with very public figures or responding to someone who has identified themself but I also almost exclusively post very drunk, and use 'man' and 'dude' as punctuation. I don't think it would be effective to jump on people for accidentally saying the wrong thing. Ideally a culture of not assuming gender would be inculcated without public shaming, which doesn't work after all.
My proposal for influencing our culture is based of what I consider a pretty successful overcoming of this issue on SRS, which many would be surprised to learn was mostly "male" posters. We need to cut off the balls in our hearts. Just as there is a race it is weird to be proud of (white) and a type of worker we are not in solidarity with (cop), there is a gender we should be ashamed to express (cismale). I truly do believe that dudes rock, but to hold that truth in your heart doesn't mean you have to assert your penility online; in fact the very opposite, dudes rock is a private feeling to be shared among your close bros over some IPAs and waving it around in the public square cheapens it. The official position of this community should be (besides ofc the abolition of gender being the ultimate communist goal) that to be male is to be an icky boy, to be wrought of slugs and snails and puppydog tails, that patriarchy is both real and villainous, and that daddy shouldn't have raised his voice so much if he wanted me to call him on his birthday.
Won't this upset our transmen? Maybe. I have known a dozen or so transmen in my life, and lived with 3. Among them I count the greatest gender-terrorists I have ever met or heard of. It was transmen that taught me to hate patriarchy. Thats not to say that everyone would agree with that.
Won't this upset our cismen? I would say to them, why don't you just man up huh? If you want to get back into the cool club all you have to do is choose to be gay like I did
This post is a rollercoaster. I haven't seen such a simultaneously woke and yet intentionally bait-filled post since SRS was considered a terrorist force on reddit and had hundreds of daily posters. I miss those days a lot.
I hope all the archangels are doing well.
Hands down the funniest place or reddit beating even chapo at its height
It was so fucking good. The entirety of reddit was endlessly trying to get it banned. Chapo got the right wingers upset a bit but SRS at its peak was spoken of as if it were literally a terrorist enterprise and there wasn't a reddit user that didn't know what it was. It made white boys froth at the mouth with pure rage. It was condensed ball of pure bait and it fucking worked so so well.
I don't know why it slowly dwindled, I assume whoever was running the show probably lost time/appetite for it which left it to shrink and slowly die. It was definitely my favourite period of reddit history.
BENNED
My favourite type of comment was when someone was needlessly aggressive, got downvoted, and went "oh looks like SRS is brigading again". In like 2015, when SRS was like 20 people.
I completely disagree with this comment. I'm really happy that we have c/menby because I think it's good to have a positive masc space. No one should be ashamed of their gender or afraid to express it.
Won’t this upset our cismen? I would say to them, why don’t you just man up huh? If you want to get back into the cool club all you have to do is choose to be gay like I did
Literally just reinforcing toxic masculinity to own the libs, what the actual fuck. Expecting cis men to not be offended or man up if someone shames them for a part of who they are that they can't change is toxic af.
I mean sure, mandatory bimbofication is a fun meme and I love it, but if we're being serious then it is valid to be upset if someone shames you for your gender. The patriarchy often hurts men too, and there's no sense in pushing away allies just because of something about themselves that they can't change. We ought be more open and sympathetic to each other and not be afraid to express how we feel - not this ridiculous "If it bothers you, man up" nonsense.
Takes offense at the "man up" joke but not the "choose to be gay" one, hmmmmmm
just man up
choose to be gay
That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.
