Forgive me if this was addressed, but I don't think it was. During a previous struggle session in a statement from the mod team something was said along the lines of "the he/hims aren't beating the allegations".
Personally I do not think this is acceptable, to me this is just using "he/hims" as a proxy for saying men. No one in IRL settings uses "he/hims" as a term to describe people who use him/him pronouns, no one is categorized into a grouping in general based on their pronouns as it is just a preferred pronoun not a characteristic like gender identity.
If there is misogyny going on, just say there is misogyny among users, their pronouns do not change the content of what they said, if someone with he/him pronouns and someone with she/her pronouns typed the exact same degrading thing about a woman, their pronouns would not factor into whether what they said was misogynistic or not.
I am bringing this up as it seems like people in the mod chat are still using "he/hims" to refer to people who have indicated they prefer he/him as their pronouns, you might think this is progressive because you are not directly making a gender identity assumption, but I believe this is in fact reactionary and you are just using pronouns as a proxy for the gender that is most commonly associated with the given pronoun i.e. men in the case of saying "he/hims".
I think this is at least counterproductive and at most harmful, if knowing someone's gender identity is relevant or useful, it should just be asked for.
The point of having pronouns is to accommodate and to treat people with respect and dignity about what they prefer to be called. Using pronouns as a proxy for gender identity undermines this as, treating someone with dignity would involve asking them directly what their gender identity is, not making judgments or assumptions based off of their preferred pronouns.
The only thing that having he/him pronouns indicates is that the person prefers to be referred to with the pronouns he and him. They are just personal pronouns, they are not equivalent to an ethnicity, a gender identity, a gender expression, etc.
If someone with he/him pronouns seems like they are misogynistic, that may have something to do with their gender identity, but it has nothing to do with their pronouns. It is not fair nor accurate to make assumptions of gender identity from pronouns and I think this should be avoided.
This is not to undermine any concerns about misogyny, but misogyny can and should be fought against regardless of what pronouns are involved in any instance of it.
Thanks for reading this, please know all I want is for pronouns and gender identity not to be conflated and to create a safe and respectful space for all users. And I think a good way to work towards this would be to stop using "he/hims", "she/hers", "they/thems", etc. as a way to refer to people who specify they would like to be referred to as those pronouns.
he/him whining
is it even possible to express that this kind of thing can hurt my feelings sometimes? I'm always terrified of saying anything about this, for fear of making this "not all men" kind of argument, but fuck it seems relevant:
hexbear is the one place I've felt like i can express myself, but seeing people get upvoted for generic "men are trash" comments sometimes messes with my already non-existent self-esteem. Im not trying to say people shouldnt say those kinds of things, this is my own problem, but i dont even know how to healthily express this kind of hurt is what I'm trying to say, I guess. is there a way to express this without delving into "not all men" territory?
I'm not a man and have not been seen as one by society for a looong time so I probably won't have very useful advice for this other than 'read mens lib shit'. Of course I had a period of time long ago where I thought I was a guy, and certain things resonated with me and do haunt me a bit still. 'Men aren't trusted around children.' 'Being a man near women can feel like you're being seen as a predator.' I hated being seen as a man and hated having these things implied of me, especially early on in my transition. Trans women are often seen as men that are just invading womens spaces to do men stuff, so you know, I guess I get it.
cw trauma, misogyny, sv
Transitioning and being a trans woman feels very much like being thrown to the wolves. Most trans women were never taught how to protect themselves from men and do not have support structures to help prevent that, and I have dealt with many, many situations where trans women were basically homeless for the majority of their lives due to repeated physical attacks by men. I've been SV'd before and was on death's door for months afterwards, and I can't help but think I was too naive. I felt no one ever properly taught me how to protect myself and how to seek support from others to avoid things like that. I personally am not able to go alone anywhere without being almost immediately sexually harassed. I guess I'm attractive or something, but its a never-ending onslaught. The most recent incident was a couple weeks ago, I had walked out of sight of my bf for 1 minute and some guy immediately commented on my figure. Having been SV'd and groped before, this is obviously not something that makes me feel safe. When I say I hate men, I'm referring to what is basically pervasive misogynistic terrorism (or people allying with this sort of terrorism), and it genuinely feels like every man I see is a potential adversary or someone that will overlook a real threat to me. And this is despite starting from a baseline similar to yours.
For me, I guess what I did was divorce myself from being a man, which came naturally of course. I'm not sure if its possible for an earnestly cishet normative man to do this entirely, and I'm not saying you are that. A lot of avoiding trauma is based on vibes. Women might find visibly queer men more safe to be around, some might like being around 'softer' men (like ones that groom themselves a lot and paint nails and so on) because that isn't the typical kind of guy that harasses them. There's a lot of ways to signal that you're not a misogynistic terrorist, basically, and a lot of it has to do with rejecting mainstream masculine norms. Men can give off really bad vibes sometimes to people that are fem/fem adjacent, and the claws will come out immediately. For marginalized people online, they will notice certain tactics being regularly employed, such as semantics arguments to distract from real grievances, and then they will steer clear of those spaces.
As a disclaimer this whole tangent isn't really fully related to the discourse in this thread, I'm more commenting on 'not all men' stuff.
i appreciate you sharing this, and im so sorry you had to go through all of that comrade. I think you are obviously right to protect yourself, and i dont blame you (or any others) for any "kill all men" sentiment. I dont think i was quite clear enough with this: I understand why "men are trash" arguments are made, and even agree with them. I was lucky enough that my sister ensured that much even without me having read anything lol. but feelings arent always rational, and i was just trying to express that sometimes that kind of comment can really get me down in the dumps about myself and also make me feel unwelcome on this site or that I'm making the site a worse place, and how I'm not even sure where/how to talk about that feeling. idk if that makes sense
There is the /c/menby comm
Challenging one’s privileges can be emotionally difficult, for sure, and I think that it’s okay to recognize this. I think the best way to deal with these kinds of emotions is to read theory, to listen to the experiences of marginalized people, and to talk about these feelings with comrades (who are principled about these issues.) For the record I have experienced similar emotions to what you describe, not around being a man but around other things, though I deal with these feelings very privately. I think you are already on the right track because you recognize that the problem does not lie with the people expressing the anger. While I’m not sure if a public forum is always the best platform to talk about more difficult private feelings surrounding dynamics of marginalization, I don’t think that the conversation can never be had at all. If you want to talk about this further, my DMs are open.
thank you comrade, this made me feel better, appreciate you!