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.
As one of the oldest users on this forum who has been active since the first week of chapo.chat, veteran of at least seven struggle sessions, and in the interest of preventing another struggle session from erupting, let me give all of you some advice here:
Like most AES countries, Hexbear is not democratic. Mods have dictatorial powers and will exercise them in the interest of keeping peace. Even if you don’t like them. Even if they are unfair at times. Even when there are questionable decisions being made. Even if it’s just a particular moderator who has an axe to grind with you.
You won’t be able to fight them. Don’t even try. Keep your heads down and learn not to cause any ruckus that might offend the mods, if you want to keep hanging out on this forum. Just let it go even if a particular grievance feels unjust. Trust me, you will have a much better time enjoying this site if you heed my advice here.
cant believe we're getting "AES are not democratic" takes on hexbear
Non democratic in the sense that you have no control over the national policy without the central leadership having the final say. In other words, mods on Hexbear have the final say. You can complain, but you won’t be able to override their final decisions. You can vote on policies when the mods are asking for opinions, but if they don’t like how the voting goes, they can still override it. That’s what I meant.
That's literally any non-direct democratic system though.
Opinion discarded
Deranged
Yeah that's a great attitude towards site culture, really makes it welcoming. Glad to include our neurodivergent friends who have a hard time with social rules already
Yeah that works up until a point. But once you hit a certain point, it's not worth it anymore. Why should I log in and comment on anything if there's a high chance I'll receive abuse and nothing will be done about it? What's the point then?
In any online community with management that you feel is terrible, your three options are:
Find another online community.
Worm your way into becoming an admin and orchestrating a palace coup against the mods and admins you hate.
Spin up a million sock puppets and compartmentalize them so that the sock puppets never interact with each other.
Everything else is a waste of time.
Excellently said. I don't have any major grievances with the mods, and only lightly disagree with some decisions here and there. But I recognize that some day, they'll probably do something that I really disagree with, and it'll be ok because this is just a silly internet forum and it's almost impossible that the mods screw up its most important function: being a safe place for people of any identity to come and learn about lefist politics, follow the news, and commisserate. Everything else is mostly icing on the cake.
Edit: also just to add on to this because I hate to be nebulous: I'm not trying to, in some way, "escape" this struggle session and interrogate my own problems. Literally just yesterday I left a misogynistic comment because I assumed that lady who was mass-ogled in NYC had consented to it (she hadn't, of course). I don't know if I have a coherent take, but I recognize that marginalized users pointing out that users who use he/him are constantly being ignorant and misogynistic are correct, I've done it myself; yet the OP of this thread is also correct in some way, totalizing against 'he/hims' sands away a lot of nuance. I'm not the right guy to ask about who's right here.