this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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I thought the last one was just conservatives making stuff up until I joined Lemmy.
Don't get me wrong, the woman in the tweet is awful, especially the part about hating men who dare to have emotions, but I'm responding purely to the last thing on this list.
A lot of Lemmy users seem to think all they need to do to be immune to misogyny is to be leftist. It's just been getting real tiring for me browsing this site seeing men be praised for things they at the same time put women down for. Not that men shouldn't be praised for these things, but the double standard here is immense.
The major one I've noticed is putting down women for having a preference on height or even dick size, but men are allowed to only want big boobs or petite women because it's "a natural expression of human sexuality."
There's also that I've seen several times men on here complaining when women are given safe spaces and resources specifically for them, like job fairs and such, and the comments being filled with how it should have been open to men as well because not doing so is sexist, meanwhile being totally ok and even ecstatic when a resource is opened specifically for men.
Like, I'm trans. I've lived on the other side of the coin. I'm glad men around here have a safe space to display their frustrations and discuss men's issues that in most places you'd be crucified for even mentioning. I just wish this could be a safe space for both genders, not just the one who holds the majority. There are a lot of times I feel straight up unwelcome on Lemmy simply because I'm a women.
My 2c on this, I wish people would understand that a lot of women have similar struggles, same for men, and having spaces for those experiences to be shared with people who understand is really important.
I think the issue is it feels pretty othering when I've had experiences similar and feel like I'm not allowed to share them (without a lot of angry stares) because I'm not the correct gender.
I know there have been cases of women's spaces being taken less seriously, but I don't remember any specifics. Do you have any examples that come to mind?
It'd take me ages to find the post, but a while back, there was a post about a job fair for women getting overrun by a tidal wave of men. The comments were filled with people trying to justify it, such as saying that it was illegal and sexist to host a job fair for women only, and people even the slightest bit upset that a job fair for women was overrun by men abusing the legal loophole that they technically couldn't be kicked out got down voted way to the bottom of the thread.
I found the post https://lemmy.world/post/6206801 and here https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/508848 Yeah I guess you have to see it firsthand. I've heard tons of comments like "women just aren't built for STEM" etc which these events are trying to show is wrong. It is probably a little unfair to the individual but good for society as a whole when talented women don't see a field is 90% men and decide it's not worth dealing with the boys club.
I do wanna point out, the most upvoted comments seem to have the same sentiment of this actually is important and a good thing to have for women. Definitely quite a few with a high score that say the opposite though...
That is the post I was talking about. I did forget about the few higher pro-woman comments. I guess I tend to remember the bad more than the good.
Still unpleasant how many people around here are completely ok with stuff like that though, but I suppose it's worth focusing on the positive.
Comments like that are utter trash. Only an incel believes in that BS. It's as if they never knew that one of, if not the first programmers, was Ada Lovelace.
Basically what I'm saying is some things need to cater to specific crowds to function. We don't need to get rid of the law, we need to adapt it (tbh, I don't think we should have to do that either, I think people should respect when something's not made for them on their own, but that won't happen.)
I'm not just talking about things like this job fair. I'm talking about shelters for abused people as well. I might just be imagining it because it was so long ago that I read it, but I remember cases of shelters for abused men getting shut down for discriminating against women, which is ridiculous because those shelters are gender divided for a reason.
In this case, these kind of job fairs are to help more women get into male dominated fields, which is really tough because of the amount of abuse and discrimination they get in those fields.
Men and women in a general sense experience different kinds of societal issues and need to be allowed to have safe spaces away from each other.
As a male, while I do not support men breaking into that job fair, I can understand their frustrations.
There should be some limited spaces for people of one gender to stay without the other, but that should be things like shelters and other places for people in mentally vulnerable position caused by people of opposite gender, and it shouldn't grow into a gendered separation.
Jobs should be available for everyone, and if females get less access to jobs, job market needs to be regulated to remove sources of said discrimination, without creating bigger discrimination (like outright blocking other gender's access to same jobs).
General-purpose gendered spaces (like quite a few barbershops for males or certain feminist cafes for females) only breed more resentment and stereotypical thinking about the other gender, as there is no one to correct them and no counterexamples to be seen. Besides, gender separation makes places that can be important for a person closed from them for immutable reasons, which is a clear case of discrimination and is not cool.
I agree with you for the most part, but in practice it's way more difficult to regulate out discrimination if you don't first have enough women (or other minorities in other cases) working in the field to function as a support network. Even if you get the job at that point, if you're not made to feel welcome there there's a solid chance you're not gonna keep that job, because nobody wants to deal with that every day.
I don't like the idea of restricting men from the same opportunity, but there isn't much other solution until the playing field is made more even.
As far as your last paragraph goes, pretty much in full agreement. When I say men and women need safe spaces away from each other, I don't mean they should be secluded from each other, which is what places like that tend to cause. I mean things like support groups, friends they can vent to, and even online forums and such specifically for them. There still needs to be plenty of exposure in our daily lives though to the issues of men, women, and minorities.
My issues with Lemmy primarily come from the fact that the site is massively male dominated, which means it's become largely an echo chamber. People here as a result have become much more sensitive to men's issues, which is a good thing, but the tradeoff is that there's virtually nobody stepping in for women's issues, sometimes even going as far as to deny the issue even exists. I know the rest of the internet is often the other way around, but I really wish we could have at least one space somewhere on the internet where both men and women are allowed to say things like "this makes me uncomfortable" or "this makes me feel ashamed of my body" and be taken seriously.
I was really hoping Lemmy would be that space when I first signed up, and it was really disappointing to realize what it was actually like. Luckily, there are some instances out there that are more balanced on that, but I'd rather not have to turtle up in one of them.
Thanks for your points. While I stand by my position of regulation over reverse discrimination, I understand where you're coming from here.
I'd like to point one thing out, however, and it stems directly from the intersection of abovementioned issue and the one you raise about Lemmy.
The place is certainly male-dominated, and yes, this can make local ethos more male-centric and masculist. Also as you rightfully mentioned, Lemmy is one of the few avenues where such thought can be propagated efficiently and not be overwhelmed in the oblivion by feminist/conservative voices.
We are, generally, in the minority, yet when we get to concentrate our voices somewhere - like Lemmy - and dominate small part of the Internet you belong to, this naturally makes you uncomfortable.
That happens because you'd like to have an equal footing everywhere, and don't want to be discriminated against even in a small alcove that is this place.
We don't want that, either. We don't want to be discriminated against somewhere just because males historically dominate in other place. We don't want to lose access to our dreams and jobs (in the abovementioned case) because previous generation has screwed it up the other way around. Many of us, however, are perfectly happy to promote a healthier workplace ethic, including towards women, and popularize females working in male-domimated spaces. This way is sometimes more rocky, but it is fair and it allows to even things out without having to radicalize and tilt scales towards the domination of the other gender.
Should "male job fairs" appear for female-dominated jobs, I'll also stand against it, despite the knee-jerk to give males preference at taking new places to balance it out quicker and promote the new culture.
With that being said, I welcome you here on Lemmy and hope more feminist and generally female voices will join in. I'm also happy to promote feminist initiatives in this place (without forgetting masculist ones), so hit me up if something crosses your mind.
Your point of view is completely valid, and I do like having alternative points of view presented to me (hence why I said I didn't want to turtle up in a more accepting instance.) In the end, I'm not an expert on thus kind of stuff, I can only argue based on my personal experience and how things have made me feel.
I think regulation is a completely valid way to approach it, considering it's still a step forward regardless of if it's the best way or not, so I far from oppose the idea. It's just not the way I would do it if I were in charge.
Honestly, in the end, I think true equality is impossible, and is more of the ideal than the end goal. The only important part to me is to make sure we're always going forward instead of backward.
That wasn't a loophole, what that event was doing was open and naked gender discrimination and their ban on men was legally unenforceable. The law was on their side. What women should do in retaliation is bum rush those men's clubs where all the power decisions are made by the top 1% of men. Fun fact the dean of my uni's computer science dept was a woman, and decades later it still is. THEY have a crucial role in recruiting women students, it begins at the start of the pipeline.
What tweet are you reading?
I hope it's not rude that I checked your profile and saw your explanation. I can see how I might have misinterpreted that. The way I interpreted the "sensitive men" and "emotional labor" part was as reinforcing the toxic masculine stereotype that men are supposed to just "man up" and not show emotion. Unfortunately, that's an aspect of toxic masculinity upheld by women just as much as men.
I see men being constantly shamed and catching blowback for those preferences. I mean we can't hope to succeed in shaming women into wanting short men or poor men, etc. but shouldn't the same rule apply to men? More insane is that wanting a tall man is more "legitimate" than wanting big boobs or athletic build in women. The rules are constantly altered to justify all women's preferences and demonize men's.
Also as a man you can be banned from Reddit not for saying "no trans woman" but just for saying "I want a cis woman". Feminist subreddits will go for your head, too. (Don't get me wrong if one of my kids is dating a trans person I will support them totally also.) I've gotten the vibe that you risk your account here over that, too.
You are correct that in most environments, it is the other way around. In most places, women wanting tall men is considered normal and acceptable, but men having any preference at all is not. My point was not about how things are in society as a whole, but how things are on the larger Lemmy instances. However, even that seems to have rapidly changed since I made this comment. There was a thread about men's issues I saw recently that didn't devolve into "this is why women are awful" and actually stayed on topic, and that was really nice to see.
What I was frustrated about was that there was no space where both men's and women's preferences were respected, and also not resorting to body shaming when people do not meet those preferences. Lemmy is primarily dominated by men, which naturally makes it easier to talk about men's issues without being shamed for it, but it did lead, for a while, to women's issues not only being overlooked, but also often being intentionally ignored or outright shamed, mostly because men could not understand these issues they'd never experienced, so they didn't feel as real (which is largely the same reason women often have trouble respecting men's issues.)
I'm guessing it has to do with Lemmy's population finally growing again and new perspectives being thrown into the mix, but I've noticed a lot more empathy about gendered issues lately, which is nice to see.
As far as whether you risk your account for only wanting cis women, probably depends heavily on the instance. A shocking amount of the time people use preference as a cover for bigotry, so I wouldn't be surprised if some mods are heavy on the trigger finger when it comes to that. Not that there's not legit reasons to not want to date trans women. We can't provide biological children and a large portion of us have no desire to "fully" transition, which are both reasonable reasons to not want to be with a trans woman (and of course that's not an exhaustive list of every valid reason.) It's just often people who say that mean they don't view trans women as actual women and don't want to date them because they're "not gay."
I used to be a MRA until Trump happened and the gender loyalism just got too much to handle. I can't put up with gender jingoism ("my gender, right or wrong") nonsense from either side. I had to part ways for good when they started saying the 19th should be revoked. "This is why wo/men are awful" is basically saying one sucks at vetting people without actually saying one sucks at vetting people.
As for women wanting tall men, or men not wanting fat women for that matter, the ramifications of said preference leaves a lot of men and women out in the cold, but what can you do? Freedom to choose who you want to be intimate with is sancrosanct. Depressing (I got a 12 year old son aging into this shithole situation) but can't be fixed because it isn't biology, it goes way deeper than that, it's spiritual. What can and must be fixed, though, is the shaming: shit like "Fat shaming month" or women walking up in bars using measuring tape to see a guy's actual height. The "fat women / short men kill yourselves" shit that sometimes flourishes unchecked in social media before admins step in and nix it long after it has hit a ton of eyeballs.
There is a prevalent culture of shaming someone for what they can't help or can't easily help and then acting like they are the problem when you cause them to have insecurities related to that. Full scale industrialized cultural-level gaslighting without apology. We need to end that... but how? It's like it's also part of our spiritual zeitgeist. I mean some of us are aware and awake, but overall? Might as well say everyone stop being human. But it's also spiritually embedded for those who are awake to refuse to stop fighting the good fight. That windmill will see no peace from my lance.
I have a special pile of beef for the whole "you're dating a trans woman hahahaha you suck" mentality. Mods and admins being trigger happy af about trans issues is an affront, but so is that. I'm buying plenty of lances for tilting against that windmill, too. Break one, I come back with another...
That's not the way I remember it. I remember being told that men having or expressing physical preferences in women was a terrible thing to do, being called a sexist, shallow pig, etc. This has been a female talking point basically my entire life. Then I remember being rejected for being 5'7". You know how we live in a world with 5 websites, each one is full of pictures of the other 4? I think I saw a Facebook post of a Tweet on Reddit that said [woman]: Grey sweatpants are for men with DICK, not men with peepee. [man]: But if I said tight jeans are for girls with ass, not long backs, I'd be the asshole.
I find that level of sheer hypocrisy is pretty effective at eroding my capacity for empathy.
Want another example? How about this cycle:
And for some reason they expect me to automatically give a damn when the Republicans take their rights away?
Women are very vocal about not being on my side. So guess what? I'm not on theirs. Gasp.
If you feel unwelcome on Lemmy just for being a woman, as far as I'm concerned you can go somewhere else.
Your concerns for a lot of your life experiences are completely valid, but when you make the jump from "a lot of women have been assholes to me" to "women are assholes", you fall into the same pitfall people are criticizing in this thread. There are a lot of women who are assholes. There are a lot of men who are assholes. Let's criticize those behaviors, and make society a little bit better insofar we're able to, rather than join their ranks.
Based response.
Jesus Christ, dude. Learn some empathy
Everyone is shallow, that's not exclusive to any gender. Some people are shitty, others can have hard-line views due to experienced trauma. Doesn't mean you should generalize, men and women are not monoliths. Just trying to understand the lived experience of the other side goes a long way.
Jesus Christ, dude. Learn some reading comprehension.
Judging by how the votes in this thread are going, my lived experience isn't worth considering, so I now have no intention of considering anyone else's. Fuck empathy. It's not worth trying.
Oh grow up, what are you? An angsty teenager?
Life isn’t that hard.
You’re talking about the most shallow, vapid women out there. The women i’ve met have generally never talked like that. So no, you don’t get a pass to hate on women just because you saw some FB memes that hurt your fee fees…
They didn't say those weren't true women, this is not how no true scotsman works
I'd ask who hurt you but evidently it's just yourself
I give a damn about Republican douchebaggery because I'm not like those kinds of people, I don't want to be a monster like them. I want to be able to look in the mirror and see someone who's better than that. How women react will never affect me acting on my morals, they don't control me.