So, my last post was a complete shit show. I had no idea it would get this much attention. Not necessarily happy that it did.
First off, to the moderation team, please accept this hug from this trans bunny girl right here. Because damn it, do you deserve it. I'm so sorry for what happened, I do kind of feel responsible and I'm worried that by posting this, I'm going to make things worse.
Second, it is astounding the amount of entitlement that so many men feel. In this thread, I've seen lots of dudes being offended but what was more striking was: A bunch of guys being told about the rule, AND DOUBLING AND SOMETIMES TRIPLING DOWN!
When I wrote this post, I was thinking of adding a huge: "Please read the rules before commenting, this is a women only space" and I didn't do it, I didn't want to overstep the boundaries of the moderation. I would change that, looking back.
You know what kills me about all of this? It's that, as a transfeminine bun, the typical trans-misogynistic shit being thrown my way is that I'm just a guy disguising myself as a woman to invade "real women" spaces, to which of course, the answer always is: Guys don't need to put in this much effort to invade women spaces, they just walk in like they own the place and it's enough.
This post was yet another perfect demonstration of that. And men can't understand, they just can't, because they don't go through it, they don't know what it's like, they never even have to think about it. Women are being excluded passively all over the internet, but the second there is a women only thing, we have guys constantly trying to brigade it and to destroy it because taking all the space already isn't enough.
A woman can't express herself online without being bombarded with reply guys telling her that she's wrong, that she's exaggerating, and don't forget the usual dudes insisting that they're part of the good ones. And god forbid if you're expressing your frustration in a way that might be a bit too generalizing or angry, because of course "#NotAllMen", a guy will say proving exactly that yes, it is all men. It's not hating an entire group, it's not being misandrist, it's just drowning in misogyny and being rightfully pissed off about it, but we can't even have that.
We're never allowed to be ourselves, we're never allowed to be vulnerable as women, we're never allowed to vent or be upset at the shit that we have to endure from men all the time, we just have to take it. All because the average dude's ego is both so enormous and so fragile that he can't accept that it's not about him, or even begin to understand that he might be the problem here when he's been repeatedly told that this is not a space for him.
It's incredibly disheartening. Because when it works, I love this community, it's a safe haven on the internet. But the second we dare to talk about more than: "I love being a girl!" and go into something along the lines of: "Misogyny is crushing to deal with", things spiral out of control and we have to deal with yet another stunning example of men barging in, seemingly desperate to prove the point.
In the beginning I said this:
I'm worried that by posting this, I'm going to make things worse.
You see this? This is exactly what I'm talking about.
I didn't write it to prove a point, I wrote it because I'm genuinely worried about this. Because I have to actively be careful about what I do, what I say, what I wear, what I show, as to not attract the ire of misogyny. All the time. It's always in the back of my mind, it's a never ending anxiety. It's something that men, even the most well meaning ones, can't and will never be able to understand. I just wish they'd be able to accept it and to believe us.
EDIT:
IT HAPPENED HERE AS WELL! We had a guy come in, knowing full well he was breaking the rule, but he wanted to share his "personal experience", his opinion. In other words, fucking mansplain to us why this keeps happening. He couldn't help himself, he just had to share his unsolicited opinion because he is just that important as a man. I have people asking me all the time why I only hang out with trans people and women, and it's simple: They respect my fucking boundaries!
Because of the "I stumbled in from 'all' not knowing what the community was" problem, I wish there were a way to make it more clear to potential commenters what the rules for participation are. As others have mentioned, the admin team should be implementing more controls for mods (based on what exists on other platforms, we're not asking you to reinvent the wheel here!), but what else can be done in the meanwhile?
While I hate to put the onus on users, one thing that could help is including "This is a women-only community; read the rules before you comment!" statement in the text box of posts. (I'm not very familiar with what mod tools do exist... Is there a way to make an automated comment pinned to the top of every thread that says this so that users don't have to remember themselves?) This would at least help prevent "accidental" intrusions, and permit more aggressive responses to anyone who goes and posts against rules anyway.
Considering a post literally listed the rules in a giant image and still got dogpiled ...not seeing the rules isn't the problem.
They're always gonna have problems with a space existing that isn't for them. So push back.
Every other community requires their rules to be followed to participate. Why is this community seemingly unique to the rest of the fediverse when it comes to ignoring the rules?
I don't want to baby or mother these users who can't read the rules. I don't want to remind them, pre-emptively hold their hand and give them a heads up that they have to follow the rules they agreed to follow when they made an account here. I have to do this with my child in the real world, I don't WANT to do this for grown adults here on the fediverse.
And I'm not coming at you with this. I'm just frustrated that our little community seems to be the only one to have to deal with this. And we all know why.
Sure every community has their rules, but they're usually things like "don't be a dick" that dictate etiquette forcontent. There are very, very few communities that restrict who can post. (It's basically dead now, but I was founder and mod of one of them, but even that community's rules were basically, "we're looking for the opinions and perspectives of a certain demographic" not " I'm trying to create a safe space here and by participating when you shouldn't you're actively hurting other users," because at the end of the day it was just a hobby community and if someone who wasn't supposed to post/comment did it wasn't actually a big deal.)
"Only a specific demographic can participate here" is not a limitation I'd expect other users to anticipate. Fuck the mansplainer lower down in the comments who was trying to justify his participation, but he was at least correct that users basically never think to read the rules for a community before commenting (I know I don't!).
Restricting the demographic who can post isn't common here on Lemmy, but there are a lot of individual rules about how and what to post and comment. Posts to a community, at the very least, need to be on topic. Beyond that, some coms don't allow abbreviations, one word replies, or even one sentence replies. The men's com doesn't outright ban women because we're too small a demographic to be an issue, but the wording dissuades women from posting. That's to say we're not the only community where someone needs to be aware of the rules to comment.
I read the rules, but I'm not going to use an "If everyone just..." argument, because never in the history of the world has everyone just anything.
That said, the main issues are with men who either read the rules and ignored them, or with men who respond to rule reminders with tantrums, shattered egos and accusations of misandry. Most dudes respectfully appologize and/or delete their comments.
....I read all the rules of a community before I post a comment or article.
The men who accidentally post here who aren't sexist seem to have no problem with discontinuing commenting once they realize the rules. I don't know what the solution is though.
Edit: Other sites are able to have women's groups just fine. I hate to bring up Reddit because most of us probably hate it, but there are plenty of subreddits that are for specific genders or specific groups. I'm sure their moderators have to work pretty hard as well, but I don't want to give up and not have a women's group here because it's difficult to restrict a group based on gender.
Well...they kinda do
I mean you don't have people trampling into a community about flower picking or wood carving with random bullshit. And the comm name is a pretty good marker of what the content is. Uusally you see a comm name, see it's not for you and skate on
In our case they just dont care because we're devalued and disrespected by default
We went through a stage of putting "women only community etc". Sadly it became a red rag to a bull and we got trolled more, and worse.