The fucking comments on here are insane.
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I expect in most online communities if you made a post like
"As a windows user, I am looking into linux and have heard that some common apps don't run well. Is that an issue you all run into much?"
or
"As a console gamer, I find myself envying some of the mods I see through Steam/Nexus and am thinking about switching platforms. Is it hard to get controllers working well in most games?"
or something similar, you would be welcomed by the people there. You just need to be respectful and on-topic.I imagine that community probably has frustrating behaviors that men do as a common topic. Having men reply about why they would do a particular behavior or the sorts of strategies that could get other men to stop it would be not only acceptable, but valuable. Silencing their voices without cause then does a disservice to not only those users, but to the community as a whole. By not letting men reply, you'd be criticizing a large group of people while also preventing any member of the group from having a chance to defend themselves.
You can try to justify discriminating a place, but it is a high bar to clear, especially on a core part of someone's identity like gender. It's akin to preemptively banning someone based on that characteristic. There's a difference between "this is not for you" and "you are not allowed here". I can only really think of that much restriction being necessary in a very private community where content can reasonably identify someone or the members are very vulnerable.
IIRC, r/BlackPeopleTwitter had country club threads where only users the mods had verified were black could participate in. So there's probably a compromise to have restrictions on a post-by-post basis. As it stands, if they're primarily banning the users that include "as a guy..." in their replies then they are really just selecting against the ones that are being upfront about it. I really don't want to see another r/FemaleDatingStrategy develop and a big contributor for that toxicity was silencing diverse opinions.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Reminds me of the dude who came in here complaining about being banned from r/nintendo or something, because he was part of the r/fucknintendo sub. Everyone was supportive of him here. The playstation sub on reddit is dominated by PC masterrace preachers too, but they're allowed. That's a bit annoying to me, but I don't make the rules.
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I expect in most online communities if you made a post like
"As a windows user, I am looking into linux and have heard that some common apps don't run well. Is that an issue you all run into much?"
or
"As a console gamer, I find myself envying some of the mods I see through Steam/Nexus and am thinking about switching platforms. Is it hard to get controllers working well in most games?"
or something similar, you would be welcomed by the people there. You just need to be respectful and on-topic.I imagine that community probably has frustrating behaviors that men do as a common topic. Having men reply about why they would do a particular behavior or the sorts of strategies that could get other men to stop it would be not only acceptable, but valuable. Silencing their voices without cause then does a disservice to not only those users, but to the community as a whole. By not letting men reply, you'd be criticizing a large group of people while also preventing any member of the group from having a chance to defend themselves.
You can try to justify discriminating a place, but it is a high bar to clear, especially on a core part of someone's identity like gender. It's akin to preemptively banning someone based on that characteristic. There's a difference between "this is not for you" and "you are not allowed here". I can only really think of that much restriction being necessary in a very private community where content can reasonably identify someone or the members are very vulnerable.
IIRC, r/BlackPeopleTwitter had country club threads where only users the mods had verified were black could participate in. So there's probably a compromise to have restrictions on a post-by-post basis. As it stands, if they're primarily banning the users that include "as a guy..." in their replies then they are really just selecting against the ones that are being upfront about it. I really don't want to see another r/FemaleDatingStrategy develop and a big contributor for that toxicity was silencing diverse opinions.
Very well said
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The person you are replying to never mentioned their stance on the rule in question, only the analogies used by the original commenter... Which are terrible analogies both for skisnow's reasoning, and your comment as well.
They are not the same thing, because of the power dynamics at play, and I think most people in either a linux forum or PC gaming forum would react negatively if the mods banned people for one comment made while not being the "target demographic".
Also, someone can use both linux and windows. Someone can play PC games and console. They might have valuable insight having experiences from both.
That doesn't really apply to a women's only community. (although I am curious what WomensStuff's stance on Trans people is - I don't know of the community that much to be honest).
wrote last edited by [email protected]I entirely agree. Power dynamics and questions of projected vs chosen identities add whole new dimensions to the matter. I restricted myself to this limited analogy to avoid losing those who aren't ready for that conversation and insist on limiting themselves to an individualist perspective.
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The fucking comments on here are insane. It's not a private comm, and pretty much every comment that's been deleted for being posted by a male user was because they explicitly stated they were male. As in started off a comment (usually on women's issues) with "as a guy..."
Go on a linux forum and post "as a windows user..."
Go on PC gamers and post "as a console gamer..."
Would have a problem with being told "this is not for you" then? No, you wouldn't. You're literally just not used to being told it's not your turn to speak. Get over it.
And to those who demand it be taken off all: fucking learn how to curate your own experience. Skip over or block it the same way you would other communities that have nothing for you
i genuinely wouldn’t have a problem with windows users on linux forums or console gamers on pc forums. maybe you should get over it.
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the rule isn't based on an immutable quality - the community accepts AMAB trans women and nonbinary folks. It's in line with the goal of the community being to discuss experiences with womanhood - people that don't identify with any aspect of it aren't who the community is for.
Usually self-policing is good enough for this kind of thing. as an American, I don't have much reason to comment in European centered communities, and while I do occasionally see Americans posting there, it's pretty rare. (and even more rarely welcomed, lol)
That changes when it's a community of people that are vastly outnumbered by those that have strong feelings about them. take vegan communities for instance. Check the comments of any vegan community post that gets popular, it's often a shit fest due to the influx of carnivore opinions, and I can understand mods not feeling able to keep up when this happens. Without enforcing some kind of standard in line with the goals of the community, you turn into /r/SeattleWA, a place for non-Seattlites to complain about Seattle.
Ideally I think this rule doesn't exist, ideally this could be like other communities where people recognize their opinion isn't needed here and move on - but that's absolutely not going to happen with a women's community.
You can very easily block it if you don't like the idea of a community that isn't for you, but e.g. as an American I do like checking in on European communities to see what's going on over there. Even if they're clowning on us. That's ok.
wrote last edited by [email protected]True, I guess immutable wasn't the right term. It's mutable, but it's not really a choice.
I do disagree that banning men is necessarily helpful for the discussion of women's issues though. Yes, some women's issues are so far removed from our experience that most male advice wouldn't be helpful. But I believe there is always value to be found, even-- actually, especially-- from the outgroup. This is the exact rationale for DEI, or at least the one that I find reasonable, which is that having perspectives from people with a wider variety of experiences represented in a space can improve the discussions within it. When done correctly, this improves the experience of the people who the group is "for". Mixing perspectives with outgroup members like this also improves the mutual understanding between the group's members and nonmembers, which in this case especially is important. And it allows people to more easily become allies.
What we don't want is people with a hostile view of the group to be free to participate as much as they want. Maybe banning all men from the community is necessary, or maybe just efficient, to fulfill this purpose. In this case the ban might be worth it, but the loss of external perspectives is a downside and that should be considered here and always.
Like another user replied, there's a difference between "this isn't for you" and "you aren't allowed here". There aren't a lot of other public high-quality places to discuss women's issues, so as a man your options are to:
- Not discuss them, at most trying to understand by watching
- Start your own community for men to discuss women's issues, which without womens' perspectives is not likely to go well
- Start a community for all genders to discuss it -- maybe I should do this one tbh, although maybe it might be smarter to expand the topic a little. This being the best option may be why I feel compelled to argue for the merits of gender inclusivity in the community we're discussing
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Facts right here. Learn how to let people have their own space. Sometimes a thing isn't meant for you, and that's okay.
this reminds me way too much of the “let women have their own spaces” rhetoric when it comes to cis women wanting to exclude trans women. you can’t expect the people who you are actively excluding from your group not to be a little hurt by it, even if it isn’t something they’d be interested in.
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Maybe we are missing some context. Did a target demographics' contributions get drowned out by others in this or a similar community? Or are you only worried it could happen based on the demographics of the platform?
Yes that is absolutely the norm in such communities. It was the same for subreddits that went default.
Obviously you can't trace every single up-/downvote and comment to a certain gender, but it's very apparent from the content of comments and the general tone. That's the whole issue.
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True, I guess immutable wasn't the right term. It's mutable, but it's not really a choice.
I do disagree that banning men is necessarily helpful for the discussion of women's issues though. Yes, some women's issues are so far removed from our experience that most male advice wouldn't be helpful. But I believe there is always value to be found, even-- actually, especially-- from the outgroup. This is the exact rationale for DEI, or at least the one that I find reasonable, which is that having perspectives from people with a wider variety of experiences represented in a space can improve the discussions within it. When done correctly, this improves the experience of the people who the group is "for". Mixing perspectives with outgroup members like this also improves the mutual understanding between the group's members and nonmembers, which in this case especially is important. And it allows people to more easily become allies.
What we don't want is people with a hostile view of the group to be free to participate as much as they want. Maybe banning all men from the community is necessary, or maybe just efficient, to fulfill this purpose. In this case the ban might be worth it, but the loss of external perspectives is a downside and that should be considered here and always.
Like another user replied, there's a difference between "this isn't for you" and "you aren't allowed here". There aren't a lot of other public high-quality places to discuss women's issues, so as a man your options are to:
- Not discuss them, at most trying to understand by watching
- Start your own community for men to discuss women's issues, which without womens' perspectives is not likely to go well
- Start a community for all genders to discuss it -- maybe I should do this one tbh, although maybe it might be smarter to expand the topic a little. This being the best option may be why I feel compelled to argue for the merits of gender inclusivity in the community we're discussing
wrote last edited by [email protected]Maybe banning all men from the community is necessary, or maybe just efficient, to fulfill this purpose.
Yeah, that's more or less how I see the rule too. Ideally it wouldn't exist, but without something like it in place, the majority of comments in a women's issues community would come from men, especially on popular/controversial posts, and the mod team would get bogged down trying to keep discussion on topic. The tradeoff is between creating a community where women can speak to each other on these issues, or including men, some of whom would positively contribute to discussion and have their own relevant experiences to offer. The former isn't really something that exists otherwise on Lemmy and I do feel it's important to have a community to fulfill that purpose. I don't see a more inclusive mod policy that's simple enough to communicate as a rule for WomensStuff, but other communities could definitely step up to fill that role.
The last two bullet points are good ideas and it'd be completely valid imo to respond to a post in WomensStuff in another community including men. ("Guys, how do we feel about this?" kinda threads) [email protected] may be what you're looking for, it's primarily for men and masc people but it is open to everyone to comment. (though my impression is that the vast majority of people there are men)
There you'd find discussion of issues men face too, and discussion of women's issues could be framed around how men can respond to them. I think it'd actually be cool to encourage discussion of women's issues among men, without women necessarily being present - I have a feeling different opinions and feelings would come up in a men's community that probably need to be processed and understood, among people with lived experience as a man. Back when I identified as such I personally benefited a lot from browsing /r/MensLib and engaging in those types of discussions. So long as it's centered around productive discussion rather than blaming women, which I do see these types of communities do a good job of.
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The fucking comments on here are insane. It's not a private comm, and pretty much every comment that's been deleted for being posted by a male user was because they explicitly stated they were male. As in started off a comment (usually on women's issues) with "as a guy..."
Go on a linux forum and post "as a windows user..."
Go on PC gamers and post "as a console gamer..."
Would have a problem with being told "this is not for you" then? No, you wouldn't. You're literally just not used to being told it's not your turn to speak. Get over it.
And to those who demand it be taken off all: fucking learn how to curate your own experience. Skip over or block it the same way you would other communities that have nothing for you
Ftfy: "Go on Lemmy and post 'as a windows user...'"
Heheh. Oh and.. by the way loads gun what flavor of Linux do you use?
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No other publically visible community has posts that I find interesting but am not allowed to interact with.
You do get "but i want it" isn't a valid reason past the age of like six, right?
