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.
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.