(Content warning, discussions of SA and misogyny, mods I might mention politics a bit but I hope this can be taken outside the context of politics and understood as a discussion of basic human decency)
We all know how awful Reddit was when a user mentioned their gender. Immediate harassment, DMs, etc. It’s probably improved over the years? But still awful.
Until recently, Lemmy was the most progressive and supportive of basic human dignity of communities I had ever followed. I have always known this was a majority male platform, but I have been relatively pleased to see that positive expressions of masculinity have won out.
All of that changed with the recent “bear vs man” debacle. I saw women get shouted down just for expressing their stories of being sexually abused, repeatedly harassed, dogpiled, and brigaded with downvotes. Some of them held their ground, for which I am proud of them, but others I saw driven to delete their entire accounts, presumably not to return.
And I get it. The bear thing is controversial; we can all agree on this. But that should never have resulted in this level of toxicity!
I am hoping by making this post I can kind of bring awareness to this weakness, so that we can learn and grow as a community. We need to hold one another accountable for this, or the gender gap on this site is just going to get worse.
I was sexually assaulted by a female family member as a child. Repeatedly. I was then made to believe that that was “fun” and to seek it out.
My experience does not under any circumstances allow me to be a misogynist.
I find bigotry wrong. It took a lot of years to process what happened to me at the ripe old age of six, but it was my moral responsibility to do so rather than to take the shortcut to hatred.
Never have I ever in this entire discussion said anything other than “I am cautions around men” and “It’s not wrong to feel that way”. Everything else has been me defending those two very simple statements.
I’m very sorry that happened to you, that’s absolutely abhorrent.
I am by no means trying to minimize your experience or compare our traumas. I will just say that I was sexually assaulted by a stranger. My circumstances haven’t changed at all since it happened. I could still be easily physically overpowered by just about any random stranger, and my experiences force me to consider that as a very real possibility.
Victimhood does not magically bestow virtue.
Victimhood is not a free pass to behave immorally.
Victimhood is not permission to be prejudiced.
Victimhood does not give a person permission to hate.
Mistrusting half of the human population because of the genes they were born with isn’t being cautious, it’s being prejudiced.
I didn’t pretend to know what your life is like, you shouldn’t with mine. You’re asking me to trust every stranger and all I’m asking for is some empathy.
Here you are bestowing such judgement while berating me over being cautious. Really cementing all my preconceived notions of random strangers and reinforcing the very behavior you insist is morally wrong.
I spent years being horrible to women and drinking because of the resentments I had.
Don’t make my mistake.
You seem to think you know a whole lot about how I interact with men. The only thing you’ve been given is “I’m cautious” and you’re comparing me to, in your words, a horrible alcoholic.
I am not you, my life is not yours.
You can be polite, nice, compassionate, etc. without TRUSTING someone. You can do right by people without giving them your trust. A lack of mutual trust does not perclude being a good person.
Implicit trust in a stranger is at best naivety, at worst ignorance.
Good luck with your endeavors.
I tried save you a lot of years of suffering, but you’re obviously not ready to drop the hate and resentment.
I hope you’re ready for that soon, for everyone’s sake.
I hope you drop the superiority complex someday. Assuming you know better than someone you know practically nothing about is delusional.