Hi comrades, want to give you all an informal update on the discussions around the site’s misogyny problems that’ve been happening over the last several days. I wanna make sure you know that the admin/mod team has seen all of that discourse and we’ve been actively discussing solutions in the matrix mod chat. We’re taking this shit very seriously and acknowledge that we haven’t used a heavy enough hand on misogynistic rhetoric. As some of you saw we nuked that cheating thread from a couple weeks ago and handed out temp bans to the most egregious offenders. Idk how that was allowed to run it’s course but we apologize for that oversight. We’re going to do better.

We’ve come up with some ideas for how to improve this part of the site culture and we want to get suggestions from y’all as well, since the alarm was sounded on this by our beautiful c/traa posters to begin with. Our ideas so far include:

  1. A zero-tolerance policy towards any even remotely misogynistic/patriarchal posts or comments, as too much has slipped through the cracks on that, establishing a clear protocol for bans for violating rules against misogyny, and ideally tracking repeat offenders in a way that makes deciding a course of action easy when they reoffend.

  2. Uphold TC69 thought by starting up a book club (and hopefully more to follow) on feminist theory and encouraging mass participation, particularly from the he/him’s on the site. “The Will to Change” by bell hooks has been suggested by multiple people as a great starting point but please feel free to suggest any other works.

  3. Relaunching /c/menby with a trusted educated mod team and a specific focus on countering mainstream narratives about masculinity, relationships and sex that breed reactionary, patriarchal attitudes

  4. Encouraging [namely femme] participation in /c/womenby and taking steps to revitalize that sub as an excellent source of discussion on feminism and intersectionality

  5. Holding another mod drive to get more folks into mod positions in our communities who can help weed out reactionary attitudes

  6. Encouraging users to use the report button often on any post that seems even remotely sus, with the promise that no one’s going to be punished for “report abuse” for reporting posts in obvious good faith

Please let me know your thoughts on the above or any other ideas you have for making the site better, safer and more inclusive for our femme comrades. Once we’ve fully hammered out plans and updated policy we plan to make an announcement post highlighting these changes for the whole userbase. Thank you all for being here and being who you are feminism trans-heart

  • StalinStan [none/use name]English
    33•7 months ago

    Just so as I am clear. What was the discourse that was going off rails so I know what kinda stuff to avoid doing in the future.

      • kristina [she/her]MEnglish
        20•7 months ago

        Oh I remember that thread I figured it was a PTSD landmine and noped out after reading a couple comments

          • kristina [she/her]MEnglish
            23•7 months ago

            That’s already a thing its just not everyone takes it seriously, trans mega has been almost perfect with it though cat-trans

            Did get the admins to add a certain bad word to the filter though which is greatly appreciated

      • xiaohongshu [none/use name]English
        35•7 months ago

        I wish I hadn’t wiped my comment on that thread which still sits at the top of the deleted post, but the gist of it was that OP should find out about the marriage situation first before unloading what he assumed was the “truth” on the husband.

        There are legitimate reasons why women had to hide certain information, for example abusive husband, and that the woman he was having an affair with could already have plans of leaving the husband but could not tell OP for various reasons.

        Basically, OP assumed that it was a simple case of “promiscuous woman cheating on her husband” and did not even bother to find out the situation (again assuming that the woman in question would simply “lie” because that’s what women like to do, huh). If this turned out to be an abusive husband case, then she’s pretty much screwed over by the OP.

        (As I mentioned in the last thread, there have been several times I seriously thought about quitting this site because some of the misogynistic comments can be really uncomfortable to read. I stayed mostly for the news mega these days (best place on Hexbear) and steered clear of any dating/relationship threads whenever I can)

        • ProletarianDictator [none/use name]
          2•7 months ago

          So much male privilege in that thread.

          Like this notion…

          he deserves to know he was cheated on.

          Bruh, so you know he isn’t going to react well to that information, you know she chose not to tell him, and you haven’t had a discussion with her about it.

          If you have been around men AT ALL before, it would be extremely obvious this is a situation that can quickly escalate to real physical danger. And he just fucking exposes her to that danger without even trying to get more information before making a weird escalation.

          THEN THE CONSENSUS IS DEFENDING THAT!

          I dunno, I expected better from my fellow Hexbears. You’d think a materialist outlook would make it so people would be inclined to prioritize physical safety of over idealistic moral self righteousness.

          Idk if being poly makes me numb to the degree to which jealousy and possessiveness pervade normative cishet relationships, but I can’t even imagine feeling so motivated by empathizing with someone’s jealousy to the point where I risk pissing him off and hurting her or trying to fight me.

          (BTW, very glad you stuck around because it seems you’re having a positive impact on site culture that will hopefully spark much needed self-crit and change. Also great name btw)

  • @[email protected]
    20•7 months ago

    I have a stupid but serious question which comes from not being aware of the background and having a weak understanding of misogyny in general:

    Are ligma jokes misogynistic?

    E: cheating thread is pretty screwed up.

  • imogen_underscore [it/its, she/her]English
    18•7 months ago

    thanks for this post, pretty timely response to the recent discourse which is appreciated. don’t have any deeper thoughts rn but yea thanks admins for acknowledging and being on top of this! the suggestions look good too:)

  • pooh [she/her]MEnglish
    32•7 months ago

    Fantastic post and it’s really heartening to see such a positive response to it meow-hug

  • dinklesplein [any, he/him]English
    21•7 months ago

    mario-thumbs-up based on the timing of this i feel like the gender demos survey had a hand in these measures being implemented too, right?

  • belligerentkitten [they/them, it/its]MEnglish
    40•7 months ago

    i’ve seen several comments on this thread to the effect of “pls explain to me why the cheating thread was bad so i can self crit”

    and i have misgivings about this. this is not the place for it. i’m glad they’re open to reconsidering their perspective and the poorly named comm for deconstructing this shit has been resurrected and that’s probably a good place to start. but reopening it in the post about the misogyny purge just kinda derails the actual discussion and expects the people misgyny is directed at to do all the work of educating them.

  • belligerentkitten [they/them, it/its]MEnglish
    39•7 months ago

    in continuation of my previous comment about people asking to be educated in this thread, specifically over the cheating thread. previous comment here. i realised i forgot to add this earlier

    i genuinely find it kinda disturbing that people who presumably consider themselves feminists, in a very leftist space like this, need to have this explained to them. yeah it’s much better to ask (in the right context, not this thread) than not to know. but i can’t help see it as a significant failure in empathising with women and others marginalised by patriarchy, and understanding how the violence of patriarchy affects our existence. so maybe you need to work on developing that empathy, and i mean this regardless of the gender of the posters in question. people of any gender can make that mistake.

    in the context of the cheating thread, the question is not about whether cheating is okay, or whether the husband deserved to know. yeah, if you’re gonna be monogamous that’s a commitment you should take seriously like any other you make in a relationship. but it has nothing to do with that, not really. the question is,

    violence against women

    does the woman in the thread deserve to be a victim of domestic violence, abused, or murdered? because intervening in a relationship you know nothing about has a very real chance of making that a reality. that is the reality of living under patriarchy.

    that supeceeds any concern about the ethics of cheating.

  • فریدون حسینی
    28•7 months ago

    Wow. I saw that thread and was like what the fuck! I couldn’t believe people were agreeing with op I didn’t bother to participate and have been busy. Glad this is moving towards something more productive.