Update regarding Hexbear's misogyny problem - planned actions and request for feedback
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:
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.
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.
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
Encouraging [namely femme] participation in /c/womenby and taking steps to revitalize that sub as an excellent source of discussion on feminism and intersectionality
Holding another mod drive to get more folks into mod positions in our communities who can help weed out reactionary attitudes
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
Llituro [he/him, they/them] - 1.8yr
my "shut the fuck up and listen" strategy continues to pay untold dividends
Maybe it deserves its own thread, maybe the admins/mods should take a look at what happened there, IDK.
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aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them] - 1.8yr
Yeah the position a lot of people have on here with regards to birthrates, the position that Othello was calling out, where people think that if you improve "material conditions" more women will start having children, is just not compatible with reality.
In reality, the poorest countries with the worst education have the highest birthrates, while the wealthiest countries with good education have the lowest birthrates. I've also gotten into this in previous comments as well. As materialists, our positions should be based in reality and not vibes, and the reality is very clear on this.
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RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] - 1.8yr
"Improve material conditions" might just be a Marxist Thought Terminating Cliché. It really absolves you of the investigation required for proper analysis.
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Nakoichi [they/them] - 1.8yr
I think declining birthrate ( without doing some malthusian eugenics shit) isn't necessarily a bad thing long term.
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sewer_rat_420 - 1.8yr
Not only that, its inevitable, even if there wasnt climate change, world population would decrease long term.
Financial situations aside, i dont think my wife and I would have ever planned for more than 2 kids. I dont know when we will financially even start having kids, but what is the point in having more then 2?
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RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] - 1.8yr
My wife's dad is one of 18 kids. That's unthinkable. My dad is one of like 8 kids, also a unimaginable number of kids. Both were basically in farm country. The conditions under which they had those kids were wildly different then the conditions we live in now. My wife has a degree, her grandmothers didn't, my wife's mom is a veteran and the primary breadwinner in the house, also not true of her mother or mother-in-law. They didn't have those opportunities.
How is someone supposed to achieve any of that if they are literally pregnant for almost 15 fucking years straight? At the time that they were having kids women had only just gained the right to have a fucking bank account. Oral birth control was only just becoming available in 1960. So much of a womens life was under direct control of their husbands. No fault divorce wasn't a thing until 1969. 1970 Reed v Reed ended will discrimination. My youngest uncle was born around the time that women could finally get lines of credit (1974), meaning up until then they couldn't legally get a mortgage. I could go on, or you can just look at the timeline of rights: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women's_legal_rights_in_the_United_States_(other_than_voting)
It's so painfully obvious that it was the lack of independence within the social system that lead to "high birth rates" and that when given the opportunity to do anything other then pump out kids, women chose to not pump out kids.
The entire line of attack on women from the right is centered around reversing the rights they have gained. The goal of that line of attack is to get the birth rate to rise again. Abortion rights is the beachhead, no fault divorce is being whispered about by some right wing psychos. If it was money that made the birthrate go up then that's how they would solve it. The fact that these rights are under siege is evidence that they believe this will make birthrates to up. They've said as much as well. It's not theory or speculation.
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Poogona [he/him] - 1.8yr
I remember a conversation I had with a friend who'd been getting really into Hardcore History and wanted to talk some cool ass history with me, the history minor
We got on the topic of how the aztecs had instituted a sort of doctrinal loophole saying that women who died in childbirth also got to go to the Valhalla-equivalent that was normally for men who died in combat. I laughed and said "well yeah, I can imagine plenty of women didn't want to risk their fucking lives by having kids back then, makes sense that there would be a lot of reluctance towards childbirth that they'd try to address with a little media campaign."
This friend got really upset with me and claimed that I was projecting modern attitudes (woke wasn't really a big term yet) onto the past. I wanted to smoke his weed so I didn't start an argument but the patriarchy detector was beeping like crazy
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FunkyStuff [he/him] - 1.8yr
Lol what an ignorant and truly reactionary way to respond there. Societies coming up with mythologies to construct and justify forms of gendered control is like, feminist history 101. Any critical analysis of what all the fuzz over fertility goddesses was about, or why nature is characterized as feminine and nurturing is also projecting modern attitudes to the past, I assume.
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Poogona [he/him] - 1.8yr
I hadn't even read a single bit of feminist texts back then but maintaining a lens of "people have always wanted to live comfortably without fucking dying unnecessarily" was a pretty reliable way to be at least 75 percent correct in my assumptions
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RagingGingivitis [fae/faer, it/its] - 1.8yr
funny how that works
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PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them] - 1.8yr
I don't think people, but especially men, realize what a terrifying ordeal childbirth was in the past.
I remember reading an AskHistorians thread ages ago on contemporary documents written by women facing or having gone through childbirth and it was pretty chilling stuff
in addition to all the truly excellent posting, Othello gave me a kick-ass eyeliner tip that I treasure ❤️
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RION [she/her] - 1.8yr
alternate universe Iago be like
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kristina [she/her] - 1.8yr
honestly i love love/loves pronouns, it makes everything sound scottish to me
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autismdragon [he/him, they/them] - 1.8yr
So proud to have Othello as my friend.
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ashinadash [she/her] - 1.8yr
A c/bestofhexbear submission imo superb post.
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RION [she/her] - 1.8yr
when it actually is the opposite
... This wasn't widely understood here?? Even Reddit of all places knows this
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FunkyStuff [he/him] - 1.8yr
Yeah I mean I suppose the idea is that a meaningful number of people would just always want to have kids, and the thing that's holding them back is affording them. Of course that's a very antimaterialistic understanding that is mostly justified by looking at preindustrial societies without critically accounting for the structural incentive to have children help in farm work, women having no rights, and other factors.
Moreover I think it's a good reminder to always question our assumptions. When we talk about "material conditions" it too often just means "the vibes I associate with this context" since it fails to take far too many relevant factors into account.
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NephewAlphaBravo [he/him] - 1.8yr
I can easily see myself falling into "well obviously it's because shit sucks" trap so I appreciate the bump on the noggin
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imogen_underscore [it/its, she/her] - 1.8yr
all timer post, didn't get enough attention.
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SerLava [he/him] - 1.8yr
I think it's mostly that, but a bit of the other- a lot of people actually want to have 1 or 2 kids and literally can't because they can't afford it, or can't even socialize or date in the first place because they cant afford it. But yeah people don't come into money and prosperity and decide to have 12 children.
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SadArtemis [she/her] - 1.8yr
But yeah people don't come into money and prosperity and decide to have 12 children.
Or when they do, I imagine it's with a surrogate...
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Beetle_O_Rourke - 1.8yr
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SerLava [he/him] - 1.8yr
takes all kinds I suppose
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Infamousblt [any] - 1.8yr
Wow redfash tankie mods won't even let boys be boys
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Angel [any] - 1.8yr
Personally speaking, to give my own insight into another subject that others have discussed in this thread, I am all for a neutral (meaning neither specifically masculine nor feminine-aligned) non-binary space.
Seeing cisheteronormativity and binarism rife on every corner of the internet is deeply exhausting and honestly makes me feel like I'm "broken" for existing in a way that is far beyond any of it.
Not all trans people are non-binary either, so I can't say that I'm 100% confident that enbyphobia/transmedicalism would never "leak," even if just a little bit, into this community.
Truthfully, as inclusive as Hexbear can seem, I don't give any unambiguous trust to anyone who is cis, hetero, white, or neurotypical. The fact that this thread needed to be made in the first place can show you why.
"Leftists" will go mask off and spew hatred towards someone like me when it no longer benefits them to pretend that they're not hateful bigots.
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asante [comrade/them] - 1.8yr
woah those are great changes!
very based mod team
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
Hell yeah, I might even start reporting my own posts when I go in the self crit "where did I go wrong/could've phrased this better/could've developed this point in a more dialectical manner" sessions
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asante [comrade/them] - 1.8yr
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buh [she/her, any] - 1.8yr
Bit idea: transitioning to avoid being purged from hexbear
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RION [she/her] - 1.8yr
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FunkyStuff [he/him] - 1.8yr
Hey it doesn't have to be for that reason alone, has also been trying to get female viewership up.
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RION [she/her] - 1.8yr
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Findom_DeLuise [she/her, they/them] - 1.8yr
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AmericaDelendaEst [comrade/them] - 1.8yr
wow im glad i have no idea wtf happened
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niph - 1.8yr
I just read the thread and even though most comments are deleted you can get the flavour of what people were saying. The way that some people are almost gleeful about the prospect of a woman being physically endangered is gross.
I think there might be a difficult discussion to be had about whether there’s a link between some of the more general politically violent rhetoric / fantasising on here and an implication that any violence against perpetrators of perceived wrongs is justified. I would hope comrades are able to distinguish between supporting resistance movements and the violence that’s necessary for the overthrow of capitalism on the one hand, and violence against individuals perceived to have committed some personal moral infraction on the other. But Western and especially Anglo culture is extremely individualistic, and that has created the framework through which many users on this site see the world.
I’m not sure what solutions there are to this, but some self-reflection is likely the place to start.
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take_five_seconds - 1.8yr
hell yeah ban their asses
looks at own pronouns
aw fuck
edit: i liked when tcsex# made us all read, should do it again
Great responsive action!
This is why I'd choose the bear.
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RagingGingivitis [fae/faer, it/its] - 1.8yr
full support on pushing back against misogyny, that thread was a dumpster fire and made me for like a week.
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thelastaxolotl [he/him] - 1.8yr
Uphold TC69 thought
Unlimited Purges on reactionaries
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buh [she/her, any] - 1.8yr
(121 New)
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belligerentkitten [they/them, it/its] - 1.8yr
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.
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drinkinglakewater [he/him] - 1.8yr
Count me as another interested in the reading group, lately I feel like I've been too careless with how I talk about issues surrounding women.
c/womenby already has some necessary theory up, go forth and self educate!
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Cowbee [he/him, they/them] - 1.8yr
Get accelerated
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drinkinglakewater [he/him] - 1.8yr
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belligerentkitten [they/them, it/its] - 1.8yr
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,
::: spoiler 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.
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poopedmypants - 1.8yr
While we're at it, can we also ban loss: the longest running miscarriage meme?
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AmericaHaterSexHaver [any, any] - 1.8yr
I think it would have been funnier to have a bot do a temp ban of 1 day for literally every user that doesnt have a femme pronoun set on their profile
Maybe even a "shush 🤫" bot, but it only responds to the boys.
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Edie [it/its, she/her] - 1.8yr
There is 136*50 + 1*20 pages of users with he/him in their display name.
At 10 seconds between each page, that's 1370 seconds, or nearly 23 minutes to go through each page, nevermind having to also send requests to ban people.
Edit: 136*50 + 20 is 6820 users, at 10 seconds between each user (so the rate limiter doesn't kick in) that's 68200 seconds, 1137 minutes or nearly 19 hours. It could be cut down by excluding banned and deleted users, and further by excluding users without content (no posts or comments), but still...
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Hestia [she/her, fae/faer] - 1.8yr
All male pronouns are sentenced to 24 hours of forced feminization and sissy hypno porn
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ashinadash [she/her] - 1.8yr
Unlimited The Will To Change bookclubs on the hexbear world, fuck yeah. Whole post looks solid at a glance, but particularly
with the promise that no one's going to be punished for "report abuse" for reporting posts in obvious good faith
I am a complete dweeb with an inability to read tone and never hit the Report button without sweating profusely first, so I really dig this.
never hit the Report button without sweating profusely first
same ❤️
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ashinadash [she/her] - 1.8yr
Okay that's not 100% true, sometimes I slam that motherfucker with no remorse because
But for every one of those, there are three "is this clogging the reports, is this the right reason to report, is this even reportable, should I" etc ect aaaaaaaaaa
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robot_dog_with_gun [they/them] - 1.8yr
third time's the charm on c/menby i guess.
good overall but these gendercomms need posters, and posters need content and i don't know where they'll get it: recurring womens' issues stuff is mostly transmisogyny and doom about christofascists regression while recurring mens' issues stuff is ???
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Nakoichi [they/them] - 1.8yr
I volunteer to post wholesome menby content and moderate.
Lmao my phone tried to autocorrect menby to men dying
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Seasonal_Peace [he/him] - 1.8yr
critical support for comrade autocorrect
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kristina [she/her] - 1.8yr
could just rip stuff off from /r/twoxchromosomes and do a leftist analysis of it, i feel like thatd be something interesting to read
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PKMKII [none/use name] - 1.8yr
Two X is always extrapolating legitimate individual gripes about partners or dating woes to macro politics. Which just ends up backdooring individualism into feminist politics, and some of the worst traits of second wave feminism; woman not liking doing a particular sexual act with her partner because he’s a selfish jerk gets turned into “no women like doing that act” which just alienates women who do like it and ignores the fundamental “he’s a jerk” problem.
Whenever a more systemic threads gains traction it devolves into “just vote blue no matter who.”
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ProletarianDictator [none/use name] - 1.8yr
Agree completely on your analysis of TwoX, but I do think there is some utility from lifting content for discussion here, even if done somewhat haphazardly without curation.
Part of the reason Hexbear is so cool with respect to AES is that we have near constant discussions of Imperialism, the global south, unequal exchange, and the soft and hard implements of imperial coercion.
When this place first started up as a CTH life raft, that understanding of AES wasn't anywhere close to developed, and people here tended to line up with edgy Bernie bros or anarchists with western chauvinist brainworms.
That line only developed because we repeatedly had these discussions, people would have their lib blow ups, but overall we collectively gathered, challenged, and refined knowledge. We have plenty of comrades here who could quote specific parts of Marx or Lenin and paraphrase theory off the dome, emparting their comrades with some of what they have learned and encouraged others to read the theory to best suit
We need to develop that same phenomenon for radical feminism!
So now we look like jackasses to anyone with deep subject matter knowledge of radical feminism, further alienating the women who would really help us grow from our spaces. Not that the status quo is that repulsive, but I'm certain we look like the types of bros that would be class reductionists and dismiss intersectional superstructure elements out of hand.
We don't currently exercise our feminism muscles enough, so we tend not to think about working them out. Now our intellectual physique is unevenly developed, and we don't share much lit or have active threads on those topics. We caught the equivalent of being humbled by the squat rack because we do chest day 4x a week.
I think most people here want to develop their thinking in more spheres of social justice than Marxism and geopolitics, but we don't have the same vanguard dynamic where the most well-read on the subject matter shares their knowledge, points to new resources, and discusses the content with those with less knowledge so far.
We know reddit and other spaces are poisoned with liberalism and electoralism, meaning we won't enjoy participating there, so we must develop it here. Copying content from lib feminist spaces is a low effort way to get started exercising that thought. Especially because applying Marxist critiques to it forces you to engage with it and leaves you wanting to supplement it with additional feminist literature.
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aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them] - 1.8yr
I've been making a few comments on men's issues lately, and they have been generally well received.
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GoodGuyWithACat [he/him] - 1.8yr
Going off the name, is it for NB comrades or masculine ones? I'm a CIS male (aka the worst) and I want to willingly participate in depatriachizing the culture. However I don't want to take up oxygen if it's supposed to be for more NB friends.
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Nakoichi [they/them] - 1.8yr
I think the intent was for both/folks questioning our gender from a masc perspective
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robot_dog_with_gun [they/them] - 1.8yr
was men and masc enbys the second time, i wouldn't expect it to be different this go around, but i only grudgingly associate with masc anything because society ruined me on that basis and is going to keep treating me as a disposable threat regardless of my internal identity so i'm forced to navigate that shit anyway.
if y'all are interested in discussing that in the appropriate place, not in this thread i guess it could be content for the comm but i don't have anything constructive to add.
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AmericaHaterSexHaver [any, any] - 1.8yr
Its because men dont need to talk, we just need to do old timey boxing matches with funny mustaches, its hard to do tjat on the internet
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the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them] - 1.8yr
need to drag my spouse in here, there are enough gearhead-adjacent folks for him to have people to chat to, and he's a deeply decent man that would benefit from the community and be a benefit to the community
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Mindfury [he/him] - 1.8yr
again, the only time "australia" stays winning is when we completely miss what sounds like some absolutely atrocious posting
all these points sound pretty good and more than fair. any cis dudes (which I am) taking issue with this or any similar actions, and anyone who receives a mere temp ban over these rules and gets mad instead of taking time to self-crit, should probably fucking heem themselves
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PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them] - 1.8yr
Maybe this is too complicated, but I like the idea of a formal process for people to educate themselves and self crit. Maybe first time an offender catches a temp ban and needs to reflect and post upon returning identifying what unexamined biases led them into error in the first place? Just a thought
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Kuori [she/her, pup/pup's] - 1.8yr
i actually think this is genuinely a better response than permabans. after all, someone can simply make a new account and choose to be silent about their awful opinions (they could still do this regardless, admittedly) if banned, but being forced to reckon with one's mistakes is the good shit that personal growth is made of.
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Dessa [she/her] - 1.8yr
The flip-side of this is that somebody may not have the tools to make a meaningful self-crit, and may either end up just saying what the mod wants them to say, or internalizing the wrong lesson. A possible solution would be to have them enter a dialogue or be assigned a task by a mod, that that's increasing the workload and emotional labor of modstaff
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DeathToBritain [she/her, they/them] - 1.8yr
I'd still rather they bite their tounge and follow the party line on not being an asshat even if they don't internalise it. you can't really force anybody to internalise something
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MayoPete [he/him, comrade/them] - 1.8yr
I like this idea
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Ambii [she/her] - 1.8yr
banned users need to put a report on at least one feminist theory book in their appeal to be unbanned
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christian [he/him, any] - 1.8yr
I definitely have blind spots and would benefit from guidance on how to be better.
I'm ashamed of this, but I'll share: I caught a temp ban from ml for misogyny a few months ago. I had already been in a place of bad self-loathing for a while and when I got the ban I basically checked out from online posting everywhere for a month or two. I PMed the user an apology afterwards. Thread was here.
I didn't even realize it was problematic until I logged in the next day and saw the ban. In my mind I use "girl" in colloquial speech with friends, so if I'm joking around with someone I think of it as a similar situation. I normally say "dude" but I know "dude" can be considered male-coded so I've been trying to work on that when a stranger has female pronouns displayed. In this case it really wasn't better. When I re-read it, if she didn't believe I was joking around it would come across as misogynistic, the joke was one-sided. Keep trying to edit this to make it sound less bad and rationalize my way out, but I fucked up.
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PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them] - 1.8yr
It is the work of a lifetime to unlearn all the shit that the patriarchy puts into our heads. That's kind of why I like the idea of a self crit process. You can't work on mysogynistic attitudes if you're not even aware that you have them.
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christian [he/him, any] - 1.8yr
I'm thinking more seriously about this and I don't think there's a way to do this that doesn't just end up with performative forced apologies. Obviously bad views and behaviors can be changed and worked on, but very often coming to terms with things is a hard and long process, and asking someone to speed it up can actually counteract positive progress by creating resentment.
I think a better option than requiring self-crit is just having a comm for "help me work on this shit" so that it can be more voluntary, but still easy for everyone else to block. Maybe temp bans could be for everywhere except there, but with no obligation to use it, and bad-faith use would extend the ban length (or other options). Obviously though it would require a lot of moderation work though to not devolve into a bunch of jackasses reinforcing their own shitty beliefs. Very easy for me to volunteer this great idea that would be a lot of work to implement and maintain and also I'm not qualified to do that work.
At some point I came to terms with the realization that when I ask friends or family for help, or even talk with a counselor, I stubbornly fight with every suggestion I'm given, and then in the coming days the words start to sink in and I consider the ideas more seriously and usually realize my thinking was bad. I have a lot of love for the people in my life who accept this and still try to help me. The process is who I am and it works for me, but it makes it harder to inquire about anything potentially inflammatory, because I don't want people to see the stubbornness if I'm defending a repugnant idea, even if I really need to hear the arguments against my thinking. And if I still believe it, it's really hard to know if my rationale is actually repugnant or not without another voice.
Like I have a couple recurring thoughts that I'd like to ask about and have challenged, find out if they're well-founded or if they're bigoted, reflect and fix if they are, but if they are problematic and do need to be corrected, I know that I'll have at least a day where I'm still trying to defend them anyway. The time spent afterwards ruminating on a discussion like that would allow me to fix the issue. But, fragile ego and everything, if this is a public discussion and I get called out on being an asshole/bigot, the result is I ruminate more on my own identity and character. When I start thinking deeply on "am I a bad person?", I get completely sidetracked from the thoughts I need to be having to correct the original belief I still need to get sorted out. I'm not pretending that's a healthy way of thinking or that I shouldn't fix it, just saying that I've been trying to fix it for a long while now and still am not there.
Basically, having a space where I can ask "is this belief repugnant?" and a day or two where I'm allowed try to justify my reasoning would do wonders for identifying and correcting problematic thoughts I still have, but it requires the listeners to assume good faith (an absurdly gargantuan ask when talking about randos on the internet spouting offensive nonsense), and requires a lot of effort from moderation on top of that.
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PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them] - 1.8yr
Yeah, it might just not be a practicable. It was more of a brainstorming thing than a fully developed idea
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ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them] - 1.8yr
I missed the cheating thread, just read some of this one and through the modlog, and it seems...so easy not to be like this. I'm both dissapointed that this even happened, and happy to be somewhere that gives a shit enough to go hard once it did.
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pooh [she/her, love/loves] - 1.8yr
Fantastic post and it's really heartening to see such a positive response to it
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ReadFanon [any, any] - 1.8yr
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.
Real talk if there was a magic potion that made me a bio woman for the day I'd try it just for the experience, but I am comfortable in my body and identity.
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Ildsaye [they/them] - 1.8yr
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buckykat [none/use name] - 1.8yr
Uphold Yay Meristinoux thought
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GenderIsOpSec [she/her, kit/kit's] - 1.8yr
very cool and based
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SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them] - 1.8yr
Wild to me that anyone would even come here and be misogynistic, this is one of the few safe spaces left for femmes online.
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Assian_Candor [comrade/them] - 1.8yr
We got a lot of blind spots comrade and there's always opportunity to improve. Proud of our mod team here for once again forcing action. Proud of myself for not posting in the thread lol
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فریدون حسینی - 1.8yr
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.
30
Owl [he/him] - 1.8yr
The plan looks good, but please follow it up by reaching out to online spaces with more women and nonbinary people.
Any improvement will slowly backslide if there aren't people directly affected by the issue there to spot things, in enough numbers that nobody is getting bummed out by constantly being the one having to report stuff.
edit: this was phrased very poorly before and ashinadash was right to call me out
30
Cowbee [he/him, they/them] - 1.8yr
Fantastic to hear! All points are great, and as a he/him the book club sounds fun and dearly needed, I'd love to participate.
One idea I had was a megathread safe space like what we have for the trans and EM/POC threads, would that be something people would want? I've seen lots of love for the megas from our comrades here, but I'm a he/him so I'm staying in my lane, lol. Just an idea I had and felt would be cool, with our current demographics there would obviously be overlap with the trans mega, but the benefit of maintaining a safe space free from he/hims in a megathread form seems like it would help
We have the best mods and admins, fantastic work!
Side note: if anyone has seen me say reactionary misogynistic garbage on this site please tell me so I can self-crit
30
ashinadash [she/her] - 1.8yr
I think a c/womenby mega could be neat. Unity...
12
Cowbee [he/him, they/them] - 1.8yr
Would help round out the available megas! Maybe a c/neurodivergent one too, don't know what the demand is for that but it makes sense to me.
10
Ivysaur - 1.8yr
This is good! I have some thoughts about the wo/menby split which have also been brought up by other nonbinary people in this thread, so I will leave them to speak on that. I only hope we can eventually address other blind spots with similar urgency in what I consider to be one of the only tolerable forums left on the English-speaking net; covid minimization outside of the comm for it is one that particularly infuriates me, overall ableism that is not to do with neurodivergence is another -- but this is one necessary step of many, and I'm happy to see it.
28
EllenKelly [comrade/them] - 1.8yr
I'm glad this is getting the attention it should, for a more casual user that thread was easy to miss.
Reminder for everyone to read over the hexbear.net code of conduct.
Thank you to our admins for upholding TC69 thought.
Ya’ll rule.
28
D61 [any] - 1.8yr
TC69 thought
27
aen [he/him] - 1.8yr
no idea what happened but i'm glad you're taking action, it sounds like something absolutely cringe was posted. i really need to read that book at some point
27
Yukiko - 1.8yr
Good list of action. Number 1 needs to be adopted sitewide.
27
SoyViking [he/him] - 1.8yr
Thanks to the mods for taking the problem serious and doing something about it! Thanks to those who pointed out the issue in the first place!
Let's make Hexbear a safe and inclusive space for everyone.
25
red_stapler [he/him] - 1.8yr
This is awesome and I am totally going to the gulag.
24
Barx [none/use name] - 1.8yr
I somehow missed the most problematic threads but full support for anti-misogynist action and doing reeducation (reading group).
24
dinklesplein [any, he/him] - 1.8yr
based on the timing of this i feel like the gender demos survey had a hand in these measures being implemented too, right?
23
Luna - 1.8yr
Greatly appreciated and very based
23
EpicKebabEater [he/him, it/its] - 1.8yr
Admins continuing to outdo my expectations. Thank you for such a quick response to people's concerns.
23
AOCapitulator [they/them, she/her] - 1.8yr
What did I miss? I didn't see the cheating thread so I'm ootl on what happened
21
NoLeftLeftWhereILive - 1.8yr
Great ideas. I love how this is being addressed.
I might have some bookclub ideas and could suggest some reading also on the whole body politic area and feminist reading on that. Been focusing on some of this stuff in my studies, especially on things like gender, body & biomedicine.
21
bloodfart @lemmy.ml - 1.8yr
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.
20
PapaEmeritusIII [any] - 1.8yr
based
20
imogen_underscore [it/its, she/her] - 1.8yr
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:)
19
0x2640 - 1.8yr
based
19
Frogmanfromlake [none/use name] - 1.8yr
Jeez, I’m never around for when shit really goes off around here.
19
SummerIsTooWarm [any, undecided] - 1.8yr
Thank you, Admins, for addressing issues that are just normal and expected on other websites
19
citrussy_capybara [ze/hir] - 1.8yr
how do the zero tolerance rules apply to he/him admins?
18
AernaLingus [any] - 1.8yr
Uncritical support to our mods and admins, unlimited banhammers on all misogynists. May all comrades partake in self-reflection to identify and weed out misogynistic beliefs and attitudes within ourselves that lead us to hurt and exclude, intentionally or otherwise.
As for the book mentioned (The Will to Change), I personally didn't finish it the last time I read it after it was recommended here; I got about a third of the way through before I lost interest, mainly because it felt sort of basic to me. But we're all at different points in our journeys, and I'm sure there will be still be things I can take away from it. Plus, if we're having a large sitewide book club it'll be easier to stick with so that I can participate in the discussion threads!
18
marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them] - 1.8yr
The perusall repository has a ton of feminist books and I can sort through a few more. I think it might also help with accountability if folks have a place to read and immediately ask questions or hosting a "Reading Night" in hextube with some coffee and chill vibes, and a "Discussion Night".
16
Red_Sunshine_Over_Florida [he/him] - 1.8yr
Can you have someone ping me for the bookclub when that gets off the ground? I need to do more group activities like that. It's just good even as self care, because you get to reflect on the conditions on the ground as you use feminist theory to look at them. Idk, I just that sort of self criticism would be good as part of that sort of process to make me a better person.
14
CommunistCuddlefish [she/her] - 1.8yr
Based
14
LenonLemonLenin [they/them] - 1.8yr
Unironically just ban all cis men. That would solve most of it
12
glans [it/its] - 1.8yr
Are "femme" and "woman" synonymous here? I've noticed a few times on this site.
DOPESMOKERDENG in traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns
Update regarding Hexbear's misogyny problem - planned actions and request for feedback
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:
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.
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.
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
Encouraging [namely femme] participation in /c/womenby and taking steps to revitalize that sub as an excellent source of discussion on feminism and intersectionality
Holding another mod drive to get more folks into mod positions in our communities who can help weed out reactionary attitudes
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
my "shut the fuck up and listen" strategy continues to pay untold dividends
I'd like to kick off a little discussion since this comment about the way Hexbear often assumes the reason women aren't having more children is that material conditions for them are poor, when it actually is the opposite from @Othello@hexbear.net has stuck with me and it's a really important discussion that wasn't really properly addressed/developed in that thread (in fact, many commenters just kinda dismissed the point love made with the exact kinda rote vulgar materialism Othello was arguing against in the first place!)
Maybe it deserves its own thread, maybe the admins/mods should take a look at what happened there, IDK.
Yeah the position a lot of people have on here with regards to birthrates, the position that Othello was calling out, where people think that if you improve "material conditions" more women will start having children, is just not compatible with reality.
In reality, the poorest countries with the worst education have the highest birthrates, while the wealthiest countries with good education have the lowest birthrates. I've also gotten into this in previous comments as well. As materialists, our positions should be based in reality and not vibes, and the reality is very clear on this.
"Improve material conditions" might just be a Marxist Thought Terminating Cliché. It really absolves you of the investigation required for proper analysis.
I think declining birthrate ( without doing some malthusian eugenics shit) isn't necessarily a bad thing long term.
Not only that, its inevitable, even if there wasnt climate change, world population would decrease long term.
Financial situations aside, i dont think my wife and I would have ever planned for more than 2 kids. I dont know when we will financially even start having kids, but what is the point in having more then 2?
My wife's dad is one of 18 kids. That's unthinkable. My dad is one of like 8 kids, also a unimaginable number of kids. Both were basically in farm country. The conditions under which they had those kids were wildly different then the conditions we live in now. My wife has a degree, her grandmothers didn't, my wife's mom is a veteran and the primary breadwinner in the house, also not true of her mother or mother-in-law. They didn't have those opportunities.
How is someone supposed to achieve any of that if they are literally pregnant for almost 15 fucking years straight? At the time that they were having kids women had only just gained the right to have a fucking bank account. Oral birth control was only just becoming available in 1960. So much of a womens life was under direct control of their husbands. No fault divorce wasn't a thing until 1969. 1970 Reed v Reed ended will discrimination. My youngest uncle was born around the time that women could finally get lines of credit (1974), meaning up until then they couldn't legally get a mortgage. I could go on, or you can just look at the timeline of rights: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women's_legal_rights_in_the_United_States_(other_than_voting)
It's so painfully obvious that it was the lack of independence within the social system that lead to "high birth rates" and that when given the opportunity to do anything other then pump out kids, women chose to not pump out kids.
The entire line of attack on women from the right is centered around reversing the rights they have gained. The goal of that line of attack is to get the birth rate to rise again. Abortion rights is the beachhead, no fault divorce is being whispered about by some right wing psychos. If it was money that made the birthrate go up then that's how they would solve it. The fact that these rights are under siege is evidence that they believe this will make birthrates to up. They've said as much as well. It's not theory or speculation.
I remember a conversation I had with a friend who'd been getting really into Hardcore History and wanted to talk some cool ass history with me, the history minor
We got on the topic of how the aztecs had instituted a sort of doctrinal loophole saying that women who died in childbirth also got to go to the Valhalla-equivalent that was normally for men who died in combat. I laughed and said "well yeah, I can imagine plenty of women didn't want to risk their fucking lives by having kids back then, makes sense that there would be a lot of reluctance towards childbirth that they'd try to address with a little media campaign."
This friend got really upset with me and claimed that I was projecting modern attitudes (woke wasn't really a big term yet) onto the past. I wanted to smoke his weed so I didn't start an argument but the patriarchy detector was beeping like crazy
Lol what an ignorant and truly reactionary way to respond there. Societies coming up with mythologies to construct and justify forms of gendered control is like, feminist history 101. Any critical analysis of what all the fuzz over fertility goddesses was about, or why nature is characterized as feminine and nurturing is also projecting modern attitudes to the past, I assume.
I hadn't even read a single bit of feminist texts back then but maintaining a lens of "people have always wanted to live comfortably without fucking dying unnecessarily" was a pretty reliable way to be at least 75 percent correct in my assumptions
funny how that works
I don't think people, but especially men, realize what a terrifying ordeal childbirth was in the past.
I remember reading an AskHistorians thread ages ago on contemporary documents written by women facing or having gone through childbirth and it was pretty chilling stuff
MUCH LOVE TO OTHELLO
MUCH LOVE TO OTHELLO
in addition to all the truly excellent posting, Othello gave me a kick-ass eyeliner tip that I treasure ❤️
alternate universe Iago be like
honestly i love love/loves pronouns, it makes everything sound scottish to me
So proud to have Othello as my friend.
A c/bestofhexbear submission imo superb post.
... This wasn't widely understood here?? Even Reddit of all places knows this
Yeah I mean I suppose the idea is that a meaningful number of people would just always want to have kids, and the thing that's holding them back is affording them. Of course that's a very antimaterialistic understanding that is mostly justified by looking at preindustrial societies without critically accounting for the structural incentive to have children help in farm work, women having no rights, and other factors.
Moreover I think it's a good reminder to always question our assumptions. When we talk about "material conditions" it too often just means "the vibes I associate with this context" since it fails to take far too many relevant factors into account.
I can easily see myself falling into "well obviously it's because shit sucks" trap so I appreciate the bump on the noggin
all timer post, didn't get enough attention.
I think it's mostly that, but a bit of the other- a lot of people actually want to have 1 or 2 kids and literally can't because they can't afford it, or can't even socialize or date in the first place because they cant afford it. But yeah people don't come into money and prosperity and decide to have 12 children.
Or when they do, I imagine it's with a surrogate...
takes all kinds I suppose
Wow redfash tankie mods won't even let boys be boys
Personally speaking, to give my own insight into another subject that others have discussed in this thread, I am all for a neutral (meaning neither specifically masculine nor feminine-aligned) non-binary space.
Seeing cisheteronormativity and binarism rife on every corner of the internet is deeply exhausting and honestly makes me feel like I'm "broken" for existing in a way that is far beyond any of it.
Not all trans people are non-binary either, so I can't say that I'm 100% confident that enbyphobia/transmedicalism would never "leak," even if just a little bit, into this community.
Truthfully, as inclusive as Hexbear can seem, I don't give any unambiguous trust to anyone who is cis, hetero, white, or neurotypical. The fact that this thread needed to be made in the first place can show you why.
"Leftists" will go mask off and spew hatred towards someone like me when it no longer benefits them to pretend that they're not hateful bigots.
woah those are great changes!
very based mod team
ayy now i have no report button anxiety
UNLIMITED REPORTS ON THE 1ST WORLD (hexbear)
Hell yeah, I might even start reporting my own posts when I go in the self crit "where did I go wrong/could've phrased this better/could've developed this point in a more dialectical manner" sessions
Bit idea: transitioning to avoid being purged from hexbear
Hey it doesn't have to be for that reason alone,
has also been trying to get female viewership up.
wow im glad i have no idea wtf happened
I just read the thread and even though most comments are deleted you can get the flavour of what people were saying. The way that some people are almost gleeful about the prospect of a woman being physically endangered is gross.
I think there might be a difficult discussion to be had about whether there’s a link between some of the more general politically violent rhetoric / fantasising on here and an implication that any violence against perpetrators of perceived wrongs is justified. I would hope comrades are able to distinguish between supporting resistance movements and the violence that’s necessary for the overthrow of capitalism on the one hand, and violence against individuals perceived to have committed some personal moral infraction on the other. But Western and especially Anglo culture is extremely individualistic, and that has created the framework through which many users on this site see the world.
I’m not sure what solutions there are to this, but some self-reflection is likely the place to start.
hell yeah ban their asses
looks at own pronouns
aw fuck
edit: i liked when tcsex# made us all read, should do it again
a bunch of theory posted to c/womenby!
Great responsive action! This is why I'd choose the bear.
full support on pushing back against misogyny, that thread was a dumpster fire and made me
for like a week.
Uphold TC69 thought
Unlimited Purges on reactionaries
(121 New)
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.
Count me as another interested in the reading group, lately I feel like I've been too careless with how I talk about issues surrounding women.
c/womenby already has some necessary theory up, go forth and self educate!
Get accelerated
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, ::: spoiler 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.
While we're at it, can we also ban loss: the longest running miscarriage meme?
I think it would have been funnier to have a bot do a temp ban of 1 day for literally every user that doesnt have a femme pronoun set on their profile
Would be a good bit
uncritical support for cheeky privilege checks
Maybe even a "shush 🤫" bot, but it only responds to the boys.
There is 136*50 + 1*20 pages of users with he/him in their display name.
At 10 seconds between each page, that's 1370 seconds, or nearly 23 minutes to go through each page, nevermind having to also send requests to ban people.
Edit: 136*50 + 20 is 6820 users, at 10 seconds between each user (so the rate limiter doesn't kick in) that's 68200 seconds, 1137 minutes or nearly 19 hours. It could be cut down by excluding banned and deleted users, and further by excluding users without content (no posts or comments), but still...
All male pronouns are sentenced to 24 hours of forced feminization and sissy hypno porn
Unlimited The Will To Change bookclubs on the hexbear world, fuck yeah. Whole post looks solid at a glance, but particularly
I am a complete dweeb with an inability to read tone and never hit the Report button without sweating profusely first, so I really dig this.
yay!
same ❤️
Okay that's not 100% true, sometimes I slam that motherfucker with no remorse because
But for every one of those, there are three "is this clogging the reports, is this the right reason to report, is this even reportable, should I" etc ect aaaaaaaaaa
third time's the charm on c/menby i guess.
good overall but these gendercomms need posters, and posters need content and i don't know where they'll get it: recurring womens' issues stuff is mostly transmisogyny and doom about christofascists regression while recurring mens' issues stuff is ???
I volunteer to post wholesome menby content and moderate.
Lmao my phone tried to autocorrect menby to men dying
critical support for comrade autocorrect
could just rip stuff off from /r/twoxchromosomes and do a leftist analysis of it, i feel like thatd be something interesting to read
Two X is always extrapolating legitimate individual gripes about partners or dating woes to macro politics. Which just ends up backdooring individualism into feminist politics, and some of the worst traits of second wave feminism; woman not liking doing a particular sexual act with her partner because he’s a selfish jerk gets turned into “no women like doing that act” which just alienates women who do like it and ignores the fundamental “he’s a jerk” problem.
Whenever a more systemic threads gains traction it devolves into “just vote blue no matter who.”
Agree completely on your analysis of TwoX, but I do think there is some utility from lifting content for discussion here, even if done somewhat haphazardly without curation.
Part of the reason Hexbear is so cool with respect to AES is that we have near constant discussions of Imperialism, the global south, unequal exchange, and the soft and hard implements of imperial coercion.
When this place first started up as a CTH life raft, that understanding of AES wasn't anywhere close to developed, and people here tended to line up with edgy Bernie bros or anarchists with western chauvinist brainworms.
That line only developed because we repeatedly had these discussions, people would have their lib blow ups, but overall we collectively gathered, challenged, and refined knowledge. We have plenty of comrades here who could quote specific parts of Marx or Lenin and paraphrase theory off the dome, emparting their comrades with some of what they have learned and encouraged others to read the theory to best suit
We need to develop that same phenomenon for radical feminism!
So now we look like jackasses to anyone with deep subject matter knowledge of radical feminism, further alienating the women who would really help us grow from our spaces. Not that the status quo is that repulsive, but I'm certain we look like the types of bros that would be class reductionists and dismiss intersectional superstructure elements out of hand.
We don't currently exercise our feminism muscles enough, so we tend not to think about working them out. Now our intellectual physique is unevenly developed, and we don't share much lit or have active threads on those topics. We caught the equivalent of being humbled by the squat rack because we do chest day 4x a week.
I think most people here want to develop their thinking in more spheres of social justice than Marxism and geopolitics, but we don't have the same vanguard dynamic where the most well-read on the subject matter shares their knowledge, points to new resources, and discusses the content with those with less knowledge so far.
We know reddit and other spaces are poisoned with liberalism and electoralism, meaning we won't enjoy participating there, so we must develop it here. Copying content from lib feminist spaces is a low effort way to get started exercising that thought. Especially because applying Marxist critiques to it forces you to engage with it and leaves you wanting to supplement it with additional feminist literature.
I've been making a few comments on men's issues lately, and they have been generally well received.
Going off the name, is it for NB comrades or masculine ones? I'm a CIS male (aka the worst) and I want to willingly participate in depatriachizing the culture. However I don't want to take up oxygen if it's supposed to be for more NB friends.
I think the intent was for both/folks questioning our gender from a masc perspective
was men and masc enbys the second time, i wouldn't expect it to be different this go around, but i only grudgingly associate with masc anything because society ruined me on that basis and is going to keep treating me as a disposable threat regardless of my internal identity so i'm forced to navigate that shit anyway.
if y'all are interested in discussing that in the appropriate place, not in this thread i guess it could be content for the comm but i don't have anything constructive to add.
Its because men dont need to talk, we just need to do old timey boxing matches with funny mustaches, its hard to do tjat on the internet
need to drag my spouse in here, there are enough gearhead-adjacent folks for him to have people to chat to, and he's a deeply decent man that would benefit from the community and be a benefit to the community
again, the only time "australia" stays winning is when we completely miss what sounds like some absolutely atrocious posting
all these points sound pretty good and more than fair. any cis dudes (which I am) taking issue with this or any similar actions, and anyone who receives a mere temp ban over these rules and gets mad instead of taking time to self-crit, should probably fucking heem themselves
Maybe this is too complicated, but I like the idea of a formal process for people to educate themselves and self crit. Maybe first time an offender catches a temp ban and needs to reflect and post upon returning identifying what unexamined biases led them into error in the first place? Just a thought
i actually think this is genuinely a better response than permabans. after all, someone can simply make a new account and choose to be silent about their awful opinions (they could still do this regardless, admittedly) if banned, but being forced to reckon with one's mistakes is the good shit that personal growth is made of.
The flip-side of this is that somebody may not have the tools to make a meaningful self-crit, and may either end up just saying what the mod wants them to say, or internalizing the wrong lesson. A possible solution would be to have them enter a dialogue or be assigned a task by a mod, that that's increasing the workload and emotional labor of modstaff
I'd still rather they bite their tounge and follow the party line on not being an asshat even if they don't internalise it. you can't really force anybody to internalise something
I like this idea
banned users need to put a report on at least one feminist theory book in their appeal to be unbanned
I definitely have blind spots and would benefit from guidance on how to be better.
I'm ashamed of this, but I'll share: I caught a temp ban from ml for misogyny a few months ago. I had already been in a place of bad self-loathing for a while and when I got the ban I basically checked out from online posting everywhere for a month or two. I PMed the user an apology afterwards. Thread was here.
I didn't even realize it was problematic until I logged in the next day and saw the ban. In my mind I use "girl" in colloquial speech with friends, so if I'm joking around with someone I think of it as a similar situation. I normally say "dude" but I know "dude" can be considered male-coded so I've been trying to work on that when a stranger has female pronouns displayed. In this case it really wasn't better. When I re-read it, if she didn't believe I was joking around it would come across as misogynistic, the joke was one-sided. Keep trying to edit this to make it sound less bad and rationalize my way out, but I fucked up.
It is the work of a lifetime to unlearn all the shit that the patriarchy puts into our heads. That's kind of why I like the idea of a self crit process. You can't work on mysogynistic attitudes if you're not even aware that you have them.
I'm thinking more seriously about this and I don't think there's a way to do this that doesn't just end up with performative forced apologies. Obviously bad views and behaviors can be changed and worked on, but very often coming to terms with things is a hard and long process, and asking someone to speed it up can actually counteract positive progress by creating resentment.
I think a better option than requiring self-crit is just having a comm for "help me work on this shit" so that it can be more voluntary, but still easy for everyone else to block. Maybe temp bans could be for everywhere except there, but with no obligation to use it, and bad-faith use would extend the ban length (or other options). Obviously though it would require a lot of moderation work though to not devolve into a bunch of jackasses reinforcing their own shitty beliefs. Very easy for me to volunteer this great idea that would be a lot of work to implement and maintain and also I'm not qualified to do that work.
At some point I came to terms with the realization that when I ask friends or family for help, or even talk with a counselor, I stubbornly fight with every suggestion I'm given, and then in the coming days the words start to sink in and I consider the ideas more seriously and usually realize my thinking was bad. I have a lot of love for the people in my life who accept this and still try to help me. The process is who I am and it works for me, but it makes it harder to inquire about anything potentially inflammatory, because I don't want people to see the stubbornness if I'm defending a repugnant idea, even if I really need to hear the arguments against my thinking. And if I still believe it, it's really hard to know if my rationale is actually repugnant or not without another voice.
Like I have a couple recurring thoughts that I'd like to ask about and have challenged, find out if they're well-founded or if they're bigoted, reflect and fix if they are, but if they are problematic and do need to be corrected, I know that I'll have at least a day where I'm still trying to defend them anyway. The time spent afterwards ruminating on a discussion like that would allow me to fix the issue. But, fragile ego and everything, if this is a public discussion and I get called out on being an asshole/bigot, the result is I ruminate more on my own identity and character. When I start thinking deeply on "am I a bad person?", I get completely sidetracked from the thoughts I need to be having to correct the original belief I still need to get sorted out. I'm not pretending that's a healthy way of thinking or that I shouldn't fix it, just saying that I've been trying to fix it for a long while now and still am not there.
Basically, having a space where I can ask "is this belief repugnant?" and a day or two where I'm allowed try to justify my reasoning would do wonders for identifying and correcting problematic thoughts I still have, but it requires the listeners to assume good faith (an absurdly gargantuan ask when talking about randos on the internet spouting offensive nonsense), and requires a lot of effort from moderation on top of that.
Yeah, it might just not be a practicable. It was more of a brainstorming thing than a fully developed idea
I missed the cheating thread, just read some of this one and through the modlog, and it seems...so easy not to be like this. I'm both dissapointed that this even happened, and happy to be somewhere that gives a shit enough to go hard once it did.
Fantastic post and it's really heartening to see such a positive response to it
Audiobook available on TankieTube here
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.
https://hexbear.net/post/3558444
check modlog since most of the misogyny was removed
Actually, the thread is borderline unreadable now since almost half of the comments were making excuses
Oh I remember that thread I figured it was a PTSD landmine and noped out after reading a couple comments
we should probably add rules banning any triggering material without some serious CWs or spoilers
That's already a thing its just not everyone takes it seriously, trans mega has been almost perfect with it though
Did get the admins to add a certain bad word to the filter though which is greatly appreciated
thank you for all your efforts
ANTI HE/HIM AKTION
Hexbear transed my gender
unlimited transness on the folds of nako's brain
I already struggled with gender identity since I was a kid but this place sure helped me figure a lot of shit out.
Based
Be afraid, he/hims
These ideas sound solid
nah youre my knight and v cool you good
Guess I'll have to transition to defend myself.
Everyone should transition at least once in their life, just to try
Real talk if there was a magic potion that made me a bio woman for the day I'd try it just for the experience, but I am comfortable in my body and identity.
Uphold Yay Meristinoux thought
very cool and based
Wild to me that anyone would even come here and be misogynistic, this is one of the few safe spaces left for femmes online.
We got a lot of blind spots comrade and there's always opportunity to improve. Proud of our mod team here for once again forcing action. Proud of myself for not posting in the thread lol
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.
The plan looks good, but please follow it up by reaching out to online spaces with more women and nonbinary people.
Any improvement will slowly backslide if there aren't people directly affected by the issue there to spot things, in enough numbers that nobody is getting bummed out by constantly being the one having to report stuff.
edit: this was phrased very poorly before and ashinadash was right to call me out
Fantastic to hear! All points are great, and as a he/him the book club sounds fun and dearly needed, I'd love to participate.
One idea I had was a megathread safe space like what we have for the trans and EM/POC threads, would that be something people would want? I've seen lots of love for the megas from our comrades here, but I'm a he/him so I'm staying in my lane, lol. Just an idea I had and felt would be cool, with our current demographics there would obviously be overlap with the trans mega, but the benefit of maintaining a safe space free from he/hims in a megathread form seems like it would help
We have the best mods and admins, fantastic work!
Side note: if anyone has seen me say reactionary misogynistic garbage on this site please tell me so I can self-crit
I think a c/womenby mega could be neat. Unity...
Would help round out the available megas! Maybe a c/neurodivergent one too, don't know what the demand is for that but it makes sense to me.
This is good! I have some thoughts about the wo/menby split which have also been brought up by other nonbinary people in this thread, so I will leave them to speak on that. I only hope we can eventually address other blind spots with similar urgency in what I consider to be one of the only tolerable forums left on the English-speaking net; covid minimization outside of the comm for it is one that particularly infuriates me, overall ableism that is not to do with neurodivergence is another -- but this is one necessary step of many, and I'm happy to see it.
I'm glad this is getting the attention it should, for a more casual user that thread was easy to miss.
Reminder for everyone to read over the hexbear.net code of conduct.
hexbear.net/code_of_conduct
Thank you to our admins for upholding TC69 thought.
Ya’ll rule.
no idea what happened but i'm glad you're taking action, it sounds like something absolutely cringe was posted. i really need to read that book at some point
Good list of action. Number 1 needs to be adopted sitewide.
Thanks to the mods for taking the problem serious and doing something about it! Thanks to those who pointed out the issue in the first place!
Let's make Hexbear a safe and inclusive space for everyone.
This is awesome and I am totally going to the gulag.
I somehow missed the most problematic threads but full support for anti-misogynist action and doing reeducation (reading group).
Greatly appreciated and very based
Admins continuing to outdo my expectations. Thank you for such a quick response to people's concerns.
What did I miss? I didn't see the cheating thread so I'm ootl on what happened
Great ideas. I love how this is being addressed.
I might have some bookclub ideas and could suggest some reading also on the whole body politic area and feminist reading on that. Been focusing on some of this stuff in my studies, especially on things like gender, body & biomedicine.
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.
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:)
based
Jeez, I’m never around for when shit really goes off around here.
Thank you, Admins, for addressing issues that are just normal and expected on other websites
how do the zero tolerance rules apply to he/him admins?
As for the book mentioned (The Will to Change), I personally didn't finish it the last time I read it after it was recommended here; I got about a third of the way through before I lost interest, mainly because it felt sort of basic to me. But we're all at different points in our journeys, and I'm sure there will be still be things I can take away from it. Plus, if we're having a large sitewide book club it'll be easier to stick with so that I can participate in the discussion threads!
The perusall repository has a ton of feminist books and I can sort through a few more. I think it might also help with accountability if folks have a place to read and immediately ask questions or hosting a "Reading Night" in hextube with some coffee and chill vibes, and a "Discussion Night".
Can you have someone ping me for the bookclub when that gets off the ground? I need to do more group activities like that. It's just good even as self care, because you get to reflect on the conditions on the ground as you use feminist theory to look at them. Idk, I just that sort of self criticism would be good as part of that sort of process to make me a better person.
Based
Unironically just ban all cis men. That would solve most of it
Are "femme" and "woman" synonymous here? I've noticed a few times on this site.