https://lemmy.nz/post/18610200/13255360

This user describes how most of the women-centered communities on Lemmy were shut down due to harassment of their members.

Another user adds “We need a safe space, but most of the women I know on here don’t have the time or energy to moderate it. And there’s so few of us, it feels like it’s not worth the effort anyway.”

  • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
    1·
    2 months ago

    Yup, that’s a problem. Specially because, once the gender ratio gets too skewed towards one side (it is), the Petrie multiplier kicks in; then the sexism targets each woman more and more frequently.

    Potential solutions that I see for the problem:

    • Perhaps creating a few instances for women? I don’t mean instances to talk only about feminism, but for general stuff. With higher standards against harassment.
    • Better mod policing against harassment. Collective action, so it’s easy to say and hard to do it, I know.
      • Ech@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        The admins of what? There is no singular “admins” of the Fediverse. That’s kind of the whole point.

          • Ech@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            I still don’t read it that way, but assuming it is, that is still unreasonable. There are simply too many differing viewpoints, by design. The best option for this sort of thing is to start a female focused instance. It won’t be able to affect the wider fediverse directly, but it would be able provide the space that is seemingly absent atm.

      • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
        1·
        2 months ago

        I think that it would be a good start. But only a start; sexism is a social problem, so even if you ban the individuals saying sexist stuff, you still see sexism elsewhere.

        And even if you ban overtly sexist users, others will keep:

        • focusing on topics typically enjoyed by men, and typically disliked by women;
        • interpreting what each other says based on masculine social norms;
        • assuming that they’re dealing with other men unless explicitly told otherwise;

        etc.

        That’s still aggravating, you know? You can’t pinpoint why but it still makes you feel unwelcome.