The number of examples I have seen of people being told to shut up about their lived experiences with sexual abuse in the past 24 hours on this platform is deeply disturbing.
I am calling on y’all to take a deep breath and listen to women for once. There is a time and place for tone policing and it’s never the very minute a woman speaks up.
You must log in or register to comment.
Thank… Someone that i only stay in local Blåhaj zone
Bro I’m losing my mind. Everyone is talking about “picking the bear” and I can’t figure out what the hell any of it means 😭
Okay very basically this whole thing started with a hypothetical posed to a bunch of women about which they would rather run into while alone in the woods; A random man, or a bear. A lot of women chose the bear. Reasons varied from “The worst the bear will do is kill me,” to “At least I know the bear wants to kill me,” with a general theme seeming to be that whatever tangible threat the bear posed was preferable to the uncertainty of wondering whether or not a random man would assault them.
The poster’s stated goal with the hypothetical was to get men to think about why the women were choosing the bear. Instead a lot of guys took it as a personal attack, like they were being punished for the actions of other men. Many started attacking the question, insisting that bears are way more dangerous than virtually any man. This led to a lot of dismissive responses of the criticism like “This is why women choose the bear,” or talking about women’s safety being more important than men’s feelings.
I’m simplifying a lot but that’s the basic gist of it.
Thank you for the detailed summary.
To add the final unfortunate details, there was a recent discussion on Lemmy where women were sharing their reasons for choosing bear, which involved sharing personal stories of SA. Unfortunately, many men responded in a toxic manner, causing some women to delete their posts or accounts. Very disturbing and this is what inspired me to make this post, as it is quite reminiscent of the Catholic church sweeping SA under the rug.
Ah yes, this IS about the bear meme. Maybe this is a lesson that doubling down on an inflammatory meme is the worst way to attempt to get a point across, claiming that people annoyed with the meme are attempting to silence you is just trippling down.
Hey you had some decent points in the other thread. :) Please take a moment to reflect as I know you have it in you.
claiming that people annoyed with the meme are attempting to silence you
Emphatically: Not what I am doing. I am referencing literal instances where woman said “hey this is what happened to me,” and men responded in a dogpile “shut up, you are antagonizing me.”
The number of comments here that seek to immediately discount what you are saying is deeply troubling.
Yes! In several aspects, I appreciate the progressive nature of the community here. However, the predominantly male composition of the community is a significant drawback. There is a noticeable lack of maningful exposure to even basic feminist theory compared to Marxist, environmental, racial, or other left-leaning theories. It is my hope that we, as a community, can acknowledge this deficiency and make efforts to address it, as recent events have shown that the status quo is doing nothing but harm.
A lot of people seem to think things like sexism are a personal failing or deliberate act as opposed to a systemic issue that affects us all.
you_are_not_immune_to_propaganda.jpg
Lemmy has been very good in my experience with recognizing this truth when it comes to systemic racism. I guess I thought it would translate more easily to gender as well but clearly I was quite mistaken.
I haven’t once seen that on this platform, you and I must travel very different communities.
haapy for you man
Do you have any examples?
That links back to this thread for me
yeah i put all the external links in one comment here in case the mods need to nuke me due to brigading. you can also scroll to my reply to KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
The comments you linked to are now removed, I think. It might be useful to have archive.org or archive.is archive them next time.
see my comment history i have called out a few. do not harrass or brigade.
I wanna know why nobody is standing up for the bears. Just because some bears attack people in the woods doesn’t mean they all will.
Most bears aren’t aggressive and wouldn’t actually attack anybody unless provoked. I mean, I get it. Maybe only 10% of bears would get agro for no reason. But how am I supposed to know if this one is one of those 10%?
We need to have a discussion about how the good bears are becoming disenfranchised by being lumped in with a very small minority of bears that would go out of their way to harm you for no reason. #NotAllBears
edit: a typo
People “don’t want to listen” because the moment anyone speaks out against the generalizations, it becomes personal attacks against them. “you are part of the problem if you don’t immediately agree with everything I say.” That’s not to say that someone is not valid for the way they feel after experiencing something traumatic like SA and having hesitation associating with or being around men, but the accusations of being the problem towards people who are innocent make people not want to support you. It’s also very “only my feelings matter” when it starts sounding like I shouldn’t be anywhere in the remote vicinity of or exist because I might be making a woman uncomfortable.
Once when I was in high school I was in the classroom alone waiting for class to start, minding my own business and not paying any attention to anyone else. A girl walked in and told me that I looked like I wanted to kill her. I didn’t even look in her direction. How dare I be quiet and mind my own business, I made her feel uncomfortable.
It’s also funny that people are saying “y’all always have to make it about you, it’s not about you so what you think doesn’t matter.” Yeah how dare I have feelings and be offended that other people make generalizations about me and start saying I’m part of the problem.
Absolutely not.
The people “speaking out against the generalizations” need to find their own space and time to do so, not to do it in direct replies to women who are speaking up about a very personal and invasive topic.
It’s an exact parallel to those who screamed “All Lives Matter” in response to BLM.
There are inumerable comment sections for men to explore and express the negative qualities of the patriarchy in their lives, !mensliberation@lemmy.ca being one I have seen that seems positive. But that space is not to be held the moment and place women begin to talk about their own experiences.
None of the situations I was talking about involved direct replies to women talking about their own experiences. Everything I’ve seen has essentially been “I’d choose the bear and you should feel ashamed.” If there are people making those kinds of comments in reply to women speaking about their experience and how they feel, I would agree with you that it is not acceptable. But 90% of what I see is blanket accusations or false dilemmas placing some viewpoint on me that I do not hold.
And in a way it does resemble “all lives matter.” But when there are people here directly saying that all men should be ashamed, that they are not safe to be around, and I have seen people saying in these threads that all men are rapists, it seems a little hard to see how that would make anyone understand or sympathize with the people making these comments. It starts to sound like “my feelings should take precedence over your existence” instead of “this is what I feel and why” or “this is how we can improve things.”
Its also ridiculous to me when it’s “but a man could rape me” but no “a bear could maul me.” If someone says that they have been SA’d or have otherwise had negative experiences, fine. I still think its a bit of a stretch to generalize it but I’m not out there saying “BuT nOt AlL mEn” to that.
None of the situations I was talking about involved direct replies to women talking about their own experiences.
Okay well that’s literally the topic of this post. So you are butting in with irrelevant commentary. Thank you and have a nice day.
Commentary isn’t irrelevant just because it’s not the exact same thing that you said. Exploring related questions/scenarios is half the point of a good discussion.
Valid! I encourage you to pop over to this post I made instead perhaps. It already has some rich discussion going on about exactly the concerns you are voicing here.
Thanks! Will check it out. I salute your efforts to spread awareness about lemmy stifling SA talk.
❤️ 👍
Uhhhhh they deleted the post which is very disheartening because there was genuinely really positive discussion going on. 🙁 Here is a reposted version.
Thanks again :D
Your comment is kind of funny because it’s definitely problematic in several ways. So I’m not surprised at all that you have heard from others before that you’re part of the problem. When enough people tell you that, then maybe you should do some selfcrit instead of continuing to victimblame women for experiencing sexism 🤷
It’s funny that you assumed that “enough people told me that” from one instance that this reminded me of. I didn’t victim blame them for experiencing sexism. I said that accusing innocent people who they’ve never interacted with and generalizing statements is ridiculous. Maybe be more specific on how my comment was “problematic” instead of some vague doublespeak.
I hope you don’t mind me joining the conversation, but I just wanted to say that I understand and validate your experience and emotions. It’s really terrible to go through something like that, and I don’t appreciate the other commenter minimizing your experience.
One thing that isn’t always acknowledged is that the patriarchy can negatively impact everyone, regardless of gender. Your story is a clear example of this. Feminism, as it works to dismantle the patriarchy, can ultimately benefit and liberate men as well.
If you haven’t already, I suggest checking out !mensliberation@lemmy.ca. I’m not very active there, but I’ve seen some really positive conversations happening. Feel free to give it a try if you’re interested - you might find some value there. And of course, you’re always welcome to stay here in 196 as well 💙🦈.
Do you bring these issues up of your own accord? Or do you wait until a woman speaks of her concerns then use it as an opportunity to unload?
Not disputing what you’ve seen, but I’ve been looking at all and have not seen anything like that. Where are you seeing it?
Same. I don’t know what this is in reference too. Maybe it’s a lemmy.cafe thing? I don’t see this shit on my instance.
Of course Jesus is gonna say that.
The Jesus just wants some context.
Can you maybe provide some links to examples? I haven’t seen any of this.
i wont link directly, but see my comment history i call out a few
—disclaimer do not harrass or brigade—
The meme itself is very… exploitable to the Angry Jacks of the world because of this pattern they exibit. They will bend themselves in knots and side with rapeists in an attempt to resolve their emotional outbursts.
Ohhhh this is why my posts finally came out of the negatives.
Thank you!
Trolls gonna troll. And one of the links listed had the troll comment removed.
If you’re going to dismiss all evidence as trolling then like… what are you doing asking for evidence? You’re enabling people by covering for them.
absolutely incorrect unfortunately. the comment you see as removed was a woman who deleted their entire account. “trolls gonna troll” is enabling language, just like “locker room talk,” careful.
I’m really glad I haven’t seen any posts like that here on Lemmy but that sounds really awful. :/
And I completely agree with your thought and intention but I still have to nitpick about:
There is a time and place for tone policing and it’s _never_ the very minute a woman speaks up.
Of course it’s not never. Just like with men, women are not infallible and can do shit.
I know you’re (hopefully) not literally meaning it like that, but I thought it’s still noteworthy.thanks for your kind words! and you are correct; i am using strong language there that should not be applied literally, though i do stand by the sentiment.
to be more precise, “There is a time and place for tone policing and incredible care should be taken that it is not done to silence or speak over any person’s expression of lived experience, so as not to discourage people who have found the courage to speak up.”
I haven’t seen a post silencing sa on lemmy and I m pretty glad that I haven’t.
Maybe because they were already silenced?
I have no idea what this post is even referring to, though. This have something to do with the bear thing? That shit started cropping up all over my feed, then this. Explain to an out of touch aging fucker what’s going on here, will ya youngin? There’s a hay penny in it for ya
Basically an overgeneralized meme representing the very true and valid fear women have towards strange men, where if they were stuck in a forest and had to choose to be stuck there with a strange man or a strange bear, many women would choose to be stuck with a bear, started cropping up on lemmy. Unfortunately this meme ALSO hit on the lived experience that a lot of men have had where they’ve grown up their entire lives feeling like they’ve been villainized and made to be the source of all societies ills, and so they voiced, with varying levels (and lack of) nuance why this meme upset them as it felt like a further villainization. This caused more friction than nuanced discussion, and more memes that more directly antagonized those who didnt appreciate the meme started cropping up, and now we are here
TBH this really wasn’t the kind of discourse I was expecting in 196 of all places, especially since there are Tumblr posts on this sub preemptively calling out this kinda stuff for being terf talking points
Do I you have post or comment examples?
I just did some searches that were filtered to the past 24 hours, and I’m only really seeing positively upvoted stuff about priests who were arrested.
absolutely valid haha. if you don’t have the context or the emotional bandwidth currently to look into the details i have provided i encourage you just to move on, thank you :)
I appreciate that, friend. I hope my comment didn’t come off as flippant. I absolutely believe you’ve seen the shit you’re railing against, I just haven’t seen it (on Lemmy) myself.
Of course it happened in a blahaj-less meme page 😞
shoutout to blahaj and the absolute queens who run it 💆♀️🙂↕️
I found the recent incel-ish responses on various Lemmy communities to the bear meme to be off-putting. Granted, it’s much worse on Reddit but I would have expected better on this platform.
Yeah, I’ve seen ignorant takes about that on tumblr too, from accounts I thought knew better. Genuinely disappointing to see.
i guess i wasn’t online when this bear meme happened? what was it about?
I don’t have a particular Lemmy link, but here’s a general overview from knowyourmeme.
Thank you for the link. It seems rather surprising by how many woman apparently chooses the bear option. I understand their reasoning but I thought it would be 60/40 favoring the bear.
According to the CDC, 1 in 3 women in the US have been victims of sexual harassment or assault. And honestly, given how underreported those sorts of stats are, it’s probably higher.
Another hypothetical question was posed to women a while ago: if all the men on the planet got whisked away (not killed, just sent to an awesome men-only vacation planet or something) for 48 hours, what would you do?
The answers were overwhelmingly things like ‘go for a walk at night’, ‘take a jog with my earbuds in’, ‘go to the gym’…
Well that sounds sadly realistic, but honestly the 1 in 4 attempted or completed rape is miles away more shocking. I’m so out of touch with reality damn.
Hey, at least you’re listening and giving it serious thought. That’s better than some people.
here you go :)
Hypothetical question posed to women: would you rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a man? Many women said “bear”. Many men took that personally.
What a stupid thing to spend energy getting upset about. I’m a bigger than average dude and I’d pick the bear as well; humans are capable of all kinds of villainy, bears are just bears. I’d like to find the statistics on women attacked by bears in the woods compared to women attacked by men, it has to be overwhelming more common to be attacked by a man.
I agree with you completely; I’m surprised that people are upset as well, but there are plenty of people in this thread who feel that the question unreasonably attacks men and is deliberately inflammatory.
precisely! to date lemmy had been the most progressive and respectable toward human dignity community i have followed, but that facade has dropped pretty quickly with this turn :(
I hope this doesn’t sound aggressive, but unless you’re a man, you never had to venture very far on Lemmy to experience misogyny. If you ever mentioned you were a woman in any of the major instances and communities in any context except “I’m a woman and here’s what I don’t like about other women,” you were gonna get misogynistic replies and a shocking amount of downvotes. It’s just what happens when any internet community is dominated by a single gender I guess.
Lemmy’s always been great about almost every other social issue, except sometimes trans issues and neurodivergence if you stepped out of the communities for it, but women’s issues have always been an absolute train wreck around here.Even as a man I noticed pretty quickly that Lemmy can be weird about women, maybe as an extension of many nerd spaces still being like that. I really hope we get or federate some communities with a different gender balance, I guess beehaw and blahaj already try to be.
This definitely aligns with my experience and understanding as well. Thank you for sharing :)
