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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • belligerentkitten [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    2 minutes ago

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

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

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

    violence against women

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

    that supeceeds any concern about the ethics of cheating.

  • Ivysaur [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    8·
    1 hour ago

    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.

  • فریدون حسینی@vegantheoryclub.org
    11·
    2 hours ago

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

  • belligerentkitten [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.netEnglish
    25·
    6 hours ago

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

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

  • aen [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    6 hours ago

    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

  • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    7 hours ago

    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.

    • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]@hexbear.netEnglish
      26·
      6 hours ago

      1. The OP had limited information, all he knew was that the lady he was seeing was evidently married.

      2. The proper channel is one-on-one, to talk to the person you’ve been seeing and challenge them to come clean. Going to whoever they’ve been dating doesn’t give them the chance to explain themselves or make amends.

      3. There’s a chance that the lady had a good reason for secrecy, perhaps that she was in the process of trying to dissolve the relationship in the first place.

      4. “Hey I thought you should know I fucked your wife” is one of the more dangerous things you can say to a man.

      5. Just getting up and telling the guy would likely put the lady in danger of being harmed.

      OP was justified in feeling deceived and uneasy about the hookup. But like so many other situations, there’s a tact to be had: blurting out something to a stranger and showing all your cards is rarely the best way to go about things. It seemed like people who considered it agreed that the choice of action was a little rash.

  • Mindfury [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    26·
    10 hours ago

    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