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

  • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    81·
    2 months ago

    rat-salute-2

    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 @[email protected] 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.

      • sewer_rat_420 [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        38·
        2 months ago

        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?

      • IzyaKatzmann [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        21·
        2 months ago

        but it’s always some coded-malthsian stuff. like with effected altruists, or melon tusk equivalents who uh believe they need to ‘replenish’ their countries gene pool

        • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          18·
          2 months ago

          I could as well say that malthusianism is always a dogwhistle for reactionaries who want to reduce everybody with a uterus to a walking incubator. It is true a lot of the time, e.g. NazBols are really into disguising their anti-abortion stance as being “anti-malthusian”, but i wouldn’t call you a nazbol for making that argument. Just somebody who needs to be made aware that low birth rates in reality mean people have the choice to not have kids, or to start a family later in life. The DDR had excellent child care on a level we do not see as a widespread thing in any capitalist nation, it had excellent public schools, affordable housing, it had women that were a lot more materially independent than most western working class women, according to the typical analysis of the stereotypical hexbear dude people there should have had a ton of kids. But in reality, the DDR had a lower birth rate than west Germany because the DDR also had better access to abortion, way less social stigma around that and no society that constantly lorded a christofascist ideal of motherhood over women to pressure them into becoming a stay at home mom. Declining birth rates are a good thing, because high birth rates mean that something is going really, really wrong in regards to reproductive rights. That doesn’t change that there are ecofascist “humanity is cancer” nihilists out there, but please be aware that this entire discourse is extremely online bs that has very little to do with actual family planning in the real world where people actually need to care for their babies for the next two decades. When your plan for raising 3+ children isn’t being a petit-bourgeois absentee breadwinner dad or being able to afford staff that does all your chores for you, you have to be really, really into taking care of kids, to a degree most people just aren’t.

    • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      44·
      2 months ago

      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.

    • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      44·
      2 months ago

      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.

        • frauddogg [they/them, null/void]@hexbear.netEnglish
          4·
          1 month ago

          “Improve material conditions” might just be a Marxist Thought Terminating Cliché.

          Two days late to this take but I’m actually inclined to agree with it bc 9/10 times someone simply saying ‘improve material conditions’ never follows that up with what conditions they intend to improve, any kind of idea or starter for a plan to execute, or how their hypothetical improvements would change the conditions they observe. Like, we talk about Marxism being a science a lot but a lot of novices talk about it without really following the Scientific Method.

          • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            4·
            1 month ago

            Yes this is my feeling as well. It’s like Mao said: No investigation, No right to speak.

            That might be a bit harsh in tone, but if you’re saying we need to “improve material conditions” you should be able to back that up with details. If you can’t, you need to do more research.

            Also, material conditions are NOT strictly economic conditions. They are all conditions that shape your actions and desires. Laws and their application, and how those laws impact social groups are part of the Material Conditions under which we live. Social Norms, which are an outgrowth of laws, which can persist after a law is repealed or changed, are also part of Material Conditions.

            As an example: After the October Revolution, incredibly broad and loose divorce laws were implemented, and the results of that was a stark rise in divorce. Prior to that it was almost impossible for a women in Russia to leave an abusive or undesired marriage.

            This change in the law resulted in a huge change in women’s material conditions within Russia. Allowing for more autonomy and freedom to pursue relationships on their own terms.

            • frauddogg [they/them, null/void]@hexbear.netEnglish
              4·
              1 month ago

              That might be a bit harsh in tone, but if you’re saying we need to “improve material conditions” you should be able to back that up with details. If you can’t, you need to do more research.

              Maybe I’m just a walking incendiary by nature (don’t laugh!) but frankly, I don’t consider that harsh in the slightest– if anything that’s just the fact of the matter; and I’d expect at the very least an exposition kin to what you’ve written about the divorce law reforms post-October Revolution out of anyone seriously looking to deploy the material conditions cliché. There’s a dogmatism in not doing so, I think; and makes that particular comrade’s implementation of Marxism little more than religion at least from where I sit.

              • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
                3·
                1 month ago

                I fully agree. Avoiding dogmatism should be a high priority for all comrades. I have a strong habit of doing even basic research before making a comment on a topic I’m not fully versed in. In doing so I sometimes find things I didn’t expect to find, which is actually kind of exciting. I derive a lot of good feelings from checking my assertions at the door. I don’t mind scrapping a comment because I discovered my assertions were not based in reality. Posting is reactionary if you do so with full confidence and an empty head. There are a lot of “truths” we take for granted and we need to avoid that at all costs. If I’m waxing philosophical I try to make sure that’s clear.

                Part of this comes from having the ability to recognize ones own limitations. I know where the gaps in my knowledge reside and I want to avoid those gaps becoming reactionary points of view.

    • Poogona [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      36·
      2 months ago

      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 screm-cool

      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

      • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        31·
        2 months ago

        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.

      • PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        17·
        1 month ago

        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

      • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        7·
        1 month ago

        his 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.

        What lack of materialism does to your brain

    • RION [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      29·
      2 months ago

      when it actually is the opposite

      … This wasn’t widely understood here?? Even Reddit of all places knows this

      • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        25·
        2 months ago

        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.

    • SerLava [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      23·
      2 months ago

      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.

  • Angel [any]@hexbear.net
    58·
    1 month ago

    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.

  • asante [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    57·
    2 months ago

    woah those are great changes!

    very based mod team heart-sickle feminism

    1. 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

    ayy now i have no report button anxiety

  • niph [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    49·
    1 month ago

    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.

    • magi [null/void]@hexbear.netMEnglish
      34·
      2 months ago

      Thank you for saying this sneak, I present femme but I don’t see myself as any gender (I’m agender). I wouldn’t be posting in womenby because I don’t see myself as a woman, and I found it questionable having that plus menby it felt a bit strange seeing that split like that and back to the binary imo which I feel excludes me, I don’t think enbies should be in the gender box but that’s me. But I’ll continue to post in the trans mega as is the norm

        • magi [null/void]@hexbear.netMEnglish
          19·
          2 months ago

          Why not have a masc/femme com instead? And maybe a separate enby com for every enby? I can understand some of the logic but speaking for myself I have a real problem with binary boxes… I also always engage with good faith here and I do try see the logic behind all posts.

          anyways I always appreciate your posts in trans mega <3

          As I’ve appreciated yours, you should post more btw ^^

            • magi [null/void]@hexbear.netMEnglish
              10·
              2 months ago

              Burn out can be tough, I hope you come through that soon and feel a little weight lifted at least. Looking forward to seeing you post when you’re feeling better meow-hug

          • iridaniotter [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
            9·
            2 months ago

            Femme refers to a type of lesbian but is now also being used by some to describe non-lesbian gender. Personally I’d rather not take a term already used by lesbians.

            • magi [null/void]@hexbear.netMEnglish
              9·
              2 months ago

              I do think names that aren’t part of the binary are the way to go those were just off the top of my head going off presentation but something more fiiting would be good.

            • Dessa [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
              7·
              1 month ago

              “Femme” has a long history in the trans community too, particularly “en femme,” being used historically by part-timers when they wished to specify their expression for a given situation. E.G. “I went to the store en femme the other day.”

              But I do agree that in this specific scenario on hexbear, that “fem” with that spelling makes more sense.

          • Dessa [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
            6·
            1 month ago

            I’d add that enby shpuld be explicitly allowed in any of these spaces since enby can include people who sometimes touch on the binary

            • magi [null/void]@hexbear.netMEnglish
              7·
              1 month ago

              Well as I’ve already stated I’m an agender non binary person and I agrree that people present however they wish. I present femme but I’m not a woman. I’m not calling for segregation I was speaking as someone who sits outside the binary. My suggestion was based on presentation and moving away from the descriptor for non binary people. I agree that the spaces should be for everyone but as I sit outside the binary I feel it excludes me in it’s current naming scheme.

        • iridaniotter [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          7·
          2 months ago

          Womenby and menby were created in the beginning of the site four years ago and I’m not sure what the reasoning was. Womenby was reopened a few months ago so there would be a place for feminist discussion while also allowing anything that would have been allowed before it was locked as well. To be honest, any name is going to have issues. zoomerleninist and I will work on a better sidebar in the next few days.

    • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      27·
      2 months ago

      I guess I assumed that /c/womenby does already include all enbies and not just “femme enbies”, so then does the creation of /c/menby require an exodus of “masc enbies” to a different comm? Why are we doing gender segregation for enbies?

      Why would it “require” an exodus or do gender segragation? It’s not as if anybody is running a secret database of the AGAB of neopronoun users on hexbear and bans them for posting in the wrong com (not to mention that pronouns aren’t surefire indicators of gender). I know a lot of transmasc enbies who get massive dysphoria from being lumped in with fem people, being treated as “women light” etc. A lot of transmasc nonbinary people are very close in gender identity and presentation to men, if they do not downright use a label like “nonbinary trans man” for themselves, not to mention that their lived experience is usually much more marked by struggles with toxic norms of masculinity than with (trans)misogyny. Over here in Germany, whether transmascs even want to be included in the FLINTA acronym (women, lesbians, nonbinary, trans, inter and agender) is a recurring point of debate in trans spaces because the label in practice is often used as a more inclusive form of saying “women only”.

      ofc individual attitudes to this can vary a lot. A lot of the transmac nonbinary people i know are staunch feminists, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they feel at ease in a “no men allowed” space. I think it’s a good thing when they have the option to discuss masculinity with other transmascs and cis men, and i think many of them have valuable perspectives that cis men could benefit from.

    • belligerentkitten [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.netMEnglish
      22·
      2 months ago

      yeah this has kinda been a problem for me my whole life tbh. i’ve spent like 15+ years in trans communities and reinventing the gender binary is something i’ve seen happen repeatedly, with enbies just kind of expected to go along with whatever is the opposite of their assigned gender. tho these comms aren’t trans exclusive they do kind of have the same effect of just recreating the gender binary, and splitting up the enby community along birth assignment lines.

      i also think it misunderstands the reason to make a group for women and enbies - to be clear i think this comm in particular is fine. it’s just somewhat undermined by the existence of c/menby. given that we live in a patriarchy, women and nonbinary people have legitimate reason to organise with each other against patriarchy n misogyny. such a group for men and enbies just doesn’t make sense. we should not exactly be organising against women. and yeah, i know c/menby is not (supposed to be) anti-woman, it’s (supposed to be) for them to educate themselves. but in that context, enbies are politically aligned with women and should be actively included in the space rather than just passively jammed in.

      we should keep c/womenby, change c/menby to just like c/men(i’ve reconsidered my name recommendation, see edit) or something to that effect, if it can be maintained as a space for deconstructing patriarchy rather than generating toxic masculinity, and maybe a nonbinary space of our own.

      EDIT: I think the community should be called c/deconstructing_masculinity to make it harder for it to turn into a breeding ground for misogyny.

    • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
      20·
      2 months ago

      thanks to the mods, and also to all the people having struggle sessions and putting in real life force (energy, time, wellbeing, etc.) into educating their comrades, I see you, appreciate you and commend your effort o7

      just want to echo this – I don’t often have the bandwidth to engage, and I really appreciate everyone who puts forth that emotional and intellectual labor. ❤️ thank you very, very much.

    • niph [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      13·
      1 month ago

      I run an inclusive space for everyone who is not a cis man and we use the terminology “people of marginalised genders”. It’s clunky but it works. We started out with something similar to “womenby” but we got a lot of criticism for being exclusionary.

      I guess I would tentatively suggest one group for all marginalised genders and a separate comm for discussion of masculinity.