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

  • 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.