Greetings, Kbinners (and anyone else from the 'verse who might be reading this). Back on the platform most of us migrated from, there was/is a subreddit called r/menslib, which was like r/mensrights minus the misogyny and shitting on marginalized groups and minorities. Those of you who subbed will remember it was a great place to chat about mental health, gender roles, societal expectations, toxic masculinity, things like that.
So far, I’ve not been able to find its equivalent in the fediverse. Here on Kbin, there’s m/men, but that basically mirrors the old mensrights sub. It’s gross. I found https://lemmy.ca/c/mensliberation in lemmy.ca, but that community is small (9 members) and inactive. I used Kbin’s magazine/community search and only found those two; I then tried Google, came up with no leads and figured either my Google fu just sucks or their algorithm is getting worse (likely both), so I tried duckduckgo and still found nothing. Pretty much everything I found that is even remotely related is from people looking for the same thing or is a post or comment on Reddit itself.
Is there a place out there like the old menslib? I mean, there must be, right? Help me, fediversers. You’re my only hope.
Edit: I have been banned from m/men. I mean, that’s fine, I wouldn’t fit in there anyway, because I don’t think men are the ones being oppressed.
This. No safe space in the world will fix the problem. Safe spaces aren’t for addressing concerns, but simply outletting them. Venting without fear. That’s all they’re good for. If you want to affect change you need to challenge the problems where they arise, when they arise. Directly. That’s how you “be a man” today without being toxic: by having the courage it takes to say what ought to be said instead of the cowardice to let bad ideas go unchecked.
Safe spaces are places where you can ask questions and get useful answers without being attacked. When the problem is social norms and social pressure it can be hard for people to learn about the problem or even why it’s a problem because the people fighting for change so often get shouted down or drowned out by the larger society. Too often safe spaces do devolve into places where people can go to listen to each other complain or share justice fantasies but they should be, and the good ones are, welcome centers for new people and counseling/advice centers for members facing a problem they don’t know how to deal with.