Ask Lemmy

What's wrong with you? Are you OK hun?

Look, I'm not about to post comments myself in those places, but happening upon one recently after a previous post like this, I noticed how poorly the rule was displayed.

Each post should have a stickied mod comment at the top stating commenting is for women only. Otherwise it's easy not to notice what community the post is in that you're responding to, especially on mobile.

You can expect people to know the rules of any community before posting, or take the time to look, or whatever, but the only person you're hurting is yourself for having those expectations.

If your community is public, the onus is on you (or rather, the mods of the community) to make it as clear as possible what the rules are, if they exclude people or go beyond "be civil."

I browse through the federated list, and see posts from all instances I haven't blocked. Sometimes I'll comment, and one time I got feedback it was a women only instance. I blocked that one, since it wasn't for me. I never see community rules (they're in the sidebar, I know), and besides, if I have to read the rules each time before commenting, I might as well give up on lemmy.

So, probably I'm not paying attention, that's what the fuck is wrong with me.

I apologize for the shitty behavior of other men.

That being said, how do you feel about men reading those posts on women only communities, if they don't reply, comment or vote?

For the same reason why women can't stay out of male-only spaces. Women have been demonizing male-only spaces for decades. If male-only spaces are bad, female-only spaces are bad... I see no other 'equal law for all genders' reasonable outcome

Personally, I block pretty much all exclusionary communities for a few reasons:

• I frequently do not see the community name before looking at a thread and finding something interesting to converse on, partly because of my neurodivergences. This leads to breaking rules without intending to. Safer to block.

• I sometimes have experienced RSD as a symptom of my neurodivergences and thus intentionally take action to prevent it.

• I value inclusivity and anarchic social organization as fundamental parts of my ethical framework and find social exclusion based upon a person's immutable traits incredibly offensive (the intensity of this is definitely related to my neurodivergences as well).

This is not to say that I don't believe that women deserve a space where they have control and agency, especially with the immense amounts of misogyny on the Internet and meatspace. Nor do they need to consider my feelings nor any other man's when deciding their rules and whether to be inclusive or exclusive.

I do, however, think that the hard-line exclusionary practices diminish the perspective, both for the participants and for men who could definitely use the insights into the bullshit that women have to continue to deal with. Lots of missed opportunity to build understanding and strengthen allyship. It also makes it easier for toxic exclusionary ideologies, like TERFs to take root (every group excluded makes it easier to excuse excluding another) while also preventing people who have not discovered their feminine gender identities from participating in conversation with other women in ways that could help them to uncover important things about themselves.

Anyway, enjoy and I hope that you find your space helpful to you, regardless of what myself or any other man feels about it. If the community does become inclusive, I'd definitely like to to know so that I can unblock it.