this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
319 points (73.4% liked)

Unpopular Opinion

6334 readers
394 users here now

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!


How voting works:

Vote the opposite of the norm.


If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.



Guidelines:

Tag your post, if possible (not required)


  • If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
  • If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].


Rules:

1. NO POLITICS


Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.


2. Be civil.


Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...


Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.


5. No trolling.


This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.



Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

(Content warning, discussions of SA and misogyny, mods I might mention politics a bit but I hope this can be taken outside the context of politics and understood as a discussion of basic human decency)

We all know how awful Reddit was when a user mentioned their gender. Immediate harassment, DMs, etc. It's probably improved over the years? But still awful.

Until recently, Lemmy was the most progressive and supportive of basic human dignity of communities I had ever followed. I have always known this was a majority male platform, but I have been relatively pleased to see that positive expressions of masculinity have won out.

All of that changed with the recent "bear vs man" debacle. I saw women get shouted down just for expressing their stories of being sexually abused, repeatedly harassed, dogpiled, and brigaded with downvotes. Some of them held their ground, for which I am proud of them, but others I saw driven to delete their entire accounts, presumably not to return.

And I get it. The bear thing is controversial; we can all agree on this. But that should never have resulted in this level of toxicity!

I am hoping by making this post I can kind of bring awareness to this weakness, so that we can learn and grow as a community. We need to hold one another accountable for this, or the gender gap on this site is just going to get worse.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] beardown@lemm.ee -2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

The point is that dehumanizing men will have a disproportionate impact on working class men of color and immigrants. Which are groups that are already seen as animalistic and inherently dangerous. Hence the drastically elevated rates of state sanctioned murder of black men, for instance.

When we dehumanize men, the impact on wealthy white men in gated suburban communities is minimal. However the impact on working class men of color from vulnerable populations is significant. The impact on national minority groups is significant.

Which means this "meme" is a dogwhistle. It is barely disguised hate speech that amplifies violence against already persecuted groups by perpetuating the notion that these "animalistic" peoples are more dangerous than wild animals.

This is the same thing Trump does when he calls immigrants rapists and murderers who are poisoning the blood of America. Except this meme isn't dumb enough to specifically talk about Mexican men - instead, it is making the same point implicitly.

This attitude will perpetuate the culture of violence that targets national minority groups who are already othered. It isn't funny or cute. It's a rightwing dogwhistle and it's dangerous

[–] obviouspornalt@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Being at risk of being attacked by a sexual predator is neither funny nor cute.

The right-wing has never been an advocate for protecting women, so the leap you've made here is rather spectacular.

[–] beardown@lemm.ee -2 points 6 months ago

Nothing about this has anything to do with protecting women.

It is about using the perceived fragility and patriarchal ownership mentality associated with "our" women to justify increases in crackdowns on men of color and immigrants.

This is just white tears causing black scars all over again. Except this time it's an astroturfed campaign by fascists to maintain and increase societal fear of men who are Other

Being at risk of being attacked by a sexual predator is neither funny nor cute.

No idea what this is referencing. But I agree that there is nothing cute about fascistic dogwhistles