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

Unpopular Opinion

6351 readers
9 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
[–] ZC3rr0r@lemmy.ca 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I am 100% with the women choosing the bear over an unknown man. Most wildlife, including bears, just want to be left alone to do their own thing. You can safely assume that the most likely thing to happen is the bear just does it's own thing and lets you be. An unknown man is a much less predictable entity, and as such should be treated with a lot more suspicion.

Side note for those wanting to be pedantic: Bears vary in their level of habituation and indifference to humans as a result. More habituated bears may associate you with food, and some may even see you as food (depending on species) This will affect their aggression towards you, but as a general rule of thumb it's still safe to assume any random bear would be more inclined to leave you alone or just steal your food than to actively want to harm you.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 months ago

Most wildlife, including bears, just want to be left alone to do their own thing.

Similarly to humans. It's the most important part, but sometimes animals want to play or get irritated at your presence. A bear is gifted by nature with ability to break many bones in your body without getting tired.