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

  • Angel [any]@hexbear.netM
    0·
    1 month ago

    Personally speaking, to give my own insight into another subject that others have discussed in this thread, I am all for a neutral (meaning neither specifically masculine nor feminine-aligned) non-binary space.

    Seeing cisheteronormativity and binarism rife on every corner of the internet is deeply exhausting and honestly makes me feel like I’m “broken” for existing in a way that is far beyond any of it.

    Not all trans people are non-binary either, so I can’t say that I’m 100% confident that enbyphobia/transmedicalism would never “leak,” even if just a little bit, into this community.

    Truthfully, as inclusive as Hexbear can seem, I don’t give any unambiguous trust to anyone who is cis, hetero, white, or neurotypical. The fact that this thread needed to be made in the first place can show you why.

    “Leftists” will go mask off and spew hatred towards someone like me when it no longer benefits them to pretend that they’re not hateful bigots.

    • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.netMEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      i feel like having 3 separate comms for enby stuff will just end up splitting the userbase too much, probably best to consolidate. the number of posts here are kinda low outside of the megathread, for instance. according to the survey the majority of trans users here arent fully binary, about 2/3rds arent, which potentially means killing all four communities without a big tent (binaries might feel it unreasonable to post in a enby megathread and vice versa) or just everyone keeps doing what theyve been doing which is posting in traa.

      • Angel [any]@hexbear.netM
        0·
        1 month ago

        In that sense, a workable idea is just to change the angles that the three communities are getting at.

        For instance, c/womenby could be the feminist community, c/menby could be the “deconstructing masculinity from a male leftist perspective” community, and a hypothetical c/enby could just be… enby.

        Grouping in non-binary people with a binary gender has always been a huge red flag to me. When people say things like “women and non-binary people,” it tells me to run and never interact with that person again. Though Hexbear might be better at handling that issue and not defaulting to the absurdly toxic “women-lite” shit, like I said, my skepticism doesn’t stop when I’m on HB.

        However, it is a fair point that a neutral enby community might not attract many users. I gotta remember that most people are more “normal” than I am. A community I could find enjoyable may not appeal to most of Hexbear, like if we were to make a community specifically for djentposting lmao

        It’d be just me and @Luna@hexbear.net, I reckon.

        • belligerentkitten [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.netMEnglish
          0·
          1 month ago

          i v much agree with the way u lay out how the communities should work. the feminist and deconstruction comms should never have been made to “match”. and the enby one is a completely different kind of space, in my mind. we’re not exactly trying to make a gender comm for each of the 3 genders.

          also please please can we have a neutral community. i’ve always felt v alienated by most trans communities because of this kinda thing and it would be so nice to have an enby community that isn’t divided by birth assignment. don’t get me wrong i appreciate that the trans community as a whole isn’t segregated here but it’s hard to feel at home sometimes when it just seems like everyone approaches things so diifferently to me.

            • imogen_underscore [it/its, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
              1·
              1 month ago

              this is what made me uninstall tiktok again recently… i know it’s a bunch of kids on there so you know pinch of salt but i didn’t need to be exposed to such takes as:

              transphobic/queerphobic ignorant takes

              “butch-fem relationships are heteronormative”

              “if you take T or use he/him that means you cannot be a lesbian”

              “you can only be a lesbian if you’re female nonbinary, male nonbinary can’t qualify”

              yeag it’s bad

  • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    rat-salute-2

    I’d like to kick off a little discussion since this comment about the way Hexbear often assumes the reason women aren’t having more children is that material conditions for them are poor, when it actually is the opposite from @Othello@hexbear.net has stuck with me and it’s a really important discussion that wasn’t really properly addressed/developed in that thread (in fact, many commenters just kinda dismissed the point love made with the exact kinda rote vulgar materialism Othello was arguing against in the first place!)

    Maybe it deserves its own thread, maybe the admins/mods should take a look at what happened there, IDK.

    • SerLava [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      I think it’s mostly that, but a bit of the other- a lot of people actually want to have 1 or 2 kids and literally can’t because they can’t afford it, or can’t even socialize or date in the first place because they cant afford it. But yeah people don’t come into money and prosperity and decide to have 12 children.

    • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      Yeah the position a lot of people have on here with regards to birthrates, the position that Othello was calling out, where people think that if you improve “material conditions” more women will start having children, is just not compatible with reality.

      In reality, the poorest countries with the worst education have the highest birthrates, while the wealthiest countries with good education have the lowest birthrates. I’ve also gotten into this in previous comments as well. As materialists, our positions should be based in reality and not vibes, and the reality is very clear on this.

        • frauddogg [they/them, null/void]@hexbear.netEnglish
          1·
          1 month ago

          “Improve material conditions” might just be a Marxist Thought Terminating Cliché.

          Two days late to this take but I’m actually inclined to agree with it bc 9/10 times someone simply saying ‘improve material conditions’ never follows that up with what conditions they intend to improve, any kind of idea or starter for a plan to execute, or how their hypothetical improvements would change the conditions they observe. Like, we talk about Marxism being a science a lot but a lot of novices talk about it without really following the Scientific Method.

          • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            1·
            1 month ago

            Yes this is my feeling as well. It’s like Mao said: No investigation, No right to speak.

            That might be a bit harsh in tone, but if you’re saying we need to “improve material conditions” you should be able to back that up with details. If you can’t, you need to do more research.

            Also, material conditions are NOT strictly economic conditions. They are all conditions that shape your actions and desires. Laws and their application, and how those laws impact social groups are part of the Material Conditions under which we live. Social Norms, which are an outgrowth of laws, which can persist after a law is repealed or changed, are also part of Material Conditions.

            As an example: After the October Revolution, incredibly broad and loose divorce laws were implemented, and the results of that was a stark rise in divorce. Prior to that it was almost impossible for a women in Russia to leave an abusive or undesired marriage.

            This change in the law resulted in a huge change in women’s material conditions within Russia. Allowing for more autonomy and freedom to pursue relationships on their own terms.

            • frauddogg [they/them, null/void]@hexbear.netEnglish
              1·
              1 month ago

              That might be a bit harsh in tone, but if you’re saying we need to “improve material conditions” you should be able to back that up with details. If you can’t, you need to do more research.

              Maybe I’m just a walking incendiary by nature (don’t laugh!) but frankly, I don’t consider that harsh in the slightest– if anything that’s just the fact of the matter; and I’d expect at the very least an exposition kin to what you’ve written about the divorce law reforms post-October Revolution out of anyone seriously looking to deploy the material conditions cliché. There’s a dogmatism in not doing so, I think; and makes that particular comrade’s implementation of Marxism little more than religion at least from where I sit.