Men In Replies

I've been more active in online spaces recently and I am just astounded at the number of times I'll be several comments deep with another person and a man will just jump in responding to us both with the least relevant most inflammatory take. The gender of the person I'm talking to is never relevant, but it's always a guy that interjects. I know the internet is a public forum, and I guess there's more guys on some platforms than women, but it's just shocking how often it has happened. We'll be talking about baking and some guy will come in and say that it actually costs more to bake bread at home or clothes and some guy will come in to say actually both our styles are bad. It's not even a sexist thing I don't think, I just think women are socialized more with a live and let live mentality and men are socialized to believe that everyone should hear their opinion. I don't really have any solutions. I always want to reply with something snarky about how we're not asking him or how his comment doesn't need to be shared, but I don't want to invite harassment. Their comments get upvotes or reacts in agreement and it just feels targeted. Like two people were having a casual chat and this guy comes in and derails and gets positive attention for it. I'm just venting now because it just happened in a gaming discord and I don't really have people irl who understand how these communities are helpful and how that kind of community reaction is ostracizing.

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I remember reading some study, years ago now, that if there's a mixed group of women and men, the women were considered "pushy" if they spoke more 1/3 of the time. There was another study where they found that male Supreme Court justices were three times as likely to interrupt a woman Supreme Court justice than they were to interrupt a male Supreme Court justice. Another one that if a man expounded on a topic, he was more often viewed as an expert sharing their knowledge, but the same thing in a woman was seen as "too aggressive". It's exhausting, honestly :(
- Yes. I think remember one where people read a story and the name was changed and when it was a male name they gave positive words like leader and decisive and with a female name it was negative like pushy and demanding.
  This isn't exactly what I was talking about but came up immediately on a search: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/12/10/study-finds-gender-perception-affects-evaluations

This is a great post, thanks for posting it. Men can often do that, and women are often trained to be diplomatic, passive and non confrontational so they're used to us staying quiet when they do. Some men may just think they're being helpful "correcting" us, but some are just being hostile. Often comment history shows a pattern of targeting women for these comments.
Gaming is bad for misogyny, and scarily, right wingextremist group recruitment is linked to gaming groups. It includes incel mentality grooming, so I'm not surprised you've experienced it there.
It's interesting seeing down voting... feminist stuff too often gets down votes, and I've no doubt it's misogynists doing it. Misogynistic men tend to back each other up if it's against a woman which is shitty.
It's all really disappointing that this still happens, and I dunno if it's getting worse or just more vocal.
- Agree all around. I saw a thread recently about street harassment and men were just circlejerking about how women are the ones targeting them 🙄
  I tried to start an all female gaming server recently but of course I got a bunch of responses from men explaining how that's sexist and some other presumably well meaning guys that explained that they are feminists and understand if I don't want men but would be happy to join if I ever wanted additional people. It's hard to explain that messaging in the first place regardless of if they were nice about it is an issue. I said women only and I meant women only. They clearly saw that and still replied. I understand they were polite but that's really not the point.
  
  Yep the clue is in the name! Abusive men often see themselves as victims, their idea of being mistreated by a woman is often just "she won't do what I want". It's exhausting

This has happened to me too, and I've seen it happen a lot to others.
Men really be giving crow vibes tbh:
- Omg. So true. I've seen that meme around but never put it in this context. It really does exemplify the issue. I don't want to seem like I don't care about others opinions, but time and place are so important. I'm definitely just gonna start sending this. I think it gets the point across without being too specific or requiring a full write up about how in this specific context their comment was not necessary.
  
  lol, not to be unfair to men generally, but these particular crow-men don't seem like the type who are going to either understand or being understanding about that feedback
  though, power to you, asserting boundaries with bullies is a good idea. I often just block people, though.

In a lot of women subreddits they were asking men to not interact and if they did found one breaking the rule, they would simply ban them.
The truth is that there are a lot more of them online than us so I think we should as protective of our spaces as we can.
Outside of our spaces, there's no big solution but personally I just block very very fast those that act like this. Spending any kind of energy on them is a big waste.
- Yea, I looked through some previous posts on this community and guys seem to be negatively responding to the mod when she politely informs them not to comment. They are the ones breaking the rules and when she tells them they get mad. Really sad to see.
  I agree regarding the blocking, but it sucks because a bunch of other guys don't understand why. So when I want to play a team game and I tell people in a relevant gaming space that I don't play with a specific person it looks like I'm the bad guy. I know I'm not in the wrong, but now I'm stuck either alienating potential friends if I don't explain further or spending time and energy explaining something they may not understand. It's exhausting. I know that the guys aren't trying to be rude when they ask why, but it's alienating. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but male dominated online spaces can be rough even if the majority are relatively normal. Unless they go the extra step from normal to actually understanding the female perspective they are almost contributing to the issue. It's not a if you're not with me you're against me thing, but it really feels like if you're not with me from the start it's an uphill battle.
  
  Literally every single other community is a place where men are allowed to post and weigh-in freely.
  The moment a women-only community shows up and requests that they not input here, they lose their fucking minds.
  I don't buy the "ummm we're outraged because you're being sexist!"–thing. Nah. Nah, that ain't it. They're outraged because a boundry has been drawn for them. Because we asked them to respect a space and they don't want to. Because they feel they have a right to say something, even if we politely shut the door and say "This room is a women's meeting place! You're not allowed in here! Thank you!" They start pounding on the door, screaming in the hallways, trying to pick the lock..
  ...What the fuck?
  Men: GO AHEAD AND MAKE YOUR OWN MEN-ONLY COMMUNITY TO DISCUSS MEN-CENTRIC ISSUES! We will support it and respectfully stay out of that space! It's yours!!!
- Yep do not feed the trolls! It can only end badly. I've been pretty ruthless with banning men, although I don't if they've genuinely been here to offer support. We're women only for a reason.

Great post! I'm cooking and will reply later. @greercase@lemmus.org do you mind adding "women only community men please dont comment" to the title? We've had a few male trolls over the last few days, and for some reason I can't edit the title
- Done! Thank you 🙏

I think any idea of an X ONLY SPACE.... (doesn't have to be women's only, could be men's only) but I think when spaces are exclusive to other/specifuc parties, it makes the community more alluring kind of like taboo, to the party who is 'not allowed' if that makes sense.

I am an autistic man (kinda) asking questions: Would you consider it more excusable if it was a hot button political issue?
It sounds like you are getting guys inserting aggressive opinions about stuff that's ultimately way more subjective and taste related and not worth getting pushy or elitist about. Which is annoying to me as a guy who tends to like things more than dislike things.
Like Eww you Like 'Z'? Don't you know that 'X' is better you pleb. type stuff.
But with politics... and philosophy... I'll fully admit my chill is gone in those domains. They are very very important to me.
- Hi @HalfSalesman@lemm.ee thanks for your input! We're women only, so men aren't allowed to comment.
- Well with this post, she used baking not politics... as an example so..
  
  True, that's like almost hobby level thing I guess so I mentally associate that with subjective stuff. Even if costs relating to baking was the dispute.
  Maybe its an instinct of "I know how to do this better than you"? Its like asserting that you are the most skilled/knowledgeable. I could imagine its more from egotism/insecurity. And maybe that's partly why I myself am so intense about philosophy and politics because I kind of put so much effort into it and thinking about it.
  (TBH I want to stop thinking about politics and philosophy now it mostly just makes me sad/angry/miserable. I can't help it though its like I'm addicted.)

Maybe if this community only wants women they should defederate and setup some kind of ID system
- I'm glad they federated. I would not have found this community otherwise and Lemmy is so small I don't think it'd make sense to make the community harder to find. I wonder if they can set up a flared users only situation. I'm not sure what things look like on the mod side of Lemmy though.
  
  I think the lemmy app called Connect and some others can do this
  
  So clearly there are benefits of federation
  OP seems to want all the good parts of being inclusive and exclusive without accepting any of the bad parts of those things.
- Why? I'm a man and just stumbled in this thread. Since it's clearly not meant for me, I'll probably block this community if it keeps popping up. Defederating seems like some kind of last resort to me, and also a very good way of preventing people from finding you.
  
  Thanks Zout! We are women only here so please don't comment again 😊

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