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this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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My 2c on this, I wish people would understand that a lot of women have similar struggles, same for men, and having spaces for those experiences to be shared with people who understand is really important.
I think the issue is it feels pretty othering when I've had experiences similar and feel like I'm not allowed to share them (without a lot of angry stares) because I'm not the correct gender.
I know there have been cases of women's spaces being taken less seriously, but I don't remember any specifics. Do you have any examples that come to mind?
It'd take me ages to find the post, but a while back, there was a post about a job fair for women getting overrun by a tidal wave of men. The comments were filled with people trying to justify it, such as saying that it was illegal and sexist to host a job fair for women only, and people even the slightest bit upset that a job fair for women was overrun by men abusing the legal loophole that they technically couldn't be kicked out got down voted way to the bottom of the thread.
I found the post https://lemmy.world/post/6206801 and here https://kbin.social/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/508848 Yeah I guess you have to see it firsthand. I've heard tons of comments like "women just aren't built for STEM" etc which these events are trying to show is wrong. It is probably a little unfair to the individual but good for society as a whole when talented women don't see a field is 90% men and decide it's not worth dealing with the boys club.
I do wanna point out, the most upvoted comments seem to have the same sentiment of this actually is important and a good thing to have for women. Definitely quite a few with a high score that say the opposite though...
That is the post I was talking about. I did forget about the few higher pro-woman comments. I guess I tend to remember the bad more than the good.
Still unpleasant how many people around here are completely ok with stuff like that though, but I suppose it's worth focusing on the positive.
Comments like that are utter trash. Only an incel believes in that BS. It's as if they never knew that one of, if not the first programmers, was Ada Lovelace.
Basically what I'm saying is some things need to cater to specific crowds to function. We don't need to get rid of the law, we need to adapt it (tbh, I don't think we should have to do that either, I think people should respect when something's not made for them on their own, but that won't happen.)
I'm not just talking about things like this job fair. I'm talking about shelters for abused people as well. I might just be imagining it because it was so long ago that I read it, but I remember cases of shelters for abused men getting shut down for discriminating against women, which is ridiculous because those shelters are gender divided for a reason.
In this case, these kind of job fairs are to help more women get into male dominated fields, which is really tough because of the amount of abuse and discrimination they get in those fields.
Men and women in a general sense experience different kinds of societal issues and need to be allowed to have safe spaces away from each other.
As a male, while I do not support men breaking into that job fair, I can understand their frustrations.
There should be some limited spaces for people of one gender to stay without the other, but that should be things like shelters and other places for people in mentally vulnerable position caused by people of opposite gender, and it shouldn't grow into a gendered separation.
Jobs should be available for everyone, and if females get less access to jobs, job market needs to be regulated to remove sources of said discrimination, without creating bigger discrimination (like outright blocking other gender's access to same jobs).
General-purpose gendered spaces (like quite a few barbershops for males or certain feminist cafes for females) only breed more resentment and stereotypical thinking about the other gender, as there is no one to correct them and no counterexamples to be seen. Besides, gender separation makes places that can be important for a person closed from them for immutable reasons, which is a clear case of discrimination and is not cool.
I agree with you for the most part, but in practice it's way more difficult to regulate out discrimination if you don't first have enough women (or other minorities in other cases) working in the field to function as a support network. Even if you get the job at that point, if you're not made to feel welcome there there's a solid chance you're not gonna keep that job, because nobody wants to deal with that every day.
I don't like the idea of restricting men from the same opportunity, but there isn't much other solution until the playing field is made more even.
As far as your last paragraph goes, pretty much in full agreement. When I say men and women need safe spaces away from each other, I don't mean they should be secluded from each other, which is what places like that tend to cause. I mean things like support groups, friends they can vent to, and even online forums and such specifically for them. There still needs to be plenty of exposure in our daily lives though to the issues of men, women, and minorities.
My issues with Lemmy primarily come from the fact that the site is massively male dominated, which means it's become largely an echo chamber. People here as a result have become much more sensitive to men's issues, which is a good thing, but the tradeoff is that there's virtually nobody stepping in for women's issues, sometimes even going as far as to deny the issue even exists. I know the rest of the internet is often the other way around, but I really wish we could have at least one space somewhere on the internet where both men and women are allowed to say things like "this makes me uncomfortable" or "this makes me feel ashamed of my body" and be taken seriously.
I was really hoping Lemmy would be that space when I first signed up, and it was really disappointing to realize what it was actually like. Luckily, there are some instances out there that are more balanced on that, but I'd rather not have to turtle up in one of them.
Thanks for your points. While I stand by my position of regulation over reverse discrimination, I understand where you're coming from here.
I'd like to point one thing out, however, and it stems directly from the intersection of abovementioned issue and the one you raise about Lemmy.
The place is certainly male-dominated, and yes, this can make local ethos more male-centric and masculist. Also as you rightfully mentioned, Lemmy is one of the few avenues where such thought can be propagated efficiently and not be overwhelmed in the oblivion by feminist/conservative voices.
We are, generally, in the minority, yet when we get to concentrate our voices somewhere - like Lemmy - and dominate small part of the Internet you belong to, this naturally makes you uncomfortable.
That happens because you'd like to have an equal footing everywhere, and don't want to be discriminated against even in a small alcove that is this place.
We don't want that, either. We don't want to be discriminated against somewhere just because males historically dominate in other place. We don't want to lose access to our dreams and jobs (in the abovementioned case) because previous generation has screwed it up the other way around. Many of us, however, are perfectly happy to promote a healthier workplace ethic, including towards women, and popularize females working in male-domimated spaces. This way is sometimes more rocky, but it is fair and it allows to even things out without having to radicalize and tilt scales towards the domination of the other gender.
Should "male job fairs" appear for female-dominated jobs, I'll also stand against it, despite the knee-jerk to give males preference at taking new places to balance it out quicker and promote the new culture.
With that being said, I welcome you here on Lemmy and hope more feminist and generally female voices will join in. I'm also happy to promote feminist initiatives in this place (without forgetting masculist ones), so hit me up if something crosses your mind.
Your point of view is completely valid, and I do like having alternative points of view presented to me (hence why I said I didn't want to turtle up in a more accepting instance.) In the end, I'm not an expert on thus kind of stuff, I can only argue based on my personal experience and how things have made me feel.
I think regulation is a completely valid way to approach it, considering it's still a step forward regardless of if it's the best way or not, so I far from oppose the idea. It's just not the way I would do it if I were in charge.
Honestly, in the end, I think true equality is impossible, and is more of the ideal than the end goal. The only important part to me is to make sure we're always going forward instead of backward.
That wasn't a loophole, what that event was doing was open and naked gender discrimination and their ban on men was legally unenforceable. The law was on their side. What women should do in retaliation is bum rush those men's clubs where all the power decisions are made by the top 1% of men. Fun fact the dean of my uni's computer science dept was a woman, and decades later it still is. THEY have a crucial role in recruiting women students, it begins at the start of the pipeline.