Hey, I don't identify as a woman. Should I block this community?
this post was submitted on 04 May 2025
-12 points (33.3% liked)
WomensStuff
622 readers
87 users here now
Women only trans inclusive This is an inclusive community for all things women. Whether you're here for make up tips, feminism or just friendly chit chat, we've got you covered.
Rules…
- Women only… trans women are women, and transphobic or gender critical talk isn’t allowed. Any woman-identified person under the trans umbrella (e.g. non-binary, bigender, agender) is welcome.
- Don’t be a dick. No personal attacks, no aggression, play nice.
- Don’t hate on groups, hatefilled talk about groups is not allowed. Ever.
- No governmental politics, so no talk of Trump actions etc. We recommend Feminism@beehaw.org for that, but here is an escape from it.
founded 2 months ago
MODERATORS
As @jsomae@lemmy.ml clarified, you are welcome to read, we just ask non-women to not post or comment.
We don't expect anyone to feel they have to block the community.
Go right ahead, if that suits you. I believe you're also welcome to read and upvote/downvote.
Technically, I think you're not allowed to ask that question though.
The rest of Lemmy is free for men to participate in, this is the only community where men are not permitted to post. This helps create a safe space for women to chat without the direct influence and reactions of men.
I also personally agree with you and think men can have valuable contributions, including on women's topics. But I also respect the desire for a women's only space as well, especially in a context of a sexist society where women struggle to gain equal rights under the law and in society generally - and in a male-dominated social space like Lemmy.
I think we should exclude people who are bigoted instead, or even people who just don’t “get” women’s issues.
These are also the rules, bigots are not welcome here.
Aside: I’m personally irritated that make-up is what’s considered a woman-centric topic. That’s kind of reductive – not everyone is femme.
I get that, but the reality is that lots of women enjoy makeup (including me!) even if some don't.
Listing make-up and hair as examples of what women might be interested in is not meant to be reductive or essentialising, even if it is based on generalizations and what is perceived as a common interest among women.
We're not saying women must be interested in makeup to be women, or the only way to be women is to be high-femme. To the contrary, the founder of this community who wrote that example recently posted a meme critical of makeup as an industry that exploits women's insecurities.
Thank you for your post!! ❤️
load more comments
(14 replies)
Apparently I made assumptions about @jsomae@lemmy.ml that were unwarranted. I've done some light editing of this post to correct for this.
I have a question for men who ask this question:
Why must you absolutely be here? There are literally thousands of communities on Lemmy and yet you're offended that one doesn't want your presence.
Think carefully about why that is. Think carefully about why you're choosing to come into the community you're clearly not welcome in (given the very rules of said community) to whine about how you're not welcome in it instead of just shrugging and saying "guess that's not for me".
~~When you realize~~If you ever realize why you just did that, then you'll also quite magically understand why the community rules are the way they are. I'll give you a free clue, though, to help you to your realization: your very insistence on asking is why the rule is the way it is.
I added a sentence and changed a few words in the closing sentence.
Honestly I think a majority of the men commenting don't even notice the community they're posting in, let alone read the rules. It happens a lot when a post reaches /c/all and a flood of outside users suddenly are interacting with the post.
Luckily this means a lot of them are not too impolite about it (even if some of them get defensive).
Between the jumping-spider-reflexes of the mod team and, yeah, the actually pretty level-headed responses of the men I've seen who've stumbled here, this has been pretty good. I was expecting to see a whole lot of manosphere rage in the modlog and … haven't.
This is a nice place!
load more comments
(8 replies)
Hi there, I also have nothing to do with makeup or following beauty standard or fashion ... however I have friends who do, and sometimes they like to talk about it. So ... I just zone out and let them get on with it, it's not hurting me.
Men dominate 99.9999% of online spaces, and even the most supportive of ally men will sometimes talk over women or assume their opinion is more important, so I think that maintaining this as a space just for women is a good thing.
I just zone out and let them get on with it, it’s not hurting me.
This is so key to this debate right here.
People have groups or threads for talking about video games. Video games bore me to tears. They're not for me and by extension neither are the groups or threads. (I bring this up specifically because someone brought up playing a video game together in this very group.)
A mature person sees something that's not for them and … moves on. A certain breed of immature man sees something that's not for them and "just answers a"(n obviously rhetorical)" question" to whine about the injustice of not being invited, not realizing that they're showing in their behaviour EXACTLY why they're not invited.
I guess I should go to that thread about the video game and whine that I think video games are boring as all Hell and we should instead find a place to play 六虎 together. You know. 'Cause that's how my "betters" are teaching me how things work.
load more comments
(1 replies)
what does it mean to talk over someone on lemmy? It's tree-based discussion, so I can't really visualize that being possible.
Picture a well-intentioned man. (I'm not even talking trolls who do this deliberately and strategically.) This well-intentioned man intrudes into a conversation about, say, workplace sexual harrassment experiences. They say something ham-fisted like:
How is it 'creepy' if I put my hand on a woman colleague's shoulder when looking at something on their desk to help? I do the same with my male colleagues.
Again, we're presuming a well-intentioned man here. Not a troll who's deliberately triggering. Just a well-intentioned man who genuinely believes that it's fine to do this.
Now five women, say, have been comparing war stories about sexual harassment at work. They each respond with a further example, or a a plausible progression from "hand on shoulder" to real life experience that ended badly or whatnot. Each of these five women brings up a different point or point of view, so this isn't just repetition.
Now the well-intentioned man responds to each one, asking for more details, or failing to understand and needing explanation, or whatever.
We now have, with only one round of this, a situation where five women in total have spoken: one twice (to report the original story, and then to respond to the man), the rest once each. Six messages from five women in total. And from one man we have six messages.
And this never ends in one round, does it? In no time flat we have a thread that is 80% written by one man and 20% written by five women. One man's voice is drowning out five women's voices.
Now multiply this by the number of men (again, here we're assuming only the well-intentioned!) and the number of threads and you rapidly have a forum for women that is mostly men talking.
That is how you "talk over" a group on Lemmy.
(Sorry for the late response.)
I actually don't agree that this is "talking over." For one thing, this is a tree-structure forum, so on any give root-leaf path, the man is only 50% of the messages (and this is more relevant IMO). For another, I don't even see what this man is doing wrong. He is politely responding to every response in turn. But ultimately, I just don't think this really counts as "talking over" -- I experience being "talked over" in real life a lot, and it feels like being unable to get a word in. It does not feel like "being able to say as much as I want to, and then get a direct reply," which is the experience all the women you have described are having.
I'm sorry you aren't seeing the problem.
I think I understand the problem you are pointing out. You're saying that the forum shifts to have too many comments by men. But that's not the same thing as being talked over.
OK, I'm going to put this gently.
Seeing the point, understanding the point, then continuing to belabour it because you think the terminology is incorrect is called "pedantry".
Please stop being a pedant.
You've misunderstood me entirely. This is not merely an argument of semantics. Being talked over is a really bad thing, and yeah, I obviously don't want that to be a thing that happens more. In contrast, increasing the proportion of men is essentially by definition the thing that I'm asking about in this thread -- why aren't men permitted. This means you're begging the question: "permitting men would be bad because it would increase the amount of posts by men." You're just asserting that's bad for some reason. I'm really not being pedantic here.
Anyway, if you're trying to educate me about basic etiquette, you obviously think I'm arguing in bad faith. So let's just call it off here.
yes, this is a great example! And men IRL who talk over women can have a chilling effect that the man responding to everyone can create - there is a confrontational nature to the interaction that gives it a "talking over" feeling, it's basically just aggression and not reading the social situation that then leads to women not feeling like participating as much or being vulnerable about how they feel (esp. if they think they will be challenged or criticized for it).
Sometimes it's just nice to have a break from that confrontational style of interaction and to feel like people are going to be receptive and kind to you. (I would like to think plenty of men feel this way in male spaces, too, btw!)
You've very thoroughly explained exactly what I was thinking of! Thank you :-)
load more comments
(5 replies)
follow up question, why does it matter what you call yourself on the internet?
on the internet, nobody knows you're a cat.
load more comments
(9 replies)
I have a great example, there is a discord server called Spectrum. Its exclusively for Queer ppl, no straight allies. Theres nothing wrong with allies but Queer people need spaces where they arent talked over or judged. We also need spaces for women and minority groups in a similar manner.
I'm in a Chinese-only corner. I barely qualify (being only half-Chinese was a mark against, but living in China made up for that). And it's nice not to constantly have to answer basic questions or deal with sinophobes.
Hi and welcome to WomensStuff! Really glad to hear your views on how we do things. Dandelion already said it all better than I would have done so I don't have anything to add, just agreeing with her. 😊
view more: next ›