(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.
I’m a man and I would take my chances with a bear over a man I don’t know. I don’t blame women who feel safer around a bear.
Sorry your experience here was awful.
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.
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.