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Comment on Are there any Lemmy/Mbin instances by women for women?

pr0sp3kt@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

You probably don’t even know how much harassment and threats you would face just being a woman online

For example? tbh I don’t even put pictures of myself on the internet, I don’t like that kind of social interaction. I am trying to understand but it’s pretty hard. Harrassment like what, threats like what? Feel unsafe in what sense? I am not getting solid examples I can’t understand.

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ameancow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
I am not a woman but I have many female friends and family members and a partner who talk about the things they deal with, so let me give a few examples of things you may deal with as a woman online or off, in increasing levels of severity and threat level:

Being condescended to and ignored, talked over and interrupted constantly.

Being excluded from things and patronized for wanting to talk about certain topics or activities.

Guys who cannot stop making sexual advances and sexual comments and have to try to steer every conversation towards sex. Always cracking sexual jokes towards women and looking for a response.

Getting sent dick pics and other pornographic imagery without prompt or reason.

Guys in gaming groups or discord servers who act friendly and slowly become more and more obsessive and threatening and feel entitled to your attention.

Men who fully act normal and decent and integrate into a social group but have secret obsessive impulses and they try to spread rumors and lies about the woman or women in their circle, creating stories to try to isolate the girl they’re interested in, or attempts to get the female members of the group ejected because they feel insecure around them.

Men who can’t distinguish between being friends and being intimate, and suddenly feel like they’re your boyfriend and entitled to know everything you do and everywhere you go, making threats to harm themselves or you if you don’t reciprocate the "relationship."

Stalkers who find your personal information online and send you pictures from your social media or other personal items to show that they know where you live.

Being followed home or stalked by actual people who find out who you are.

There are a lot of social “rules” that women have to deal with, and a lot of men aren’t even aware of them. Like how they never leave drinks unattended when out with friends. When being dropped off at their house, they ask the driver to wait until they get all the way inside with the door closed before the driver leaves.

I often hesitate to give these kinds of examples because invariably there will be someone who claims it’s all lies or exaggerated, or they dismiss it and say “I wish I got that kind of attention online!” and other mind-meltingly dense, stupid or aggressive takes. This is why I asked if you have talked to real women you know about their experiences, because they don’t talk about this stuff, particularly online to people they aren’t close to. As soon as you get close to any women you learn exactly how much sexual predation they endure their whole lives and yeah, they do “get used it” in that they don’t go around telling everyone about every interaction. 1 out of 5 women are raped or have been assaulted/attempted rape. Of these victims, 1 out of 3 had it happen between ages of 11 and 17.

Most women who are murdered are murdered by a spouse, boyfriend, acquaintance or someone who met them once or twice.

Women have very good reason to feel afraid of strangers, online or off, if you’re actually interested in learning more and reading actual examples there is a WEALTH of information online and plenty of women’s stories on major forums, from Lemmy to Reddit to twitter threads.
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