It makes me happy to hear that :)
Also, I love seeing posts from !knitting@lemmy.world, I’ve forwarded a few posts from there to friends that knit
Comment on Discussion on 'Missing women on Lemmy and decentralised networks'
thegiddystitcher@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I’m a woman, and make no attempt to hide that fact in my posts. That said, I also don’t personally have much interest in talking about being a woman, so don’t sub to any of those places you linked.
Over on Reddit I just sort of let people assume I was male a lot of the time, since it wasn’t really relevant to what we were talking about. But from the start on Lemmy I’ve made sure to call out incorrect assumptions, downvote and give a talking to people stereotyping or being misogynistic, etc etc. And the more of us (of all genders) that make that same decision, the better things get.
I also mod !knitting@lemmy.world which as you might expect is largely although by no means entirely women. Any questionable comments over there are dealt with swiftly, I am absolutely not having it.
I don’t necessarily see it as a “problem” that Lemmy is seemingly male-dominated (I say Lemmy because my Mastodon is very much female-and-NB-dominated). It’s more just a fact of early adopters tending to the techy interests that skew male. But if someone does see it as a problem and wants it to change, there are basically two things to do:
All that said, other women may disagree but I don’t particularly feel like a minority on here and never really think about until coming across something gross (which is a LOT less often than on Reddit, thankfully). There may be few enough women that I recognise their names often when they post, but let’s be honest Lemmy is a small world and that goes for most regular posters in general.
(And it helps that I’m middle-aged so if any little boy thinks they can upset me with comments about my gender or appearance or whatever, lol, the self-confidence of age is a wonderful thing 😉)
It makes me happy to hear that :)
Also, I love seeing posts from !knitting@lemmy.world, I’ve forwarded a few posts from there to friends that knit
Woohoo! Get them over here, December is going to be SOCK MONTH it’s very exciting haha 😄
And Sweater Month too? How delightfully festive of a side hobby, regardless of climate location.
DID YOU KNOW? Knitting isn’t just about cosy socks and sweaters in winter, it’s also a summer-appropriate activity with cotton yarns, lace patterns, cute home accessories and suchlike.
This has been your knitting community fact of the day.
Yeah I definitely feel like a minority here sometimes but when I compare it to rules of the internet era internet it’s not even close. The misogyny has generally been the sort I’m used to as an engineer. I probably shouldn’t be basing my standards on gamergate era Reddit, but it is way better than that
There are instances to avoid interacting with but generally they’re defederated from a lot of instances because they’re welcoming to conservative assholes.
Make sure you’re helping make Lemmy a welcoming place for non-males
I’d phrase that as “make sure you’re helping make Lemmy a welcoming place for everybody”
Being active in a pretty friendly tech scene in the late 90s/early 00s I’ve seen things being ruined for quite a bunch of people who enjoyed being where nobody was judging them for who they were or wanted to be after a bunch of newly joined women decided to try force a bunch of “women only” policies.
Just don’t be dicks to each other, no matter who’s on the other end. And don’t try to force talking about who you are in places where nobody cares - there are specific groups for that.
Being welcoming to people in general goes without saying. But we’re specifically in a thread about encouraging more women to join and making them feel safe to do so.
Even in this thread I’d rather phrase it explicitly to include everyone - I’ve seen statements like this interpreted by some individuals as “make it welcoming for women at all costs, which may include making it openly hostile for people not meeting my specific definition of woman”, which didn’t have a very pretty end result.
I do appreciate where you’re coming from, there. Some people will unfortunately take any opportunity to exclude others.
“Non-women” is a subset of “everybody”.
calypsopub@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You echo my experience to a T. Sometimes people assume I’m a man to hilarious effect, but most of the time it’s a non-issue.
thegiddystitcher@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Glad to hear other folks having positive experiences here too! Idk about you but every single time I’ve corrected someone for referring to me as “he” on Lemmy, they’ve actually apologised. Quite the change from Reddit!