This seems like a very good niche for someone willing to do it. Problematic accounts could get a site-wide ban instead of each woman having to ban someone herself.
I would guess that most women wouldn’t feel the need to be on a woman-focused Lemmy instance for their main / only account. But, some might want an alt account to discuss certain things there.
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
That’s pretty brave of you. It’s a lot of work to fight people’s assumptions, and I’m sure it results in harassment.
But, you’re right that things will never change if women don’t do that. It’s a chicken and egg thing. Nobody wants to be the first to do it, because whoever’s first gets harassed the most. But, if enough people do it, it won’t be abnormal anymore.
Good luck, and thanks for trying to make women on the internet more normal.
this is a bit of how Blahaj works as I understand it, so it’s a good model - if anything I would think Blahaj might already be poised for this kind of instance-level protection of women
EDIT:
one of the Blahaj guidelines does include removing bigotry, including sexism, and would be a candidate for a safe space for women:
Inclusion and Acceptance
Embracing inclusion and acceptance means listening when people tell you who they are and what their needs are. It means not telling people that you know their experiences better than they do. It means not gatekeeping experiences of identities of others. It means no bigotry such as racism, sexism, anti LGBT commentary, ableism etc. It means doing your best to ensure that you don’t over-talk the voices of folk who don’t share your privileges.
That said, the women spaces on Blahaj are mostly for trans women, so a more general women’s community would be nice.
This seems like a very good niche for someone willing to do it. Problematic accounts could get a site-wide ban instead of each woman having to ban someone herself.
Niche? Bruh, they’re half of the population lmao
Unfortunately it is niche right now in the fediverse based on the stats. That could change but probably requires a different approach to achieve.
Nicole is on a mission to single-handedly skew those stats
I would guess that most women wouldn’t feel the need to be on a woman-focused Lemmy instance for their main / only account. But, some might want an alt account to discuss certain things there.
While this won’t be the case with everyone, it was mentioned a few times in a post I made here a long while back
https://lemmy.ca/post/9443464
That’s pretty brave of you. It’s a lot of work to fight people’s assumptions, and I’m sure it results in harassment.
But, you’re right that things will never change if women don’t do that. It’s a chicken and egg thing. Nobody wants to be the first to do it, because whoever’s first gets harassed the most. But, if enough people do it, it won’t be abnormal anymore.
Good luck, and thanks for trying to make women on the internet more normal.
we all know there’s currently only 1 chick in the fediverse
There WAS 1 chick in the fediverse.
The situation took a dark turn recently.
P in that case Nicole’s DMs are the Lemmy women’s sub.
I don’t know of any “men only” instances, the fact that it’s gender-specific is niche rather than the specific gender.
Same reason womens magazines are more popular than mens magazines and womens subreddits and websites are more popular than mens.
Maybe one day we’ll have full equality and it’ll be weird to think of “women’s spaces” as something that’s necessary. But it’s very much so today.
I don’t believe they actively intended to exclude anyone, but there is/was Dull Men’s Club, and I believe they’ve recently rebranded to “Dullsters”.
Zero women have tried to make one so far regardless of how many would use a new instance. So it can’t be all that in demand.
I think it naturally would occur if Lemmy grows in size. There’s not many people here to begin with.
There’s !WomensStuff@lazysoci.al we started a little over a month ago and recently hit 1000 members
It’s not niche being a woman obviously. What’s niche is having a community exclude 50% of the population. Nothing wrong with it, but it is niche.
this is a bit of how Blahaj works as I understand it, so it’s a good model - if anything I would think Blahaj might already be poised for this kind of instance-level protection of women
EDIT:
one of the Blahaj guidelines does include removing bigotry, including sexism, and would be a candidate for a safe space for women:
That said, the women spaces on Blahaj are mostly for trans women, so a more general women’s community would be nice.
Lemmy needs block lists users can subscribe to like they can on BlueSky, it would make a huge difference imo.