the treatment of women on wrongplanet

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as some of you may have noticed, i've been taking a bit of a break from posting on wrongplanet the last few days. there is good reason for that, and i'd like to share it now....

the treatment of women on this site is atrocious. i can't count the number of times i have seen statements about women (i.e. "women are x" or "all women do y") go unchallenged, that would never be left up if the same statement were made about any other group of humans (i.e. "black people are x" or "all jews do y"). and i also can't count the number of times i have seen such statements challenged--often in a very reasonable and logical way--only to have the person challenging them labelled a man-hating feminist or a "white knight mangina" or other such hateful terms designed to squash any attempts to upset (and level) the balance of power. it has been explained to me by the mods that this is policy set down by alex himself--he wishes for members to be able to "look stupid" if they choose to express sexist opinions, and thinks it should be left up to us to point out the wrongness of sexism to them. if this is the case, i don't think it's fair that racist comments--or ableist comments, or violent/threatening comments, etc--don't get left up for the same reason, only the sexist ones remain. this makes very little sense to me, and i think it needs to change.

the moderators have also informed me that it is not within their power to change this policy--it is up to members to contact alex if we are unsatisfied with it. so i have decided to make this thread, with this purpose: to all the women on the site who have felt my frustration with this issue, and to all the allies who would also like to see wrongplanet become a safer and more welcoming place for females on the spectrum, please join me in making a joint effort to contact alex about our feelings and see if we can't get him to change his mind about the "let them look sexist" policy. i don't use facebook or twitter (which i was told are good ways to contact alex as he uses both) so i thought instead to start by talking to others here and perhaps starting an email-writing campaign or something along those lines.

i hope that anyone who is interested in helping to remove sexism as a recurring theme on this site will join in--all genders and orientations are welcome to help the cause. if anyone has suggestions for how to make this effective and get alex's attention, please post them here (or pm me if you're more comfortable with that) so we can get the ball rolling.

let's make sexism on wrongplanet a thing of the past, as it should be!

Don't have any suggestions to make at the moment, but you can count me in

I am definitely in support of this.

I have just sent a PM to another (& to starvingartist) because I think you all have brought up some good ideas for the Women's Discussion.

I don't see how it's unsafe here on this site to let as*holes be as*holes. Don't we all know they are douchebags if they make those dumb remarks? It's not like they are actually doing something to us, just expressing an opinion that I feel is idiotic.

I'm with Alex, just let them show their idiocy if they choose to. Turn around and give it right back to them, in spades. Thats what I do. It's just typing on an internet forum, not a speech at a political party's national convention given by the nominee. Their opinions can't actually hurt you, and making them shutup isn't going to change their opinions, it's just going to make them show it in more stupid, passive aggressive ways and they will be more of a pain in the ass than they already are. It happens all the time on the L&D forum. You'll see some of the stupidest s**t ever blamed on feminism.

They can only make you unsafe if they have power over you. They don't have any power over you, and pretty much obviously over anybody else either.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And I'm sorry if you consider all the possible interpretations of what that could mean and decide that it's some kind of sexist comment, but it's not and it's not my problem if you go looking for problems. If you can't handle an environment where people state their opinions you should stop exposing yourself to other peoples opinions.

I think this is a horrible idea, and won't and shouldn't go anywhere.

First of all, sexism is not the same as racism, certainly not in the parallel you are attempting. Saying "all black people are this" and "all Jews are that" are projections that reflect a desire to get rid of the offending group on some level. Nobody wants to get rid of women, so its a dubious comparison, at best.

Second of all, what you are advocating, whether you realize it or not, is to make it against site rules to criticize women. Women are generally already above legit criticism on this forum as it is; making it against site policy is too stupid for words. This is why people engage in illegitimate criticism that often makes no sense and is more infuriating than fair criticism, because anyone who gives real criticism is usually ignored, mainly because this is the Internet and intelligence does not stand out. Or they are ridiculed and called weak, which brings me to point number three.

There is not anti-female bias on this site as much as anti-weak male bias, which inevitably leads to the kind of sexism that you describe. Any guy who is weak or whiny is wrong wrong wrong, and we don't want to encourage that. But this is the Internet, and it gets attention because we hate it so much. Making "sexism" against site policy, which is subject to interpretation of course, is putting an even bigger emphasis on the anti-weak male bias that already exists, which will make the sexism worse, not better.

So nice idea starving artist, but it will make things worse more than likely. Maybe something else might achieve your goal a little better, but this isn't it. Not even a little.

I've emailed Alex about this problem, by the way, and received no reply.