I can’t speak to all of Lemmy, it is woldwide, but my limited interaction has found there are positive groups, even ones you don’t expect: There’s the “dull men’s club”, they accept women. (They have thought about altering the name) Its a place to share boring stuff and everyone upvotes and tells you they are proud of you for the daily task or acheivement you posted.

It’s frustrating. It feels like even progressive men here (not all, but many) aren’t willing to listen, while making it all about them. And because of the vast male majority, it feels like most threads on womens’ issues consist of off-topic defensive comments. I don’t recommend Lemmy to women either.

That being said, you’re all worth it. Reddit as a whole isn’t what it once was. And womens’ Reddit communities tend to have lots of people, which can sometimes lead to negative spiraling when bad things happen. I get it, but it would make my mental health worse.

On Lemmy, it’s a small, friendly space much like the old internet. I recognize a lot of the same folks on these communities. We uplift each other.

Lots of people here can very hostile about us being here, but we’re making this place a little friendlier and more inclusive, and I’m glad we’re all here. We’ve got each other’s backs.

Hey Shark, you have absolutely nothing to apologise for. Not a thing. Your post was basically:

You: I don’t feel safe on lemmy because there’s so much hostility towards women Manosphere: Y R U NOT INCLUDING US?? STFU U MISANDRIST! STOP EXISTING WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!! MEN R BEING OPPRESSEEEDDDDD!!!11!!

They really refuse see the connection between their behaviour and our actions. I really understand your points Shark. There’s aggressive comments to and about women all over lemmy, I’ve had Manosphere types attack me outside of here cos I created this group. It’s horrible and I’m sorry you’re experiencing this. Know you’ve got your own army here backing you up💜

You may have better luck having it hosted on Beehaw.org. They’re dead serious about keeping it a friendly community. They’ll ban the shit out of trolls lickety split.

Might I suggest https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/ ? We have very active mods and admins and we have a pretty good track record of removing misogyny and other forms of bigotry.

Keep it limited to makeup and fashion, I guess, unless you want to be brigaded!

We should make all post titles pertain to makeup and fashion so the men won’t even bother clicking. (Not a serious suggestion but it probably would work!)

Seriously though: I feel you on this. I don’t understand why it’s so hard for some men to just leave women in peace, and it’s exhausting. Our mods do a great job but the flood of rude, unwanted men seems never-ending.

I don’t get it. I’d never go into a men-only space and have the hubris to think they need to hear my opinion. It’s men-only for a reason! Maybe they have women brigading their communities, but I sincerely doubt it’s comparable to what we see.

(To any men lurking who are respecting the community’s rules, thank you. We appreciate your courtesy!)

Thank you for bringing more spotlight on this issue.

It’s not good, but that’s why I generally keep it super simple. Makeup, fashion, hobbies, if I’m going to participate lol. Nothing remotely political. In fact - much like online video games, I have other accounts where I don’t reveal my gender or I’ll even talk like a dude on purpose. I already know we’re vastly outnumbered here, so I don’t care to invite mean comments from men. Big kudos to any fighting sisters out there, but I don’t want that stress in my life.

Maybe I should start treating this place more like my Tumblr and just post pretty pictures I like without giving a fuck lol

Pls don’t white Knight guys, it doesn’t help here

This is better than R*ddit for sure, but I feel your pain. Maybe we fire up our own instance and defederate? The same thought has come up in some blahaj chats. It’s absolutely rough, but part of the beauty of the fediverse is controlling whose content you see, but also who can see your content. That, to me, makes the fediverse perfect for communities looking to make safe, exclusive, spaces. I’d even personally consider going so far as to return to old models like ECHO (East Coast Hang Out) where you request and receive your account by snail mail. Idk, adding a vetting process to joining is important for the safety of any oppressed group. In this case adding barriers to entry is not gatekeeping, it’s acting as the bouncer to a space that is in fact reserved for specific people.

I have a technical question: is it not possible to set up a community that is “member-only posting” in Lemmy? (Genuine question, I have no idea. I don’t run an instance or a community.)

The Internet in general isn’t a good place for anyone, especially women

Lemmy is a program.

Your instance admin is responsible for federation settings and moderation.

Talk to them or make an invite only instance/community otherwise this will always happen.

Really? This has not been my experience at all. I feel fine here. Maybe I’m ignorant, but I haven’t seen hostility at all on my end.

I would just delete my Lemmy account entirely if I weren’t disabled and barely able to leave the house. There basically aren’t any non misogynistic places for me to hang out.
As tough a job as it’s gotta be to moderate this community, I’m glad this space exists so I have somewhere I feel at least semi safe to be.
Also, blocking every popular instance except blahaj drastically cuts down on the misogyny you encounter, especially if you use an app like connect which let’s you block every user of an instance as well as the content of it (as opposed to lemmy’s built in blocking which only blocks the content and not the users.)