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This space is shifting into TERF territory real quick
Looking at this meme for what it is, it's literally saying "#yesallmen *except Pedro, so I'm not a bigot <3"
It's a really cowardly way to try on ideologies without acknowledging the blatantly harmful aspects
And this space being for women is fine, but the mandatory requirement to say all men are excluded in every post title makes this space reek of the ways TERFs isolate and control women.
but the mandatory requirement to say all men are excluded in every post title makes this space reek of the ways TERFs isolate and control women.
It's not mandatory, LadyButteryfly is just doing that on some of her posts because so many men comment on posts in this community, which then takes up a lot of time and effort to remove.
The motivation to put the rule in the title of the post is because so many men don't read the rules or notice what community they're in before posting, this helps them be aware and reduces the workload of the moderators.
I hear you on how it can look or seem TERFy, but I think this might just be a misunderstanding, we are explicitly trans inclusive.
It is required in the rules of the community.
Sounds like we might be talking past one another 😅
The rules of the community are that this is a women-only community, but you said:
the mandatory requirement to say all men are excluded in every post title
I was only clarifying that there is no rule that every post must include language in the post title saying all men are excluded ...
Thanks for your feedback! Dont worry we don't do that in every post, but we've sadly had manosphere commenters brigade posts like this in the past. I've found it's best to prevent issues with the title. ❤️
Speaking as a trans woman: This meme in particular? Just seems like lighthearted fun, using a joke to praise somebody for being a good person.
But sometimes people take it too far, and the limit for me is when it's treated like there are zero exceptions, all men are bad.
I didn't draw that line arbitrarily. I have lived experience that shows the "all men are trash" crowd are far less likely to treat me as a woman, and more likely to view me as a now vulnerable man who they have an opportunity to take revenge on. Things like laughing at me for having problems they'd be supporting other women for. My mom used to have a friend like that, who laughed and gave me the classic "welcome to being a woman" every time I brought up things like not being able to go home for a while one day because a car tried to follow me there, or when disruptions in my hormone treatment lead to pain and emotional instability.
Cringe post.
Lesbian here, so maybe not the target audience for this. However this kind of meme and discourse makes me somewhat uncomfortable. Like, really? Pedro Pascal is -the only nice guy- in the world, every other guy is trash? Too often I hear women speak about men as if they're inherently bad people, rather than victims of the patriarchy just like them. It reeks of "that's just the way men are" and "boys will be boys", except now it's being used to shame and admonish. Shame isn't going to change mindsets, it's only going to make people defensive. It's not as if men are genetically assholes, but these kinds of memes sure make it sound like they are.
It bothers me because I have a son who will grow up to become a man (at least that's how it's looking right now). I worry about what he internalises when he hears that people expect he'll grow up to be a sexist asshole, just because he was born a boy. I have to defend against that just like I defend my daughter when sexism is directed at her, because frankly that's exactly what it is. If I were told from a young age that the default expectation is I'll grow up to be trash just because I have a penis, why bother to do better? I'd probably also listen to the Tates and Petersons who make me feel good about myself instead.
I understand why women are angry and frustrated, they have every right to be. I've also been on the receiving end of sexist and frankly traumatic shit because I was born a girl. I just don't feel like it'll get any better by creating more division, more "us vs them".
I agree. Male and female have skills that are different. And just like women men can be good or bad. If we want equality we have to consider we do t get that via shame, condescension or derogative statements.
The memes cute but pedro is one of many good men.
I find this meme funny and generally light on the aggression, and more focusing on the praise, but I generally agree with you.
I hate that it's become normal to use hyperbole and generalizations to stack whole groups. It alienated the allies. I feel the same about ACAB and any other gross generalizations.
The response is always like ZDL posted that "you'd have to be stupid to not understand it doesn't mean everyone" but that's the same defense racists use...
The fact these conversations pop up in the first place. Making the divide between people bigger and more extreme just doesn't seem like the winning strategy. It feels like how the US treats criminals.
We could easily focus on praising good behavior without shitting on people.
I have brothers, I have a dad, I have some of the sweetest male friends. And them having to constantly second guess themselves and feel like they are public enemy number one simply for existing just sticks.
I would rather praise of perceived good behavior be the norm than aggression in general for bad behavior, especially if it's gonna be so generalized.
Thank you, you were able to put the point I was trying to make much more succinctly and elegantly.
Sorry to dive into the mix here, but I've got a kind of genuine question, as someone who is having to play catch up on my femme socialization. I thought the "it's not all men" response is sort of the classic incel defense? Like actually the safest approach for women is to assume "all men". The comparison I've had success explaining to men is "how do you treat a gun you don't know anything about?" To which they quickly respond with, "like it's loaded", and I can follow up with "right, because it could easily hurt or kill you." By this point most men are starting to see the connection. So it’s easy to complete the thought with, "most men could easily hurt or kill most women, so treating them all like a loaded gun is legitimately the safest option".
This kind of came up in a comm I mod. A meme came up with the punchline basically being, "women don't want to date fascists and want guys who punch nazis" and it got reported for "alienating men from leftist causes." Like actually if humor like that makes you feel like an outgroup, I don't think the joke was meant for you, and you might want to think about why the crowd you want to be "in" with finds the joke funny or relevant.
EDIT: To be clear, I very much see your point with your son. I would want to find a way to prevent the pigeon holing too. There are definitely ways to have these conversations without making men feel like shit, but providing them examples of healthy role models, even if the example comes from a meme, is not a bad thing. I know my pre-transition self would have wondered, "what does Pedro Pascal do or say to make people think this" which would send me down a rabbit hole of his support for his sister and trans folk in general. His just completely level headed take after level headed take on hot issues as if they have easy and obvious answers. He genuinely spreads love at every turn, which is so far from the default behavior of most men women interact with.
Sorry for the delay, I've only just got the chance to sit down and reply. To your point about incels, how would you feel if someone making a meme saying "all women are gold-diggers". How do you react to incels saying things like women are trashy and only want trashy men and not good guys, or women are weak porcelain dolls and wouldn't survive without men. Would your reaction not be that not all women are like that? That most women aren't like that? This is the same shit, the genders are just reversed. Is it any less true if the rebuttal comes from a woman arguing in good faith vs an extremist TERF? I'm not defending incels, but if they sound the same as someone making a good faith rebuttal, maybe it makes young impressionable men and boys think they might have a point. And if they're right about that, what else might they be right about? This is exactly how people get sucked into cults and far right groups.
I feel your example with guns (while still a generalisation) is different from this kind of meme because it's about appealing to empathy. This meme is not doing that, it's using shame to supposedly get men to reflect and change. I argue it's not very effective, and there are way better ways to do this. You share one example - appeal to empathy. I've seen memes praising men for positive actions they take (e.g. green flag memes).
This kind of discourse is also harmful to transmac individuals. I've unfortunately seen trans men being ostracized from the very communities they relied on for support as soon as they 'pass'. Once they look just like other men, they are seen as a threat and are unwelcome. If this kind of divisive language and approach only impact those doing harm to women, then fine. But it's not and it's doing a bunch of collateral damage in the process.
It's shouldn't be hard to point out positive role models without resorting to belittling people. Most men have strengths (literally) most women don't - let's talk about how they can use those strengths to be a positive force in society. I see way more jokes and memes saying men are trash rather than talk about how they are can be important and positive part of the movement towards equality. Just like the LGBTQIA+ movement would never have made it as far as it did without the help of our allies (and trust me I'm not giving them most of the credit), we're never going to get equality and freedom across genders if we don't work on bringing men as our allies too.
Thanks for the detailed response!
I agree with the need to be welcoming to the men willing to change. I guess I’ve really only got 2 more things I’m sort of musing on.
The first is the role, if any, shame plays in motivating change. This is a tough one for me, both as a trans femme, and witnessing my mother going through the process of accepting me and by extension all trans folk. Shame played a huge, though perhaps unfortunate, part of both those processes. It took large swaths of the rest of my family getting good at name and pronoun shifts for her to finally start putting in effort. It took the shame of being left behind to motivate change. I’m not going to open the can of worms that is discussion of the role shame plays in my own trans experience at this time lol. I don’t have a real answer to anything here, just curious about folks’ thoughts on shame as a motivator.
The second (and longer) musing kind of builds off that, but looks at the linguistic nature of memes. I won’t go find citations right now, but there’s definitely research into how memes can be used to tackle tough issues through humor and irony and exaggeration. I think of it almost like ‘Adventure Time’ or ‘ Steven Universe’ both shows about young impressionable boys being guided into adulthood by a cast of people set on making them a good person. To be clear, they’re kids shows, they have goofy animation, and fart jokes, and just plenty of general stupidity. They use the lack of seriousness of the show to coax in people that are actively being socialized away from healthy masculinity by society, and get them learning to be better people. I think memes can have a similar effect.
Let’s say this meme gets seen by every single cis, straight man. I struggle to believe all of them, let alone a majority, would think Pedro Pascal is truly the only man maintaining women’s faith. So the hyperbole of the meme then gets people thinking about what makes someone make the exaggeration in the first place. What does Pedro Pascal do that has someone praising him like this? This ties back into the shame as a motivator point a bit. Feeling like an out group can be a good reason to learn to empathize with the in group. This happens in bad ways too, look at the invasion of queer nightlife spaces by straight folks. Straight people aren’t learning to empathize with LGBTQ+ folks, they just want to feel a part of the in group because we know how to throw parties.
I’m almost done, but wanted to play with your point about an equivalent meme. I think, in the right space the gold-digger joke could absolutely hit (femcelmemes, and the various 196s are the obvious examples to me, just general queer, femme leaning spaces). I also think a gold digger meme equivalent would lack the positive educational layer this meme has I mentioned before. I feel it amounts to the difference in search results of “why do people love Pedro Pascal?” and “are all women gold diggers?” Those two searches lead to wildly different parts of the internet, one of which is intent of pushing men further into hating women.
It’s super messy. Thank you so much for talking, and I’m still all ears because I do agree on including men in the conversation. I’m mostly curious about how that process should or shouldn’t have a way to filter in men that are willing to change, and willing to acknowledge the harm hierarchical patriarchy has caused, and that includes being able to laugh about it.
It's weird... I like you comparison to guns but also I hate it. It really does make a point but I think it just enforces the bad generalization point?
NOTE: I'm autistic and miss the point sometimes (a lot) I'm more asking questions here than trying to claim I'm correct. I'm very open to the conversation.
There are lots of problems with it I think. Guns are tools. Tools used to kill and nothing else. Guns aren't capable of thought and reasoning and so on. Guns should be treated as loaded as a respect think, not a fear thing. Guns kill when people use them to kill.
Men are not that. Men can be so many things. Also I'd assume more men have never even come close to hurting or killing women then those that have hurt or killed women. Women have also killed men. Some women don't fear men.
Why treat things as an absolute when it's a complicated spectrum like any other. Generalizations are just bad I think... They just kind of lead to tribalism in a bad way.
My brother pointed out something that happened to him. A woman crossed the street to not walk on the sidewalk where he was waiting for a bus. General advice we give out to each other, right? But then he asked how different would that be if he crossed to street if a black person was waiting for the bus? I'll be honest I didn't have an answer for him. Like if he did that people would call him racist for making a generalization, and I don't think he's wrong...
What's different?
A woman crossed the street to not walk on the sidewalk where he was waiting for a bus. […] But then he asked how different would that be if he crossed to street if a black person was waiting for the bus? I’ll be honest I didn’t have an answer for him. […] What’s different?
I have a difference right here: a rather sizable fraction of women experience violence at the hands of men. A very small fraction of people in the USA experience violence at the hands of black people.
A study performed by Statistics Canada put the number of women over the age of 16 who've experience violence at the hands of men at 50%. Now this study had some very deep flaws in the interpretation so take that number with a huge grain of salt. Statistics Canada being, however, a respected organization for statistical information (until Unka Steve gutted it about a decade and a half ago at lest) had its questionnaire, its methodology, and its raw data available for acquisition.
And me being the obsessed lunatic that I am acquired it all. And went over the numbers and methodology with a fine-toothed spork. Once I found the biggest flaw (conflating everything from a single shove once in their life after the age of 16 to aggravated and repeated sexual violence as "violence against women" and being put into the pool), I recalculated the number with just the violence that was any kind of assault, sexual or otherwise, that resulted in bodily harm.
And even there that number was shockingly high. It was just a hair under 24%. One woman in four, basically, had experienced some form of violence from men that could have been a court case with a jail sentence.
One. In four.
Look around you, wherever you are right now. Count the number of women in sight. Divide that by four. In Canada at least that's how many of them have experienced violence from men. (Actionable violence, note, punishable by detention in a penitentiary.) Count the number of women in this community. Divide that by four. That's how many of us here in this community have done so. (And the rest who weren't so unlucky as to have experienced the violence almost certainly know several who have.)
Now I personally don't have access to any studies' raw data for acts of violence committed by blacks against non-blacks, but I have a very deep suspicion that this number is nowhere near 25% of white people, or even just white guys.
That's the difference right there. Most women have either been assaulted by a man or know someone who has. Most white guys do not have similar experiences, direct or vicarious, with black guys. That's why it's racist to cross the street when a white guys sees a strange black guy, but not necessarily sexist to cross the street when a woman sees a strange man. (And also why it's the bear, duh.)
You make some good points, but the statistics you provide are really lacking sadly. For example the victim rate is high. I wonder what the offense rate is, I'm assuming it's much lower. A few rotten apples spoil the bunch taken to extremes comes to mind here.
I don't deny that there are a lot of women who have been victims of abuse by men. But writing off half the human race seems like the wrong approach and absolutely a race to the bottom. Especially when we can do better and promote good behavior and a dismantling of the systems that cause this in the first place without alienating a non-problematic majority.
Again it's not so much this meme. This is is mostly fine. Something to aspire to basically. I'm just not a fan of people making massive negative generalizations against other people. There are very few absolutes in life.
This "race to the bottom" is called "risk management". When literally one person in four of your social group has been attacked by men, only an idiot assumes good faith when faced with men.
This is not saying that all men are bastards. This is not saying that all men should be jailed (as some very extreme 2nd generation feminists said once). This is saying that you absolutely must be very careful when dealing with men. Let's look at the payouts, shall we?
Me? Personally? I'm very averse to violent injury and/or death. That's kind of the -♾ payout that basically overrides all others. And when one in four of my sisters have already experienced this outcome, you can't even say that the probability is low. Any strange man (and, tragically, often even those you think you know) is a potentially violent thug with a game-ending outcome in the game theory analysis. Suspicion and assumption of bastardry until proved otherwise is a survival strategy.
And men who are really allies? They get this. They understand that the woman's calculus of navigating the world around them is very different from the man's. (And let's not even start down the path of what happens to the sisters who are trans.) And while maybe it may grate on them a little, they're not going to start whining about it except possibly to their closest SOs, etc.
The men who do whine? The men who use this, and I can't stress this enough, survival strategy as an excuse to go the direction of the Tates or down the MRA/PUA/Incel/whatever rabbit hole? They never were allies. They never will be allies. And they can rot in Hell.
writing off half the human race seems like the wrong approach
Nobody is writing them off, FFS! As strident as I am about this (again, for emphasis) survival strategy, I have an SO that I have been together with since 2003. Before that I dated. I partied. I met men and enjoyed their company.
But one in four. One. In. Four.
You can bet that my eye is on the exits and my knife is not far from my grasp.
Yeah I see what you’re saying. Agree even! (Also autistic so tone, and missing points and stuff like that, I also struggle) I am also here primarily to learn, not preach.
The only thing I’m pondering is your point about guns being a tool, not doing the killing themselves. I think that’s interesting. Like it’s an application of the saying “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” So the metaphor breaks down when the “treat every gun like it’s loaded” is applied to men. The only twist I’ll maybe add is that men are the gun and patriarchal capitalism is the person wielding it? Like men have been so conditioned by the ruling class, but I’m not going to really dig into my personal politics here, just seeing if that helps blend the two approaches.
Like I do not think every individual man is responsible for the lack of safety women understandably feel around men. I think “the system” is responsible for that, but it’s going to take active work on the part of men to undo that, otherwise it just functions as them playing along with it.
The crossing the street thing is interesting. This gets brought up in trans masc circles semi regularly. Trans men talking about hitting a point in passing where women cross the street to avoid them, and the discussion often comes down to, “I’m sad about it, but I get it, men suck.” I think the amount of societal healing that needs to happen for things like that to shift is immense. Basically I’m not sure exactly what is different, if anything.
I don’t think I really took a particular stance in this post, just kind of dropped info I have that’s loosely related to what we were chatting about…
Idk if I’m still making sense. Words are hard.
Yeah. You're making a lot of sense.
At the end of the day I don't have the answers or solutions sadly just more questions and doubts.
I fully understand why we use the language we do and the mass generalization and I hate it. Subtilty doesn't get points across most of the time and hyperbolic arguments do and that also sucks.
You make such a great point with society meeting SO SO MUCH healing. I guess I just have this wish we would all just be better to each other and take people as they come. But then I see how you do that and surprise that one IS a bad person...
Just feel like we're racing to the bottom. :(
It's excruciating how so many people have missed point of this light hearted meme about a seemingly nice man, and turned it into a bunch of virtue signaling negativity.
This is exactly why I left tumblr.
But I do understand why some men would find it insulting
Good IMO. Maybe men need better role models. I find it alarming that men in general don't find it insulting that rapists like Tate and dumb fkn meat heads like Rogan claim to represent masculinity.
I say, keep praising men like Pascal and shitting on men like Tate. Maybe the message will finally get through.
The multiple downvotes on this post and your comment is exactly why the kind of thing that lead to the meme being made in the first place
You can see the serial downvoters on https://lemvotes.org/ and then just ban them.
Sorry for posting in this thread as a man, I hope it is acceptable to do so in this case. I also feel the downvote brigade is a bit much.
It's so cool to see my tool actually being used by people.
After the exams in the next few days I'll have the time to add new features.
I was wondering, is your tool open source?
Not making it open source would be a very shitty move. That reminds me, I should link this repo on lemvotes.org
awesome, thanks so much!
I was hoping it might be open source so I can run it from my local ...
Might I suggest adding a .nvmrc or using volta pin to pin the node version, I had to infer the node version is v24 based on the Dockerfile 😅
Sure! Btw will you be running this on your own server? If so you need a Lemmy instance as well, I assume you're lazysoci.al's admin.
I'm lazy and was just trying to set up the tool locally, and I was hoping to point to a remote instance like lazysoci.al but I see it depends on a database 🤔 This might not work as I was hoping ...
EDIT: I see, the voting information comes from having a Lemmy instance, federating to the instance is what allows the admin to see the vote information (who voted for what, etc.)
It is women only but as mod I'm 100% happy with a man offering protective practical support. And don't worry we are used to the downvote brigade! Thanks for looking out for us ❤️
Woah that's actually quite the downvote brigade for Lemmy. Not too surprised at this point though, unfortunately. They've been more or less behaving themselves since you started this community but it definitely looked to me like others had also tried and failed before you came along.
And the only comment that I've had removed here on Lemmy so far (that I'm aware of at least) was talking about the horribly lopsided stats when it comes to men vs women supporting the Afd and the ideological divide in general. And that was within like my first week here lol. So this is the impression that I have of this place.
And sorry for the 3rd paragraph but on the note of others trying and failing, feels like this community is picking up more steam daily. So I don't see this one going anywhere. Definitely not without a fight.
I can envision three types of men reacting to this:
A) cool empathetic good guys like Pedro pascal who will realize this is a hyperbolic joke and chuckle a lil bit B) insecure, but not bad dudes who will get all huffy and respond with "#notallmen" C) scary mean men who will take great offense and yell or break things because this meme hurts their feelings but they only understand rage
This analysis, of course, is also a jokey joke and not a doctorate level dissertation, and therefore, it should not be taken too seriously.
Love you all, be safe. May we all meet a Pedro today.
I think this is spot on. Most of the men I've known would look at this meme and say "yeah, sounds about right." But I mostly hang with men who are secure in their masculinity and sexuality.
This is a truly excellent comment
I don't think we have to consider men's opinions on every meme we create, they certainly don't consider women's opinions when they post misogynistic memes
Having said that, this meme is very, very light ribbing, I think even a lot of men will agree that Pedro is especially attractive to women
This is the natural continuation of choosing the bear. We found The Universal Exception. And I truly don't give a fuck if a meme of a dorky pretty 50 year old man hurts someone's feelings.
17 minutes up and your comments been downvoted twice... Lord almighty that's fast. Lemmy isn't a good place for feminism...