(Also: opening up a Star Trek community war is “casual”? 🤣 )

Either TOS or Enterprise. Because they were boldly going. TNG was always flying around like a delivery van. Voyager was fleeing home. DS9 was sitting there and waiting for things to come to them. (Well, for the bits I watched; I gave up after the first season and understand things started to actually happen after that.)

I haven’t watched any Star Trek property after Enterprise.

<fact type=“useless”>There is no such thing as a useless fact. They just have narrow uses!</fact> 🤭

I just zone out and let them get on with it, it’s not hurting me.

This is so key to this debate right here.

People have groups or threads for talking about video games. Video games bore me to tears. They’re not for me and by extension neither are the groups or threads. (I bring this up specifically because someone brought up playing a video game together in this very group.)

A mature person sees something that’s not for them and … moves on. A certain breed of immature man sees something that’s not for them and “just answers a”(n obviously rhetorical)" question" to whine about the injustice of not being invited, not realizing that they’re showing in their behaviour EXACTLY why they’re not invited.

I guess I should go to that thread about the video game and whine that I think video games are boring as all Hell and we should instead find a place to play 六虎 together. You know. 'Cause that’s how my “betters” are teaching me how things work.

Picture a well-intentioned man. (I’m not even talking trolls who do this deliberately and strategically.) This well-intentioned man intrudes into a conversation about, say, workplace sexual harrassment experiences. They say something ham-fisted like:

How is it ‘creepy’ if I put my hand on a woman colleague’s shoulder when looking at something on their desk to help? I do the same with my male colleagues.

Again, we’re presuming a well-intentioned man here. Not a troll who’s deliberately triggering. Just a well-intentioned man who genuinely believes that it’s fine to do this.

Now five women, say, have been comparing war stories about sexual harassment at work. They each respond with a further example, or a a plausible progression from “hand on shoulder” to real life experience that ended badly or whatnot. Each of these five women brings up a different point or point of view, so this isn’t just repetition.

Now the well-intentioned man responds to each one, asking for more details, or failing to understand and needing explanation, or whatever.

We now have, with only one round of this, a situation where five women in total have spoken: one twice (to report the original story, and then to respond to the man), the rest once each. Six messages from five women in total. And from one man we have six messages.

And this never ends in one round, does it? In no time flat we have a thread that is 80% written by one man and 20% written by five women. One man’s voice is drowning out five women’s voices.

Now multiply this by the number of men (again, here we’re assuming only the well-intentioned!) and the number of threads and you rapidly have a forum for women that is mostly men talking.

That is how you “talk over” a group on Lemmy.

Firstly, it’s blatant sexist discrimination. I won’t claim it’s unjustified discrimination, but it is unambiguously sexist discrimination, and sexist discrimination feels unjust.

And here we go. The first whiner who absolutely must speak in a group that is explicitly not for him. There are thousands of communities to choose from, but he absolutely had to choose this one. And naturally had to choose the language of oppression, distorting it beyond all reason to soothe his fragile ego.

This is why I’m glad we have a mod team that has jumping-spider reflexes.

I’m not sure if that reference to a terf group was a subtle dig or just ham-fistedness. I’m going to assume the latter for now and overlook it.

I think the core of why women-only spaces (or any affinity-based spaces) exist is that sometimes, people need a “room” where they don’t have to explain themselves from scratch, justify their feelings, or brace themselves for misunderstandings, no matter how well-intentioned. It’s about having a place where you can relax and be understood without constantly translating your experience or others.

Exclusivity sometimes matters

It’s a bit like why people form Chinese-only groups, or native women-only circles, or even expat meetups. It’s not necessarily about thinking outsiders are bad or unwelcome as people; it’s about the relief of not having to explain cultural references (like 关系, say), background pain points, or subtle social cues. Even the most well-meaning outsider, by virtue of their different life experience, can unintentionally disrupt that sense of “home base.” And sometimes, you just want to be with people who get it, so you can drop your guard for a while.

Constant explanation is draining

Even when outsiders are respectful and curious, their presence often means the group’s energy shifts from sharing and healing (or even just shooting the shit) to explaining and justifying. It’s not about active hostility; it’s about emotional labour. Imagine a Chinese-only group where a non-Chinese person keeps asking (genuinely!) for explanations of idioms, jokes, or cultural references. It’s not malicious, but it’s exhausting for the group members who just wanted to chat freely.

By way of analogy, imagine a French-language only room that permits monolingual anglophones. How much time would be wasted on translating things people say to a non-francophone? How much energy and effort would be spent on servicing the needs of the anglophone participants at the expense of the people the group is ostensibly for?

Yes. That masculine/feminine divide can sometimes be that vast.

The “Five Geek Social Fallacies”

This ties into the “Five Geek Social Fallacies,” especially the first one: “Ostracizers are Evil.” The idea is that some people believe any exclusion is inherently bad, but in reality, boundaries are necessary for healthy communities. (I stressed that because it’s an incredibly important point.) Not every space has to be for everyone, and that’s okay. Sometimes, the most supportive thing you can do is recognize when your presence isn’t needed, and respect that boundary.

It’s not #AllMen (or #AllOutsiders)

It’s not that every man, or every outsider, is a problem. It’s just that the group can’t function as intended if it’s always on alert for the possibility of being misunderstood, having to explain basics, or, in the extreme case, having to defend its existence. The easiest, kindest way to preserve that space is to set a clear boundary, even if it means some good people are left outside. It’s not a judgment on those people, it’s a recognition of the group’s needs.

Exclusivity in these contexts isn’t about hostility or superiority. It’s about creating a rare, valuable space where people can be fully themselves, unfiltered and unguarded. Sometimes, that means drawing a line—not because outsiders are bad, but because the group’s needs come first in that particular space.

I hope that helps clarify where I’m coming from.

Lemmygrad, yes. That was the one. I’ve never seen much about Hexbear so can’t comment.

I thought it was the other .ml one (forget its name) that was the “tankie” one?

Between the jumping-spider-reflexes of the mod team and, yeah, the actually pretty level-headed responses of the men I’ve seen who’ve stumbled here, this has been pretty good. I was expecting to see a whole lot of manosphere rage in the modlog and … haven’t.

This is a nice place!

I was forced to use Linux for about five months at home (for complicated reasons). I am in awe of anybody who can make that work for them. I was fortunate enough to have an SO on hand who is an engineer so he could fix the problems I kept running into or I would have been without a computer at all for five months.

I’m with you here. Computers and computer-related things (like modern phones) are the bane of my existence. They’re banned from most things I do that aren’t for work.

… even recommended that I go into the gaming industry!

Your IT teacher hates you that much!? 😵

I have a rather large, rather eclectic collection of absolutely useless facts.

The funny part to me is that’s the .ml instance. The openly left-communist instance. And it’s still filled to the brim with regressive trogs.

Bring up the “man or bear”-thing again on Lemmy.

Huh. I could have sworn I brought it up before but I can’t find it. I must have done so on Mastodon instead.¹

Sometimes I bring up topics so I can figure out who needs a good blocking. “Man or bear” is a perfect example of such a topic. 🤭

¹ I did, it turns out: https://mstdn.social/@ZDL/114351736040310233

Sure, but a man can claim to be feminist and still challenge and talk over women’s perspectives…

Ask me how I know this, for example.

I’ve been in women’s groups that welcomed men. 80% of the talking was done by the 20% of men in attendance.

Sometimes you just need a place to vent without getting #notallmen-ed. And sometimes you want to hear your own voice and the voices of those like you instead of someone else’s.

forced integration of an oppressed group is not a good idea either

This is a brilliant piece of flipping the script here! I will be stealing this and I will not be ashamed of it! 🤣

Apparently I made assumptions about @[email protected] that were unwarranted. I’ve done some light editing of this post to correct for this.

I have a question for men who ask this question:

Why must you absolutely be here? There are literally thousands of communities on Lemmy and yet you’re offended that one doesn’t want your presence.

Think carefully about why that is. Think carefully about why you’re choosing to come into the community you’re clearly not welcome in (given the very rules of said community) to whine about how you’re not welcome in it instead of just shrugging and saying “guess that’s not for me”.

When you realizeIf you ever realize why you just did that, then you’ll also quite magically understand why the community rules are the way they are. I’ll give you a free clue, though, to help you to your realization: your very insistence on asking is why the rule is the way it is.

I added a sentence and changed a few words in the closing sentence.

This, right here.