this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025

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WomensStuff

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Women only trans inclusive This is an inclusive community for all things women. Whether you're here for make up tips, feminism or just friendly chit chat, we've got you covered.

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Lemmy is not a good space for women or a women's community. (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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This is a women-only discussion community. If you do not identify as a women or fall under the umbrella cited in the community sidebar, then please refrain from posting or replying.

We're fighting a losing battle. This is a space where we are very clearly not wanted, and we cannot discuss women's issues without hostility.

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

I'm over it. Let the boys have their playground. Lemmy is not a space that is welcoming to women, and, because of that, unless sweeping changes are made, I just don't see myself ever recommending it to any women as a good place to make a community.

I'm not going to contribute to its growth or content any longer. "PROGRESSIVE" space. Garbage. Absolute fucking hypocrisy. I'm so sick of having to explain myself and be made to feel like I need to justify my existence here.

Good luck, sisters. I'm desperate for community, but this feels more like a battleground than it does a home.

We appreciate the sideline supporters who respect the community rules & expectations and are respectful enough to not interject. You are very much loved and respected, brothers. 🫶

EDIT: This community & its moderators have been nothing but kind & respectful to men who post here, and are constantly shit on & downvoted because of it.

I have resorted to being hostile! And I see very little difference in how this is being received compared to them.

My blood pressure too high rn.

EDIT 2: Mods.. I'm sorry for leaving you to find this dumpster fire of a thread! I gotta go to bed and I'm sick of trying to explain things to people who don't actually care or want to understand.

Women: attempt to foster & curate their own community to talk about women-centric issues and experiences without being drowned out by majority voices

The rest of Lemmy:

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 6 days ago

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💜

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 days ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I support moving to Blahaj as well ✅

Pros:

only upvotes (no more harassment through downvotes)
Ada has already banned lots of bad actors from the instance, so moderation will be easier
Blahaj's community and instance is already women friendly

Cons:

there is probably some work to move another instance (I'm not sure what that would take - or if we would just shutter the lazysoci.al community and start a new one on Blahaj?)
Ada's rules can be pretty strict, which means we might lose some control over moderation decisions and discretion; you could view this as a pro or con, part of the reason Blahaj is so welcoming and such a good option is because of Ada's strictness - I only bring it up because of the 196 drama that happened recently where the mods of that community felt they didn't align fully with Ada's approach - so that's just something to get clear on, what are the expectations, and are we comfortable with those expectations
Blahaj defederates from some instances and likewise some instances have defederated from Blahaj, so that might impact our users a little bit (again, this could be a pro depending on how you feel about the instances that are defederated from one another; I suspect Hexbear users who like this community would be upset if we moved to Blahaj, because Hexbear defederated from Blahaj).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Thanks for suggesting it! We're in the process of moving to [email protected] atm and Ada has been amazing. I feel good that we're not gonna get attacked as much

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I'm glad! I'm Linda over there btw!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Great see you in the safe zone!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Can you link me the admin there? I might get an account there

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Here's Ada, I dunno how to link her properly: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/u/ada

We also have a matrix and a piefed as well.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

Great will DM you

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I have also heard good things about https://beehaw.org/ in that regard (both are excellent instances, I'm not suggesting one over the other)

I hope you and the community here is able to find a place that meets your needs! I enjoy reading and learning from the posts in this community

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Good tip thanks! Your name is adorable btw

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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!)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Omg we should totally do that.

Title: 16 different types of blusher that'll blow your mind! Post: now that the men are gone, can you advise me on my patriarchy problem?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

Exactly! We'd have so much peace, lol

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago

I mean honestly, is there any part of the internet that women are actually “allowed in”?

I haven’t had too many specific Lemmy problems. It’s just the being a woman online that is bad.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 days ago

Thank you for bringing more spotlight on this issue.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 days ago

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

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The older I get, the more I want to be a lesbian. Thank you for this post.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

this is a vibe, lol

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Lemmy definitely feels like it's declined a lot over the past year across the board. Every thread is a fight. I see a lot of Reddit style combative comments all over the place and I'm just less and less enthusiastic to be using it. I've tried a handful of instances, including places like Beehaw, and even there the level of hostility I see is absolutely unhinged.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Hey Hazel, I'm really sorry you've had such shitty experiences. We've moved to [email protected] Ada has been fantastically supportive. She proactively bans people who are problematic, and does a lot to protect groups that face intolerance.

Just fyi the posts take a few days to transfee over so you may not be able to see much right now. New posts should show

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Thanks! I'll give it a shot!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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.)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think the only way to have a non-misogynistic place is to go to an old-school forum without "federation". That way you don't have the drive-by randos popping in to spout bullshit about how it's "misandry" to say "please guys, this is just our space, you can go literally anywhere else".

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

In my experience, unfortnuately, it doesn't matter where you go or how much effort they'll have to put in, some dude is always going to take personal offense to any space he's not allowed in and kick up shit there about it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Can't kick up shit in an old school forum without an account, though. I mean count the guys commenting just in this message. They saw a message that specifically said "no guys commenting" and ... commented. This is because the whole way Lemmy works means everybody can see posts, even if they're not members. They can go to the local or all feed.

In a non-federated forum of the aulde skoole variety they'd have to go hunting for a forum for women, then make an account and pass muster, and only then can they start kicking up a fuss like a toddler. Some will, but I suspect way fewer than the drive-by randos here in Lemmy.

I wish I had a "white list" instead of a "black list" for federation. Right now if I see too many stupid opinions from a single place (lemmy.world I'm looking at you here!) I can block it. But given this intrinsically misogynistic environment on Lemmy it might be nicer to have lists of servers I want to see things from instead of ones I don't want.

'Cause I get this feeling that the former is a smaller list than the latter.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

Yeah, I suppose that does sound nice. I guess I've just got some degree of learned helplessness making me feel like there's no escape.
A whitelisted Lemmy server sounds like it'd be great. Still get the feel of Lemmy minus (most of) the misogyny.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago (2 children)

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.)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

The closest Lemmy can do is making your posts visible only to users from your instance. But there isn't one single women-friendly instance so IMHO it isn't a great solution.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

@lemmy.blahaj.zone is sort of a general queer instance, but has a big population of trans femme folks already. Plus pretty much everyone on the instance “gets it”. Come check it out! We’ve got safe spaces and good memes. I would say blahaj.zone is a very women friendly instance. Not to say it will magically fix the Lemmy experience, but at the very least we have an admin that pulls zero punches when it comes to banning the jerks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I am on Blahaj Zone tho ;)

What I mean is that, when you make your post local-only on e.g. blahaj, you also prevent good people at Beehaw and other safe instances from participating. I DO support moving to Blahaj though, I think it will improve the situation a little. But the struggle will continue nonetheless.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

Oh I didn’t even open your profile! Love seeing someone who jumped on the PieFed instance!! I anticipate Blahaj and a few other instances eventually putting their federation with the melting pots to a community vote, or something like that.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

Lemmy has a wide variety of chauvinists who think they're as left as it gets.

hexbear.net local was actually a great mental health break compared to any version of lemmy

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

Sadly Lemmy really isn't all that fit for this situation. I think the best that can be done is making a womens only instance, which should actually work pretty well but would be hard as visibility would be low (women who are new to lemmy might have a hard time even learning of the instance) and of course the admins would have to work hard as they would have to vet new users.

I think this can be done if there were enpugh willing admins, but I'm not sure there are. I personally don't have any experience on being a Lemmy admin but I do know IT and I am willing to help, so if anyone does want to make a womens only instance you could PM me 🙏

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