Munchies:
Being a woman is very hard in online feedist spaces. Female FAs and feeders have a unique challenge because so many feedists see being an FA or a feeder as a masculine thing and being a feedee as a feminine thing.
I am not saying this to say that female FAs and feeders have it worse than female feedees. God knows the kind of abuse I've seen them go through. I'm simply saying that we have different struggles.
I have lost count for the number of men who cannot believe a woman can be anything but a feedee. Some of them have tried their hardest to "convert" me to become one because "that's what women do". They have threatened, harrassed, and attempted to manipulate me just because I don't fit into their weird gender expectations.
I know why they think that way. When online feedist spaces first started, nearly all feeders and FAs were men and nearly all feedees were women. Even though times have changed, some things still linger.
Think about it. Why are men FAs and not MFAs? Why do some people think it's weird if a woman refers to herself as an FA and not an FFA? We've made great strides as a community, but we still have a ways to go.
Most female FAs and feeders are not crazy. If they don't feel welcome, they will leave. I don't blame them. Hell, some days I feel like I'm still here out of spite and not a desire to be around like minded people.
Things aren't as bad as they used to be, but they still aren't great. It's my hope that we has a community can make this place safer for women. It's win-win. If more women feel safe enough to be here, then it won't be has hard for male gainers and feedees to find femals FAs and feeders.
Enas:
Its ridiculous how easy fixing this is, except when you try to spread it through other people...
I don't understand why... It's such a simple logic to make things work better, i really don't understand. I guess it has to do more with sociological, rather than psychological reasons, because on the latter it doesn't even make much sense! When you're trying to explain it to another person they understand. Yet nothing changes much...
I think FF as a whole whould benefit massively for having a section on advice about this kind of stuff, rather than the se conversations burried in the forums. This is vital, it's not like the everyday forum post! I've tried to bring up the idea once but it didn't work as i intended...
That would not work. It would be a waste of time for whoever types it up.
Bigotry and internalized bigotry exist for a wide variety of personal and system issues. There's only so much you can do on the individual level because people are different. The best you can do is have a robust mod team that enforces the rules uniformly and fairly. And even then, things would still slip through the cracks.
You can't fix people. The best thing you can do is change the culture and the systems. And even that is an uphill battle.
