As an addition, we already have a place for discussing men’s issues:

https://lemmygrad.ml/c/menslib

I don’t think there’s any value-add in a separate, anti-discussion, community.

Because they’re dishonest and afraid of discussion. Because their intent was not to have a conversation, not to create better men, to better themselves, not to be progressive, not to have a conversation with Marxists about positive manhood and the issues of patriarchy but to shove MRA propaganda down the throats of vulnerable young men on this and linked instances, to hook them, radicalize them. It is dishonest, splintering, non-comradely, and predatory behavior.

We have and have had a menslib sub for far longer than the sub they made existed (or their account). They deliberately chose not to use that, not to create a menslib sub but one centered around an MRA blog that was so problematic they decided to censor talking about it.

I know this person has been a prolific poster and seemed nice but can we please accept they’re probably a misogynist or spreading misogyny and unwilling to deal with push-back on their takes? The evidence is all there, yet people keep fleeing from it, trying to make excuses for them and I’m sorry but I feel like if this was any other group, any other situation. If the blog was a transphobic blog and they’d done the same thing for discussing cis people issues that people would not be as forgiving given the tone, and certain tells.

We don’t even know that their whole sob story about medical issues and housing and all that is true. And even if it was, no tailism, we have to hold ourselves higher than that, being oppressed in one way does not give one license to oppress others and hide behind the fact you’re part of some other group.

One cannot start a conversation about the issues of white people without first acknowledging the issues of white supremacy and the greater problems of POC without attracting and ending up being white supremacist in nature.

I’ll reiterate, if this person made a community about a weird blog no one heard about and locked it down like this and that blog was about police violence against white men for instance and it centered their suffering and downplayed the issues of POC interactions with police I do not think that person would get the same leeway this person is getting, certainly I hope not.

One cannot have an extended conversation about straight issues without first acknowledging the oppression of the LGBTQ+ community first or you invite gay-bashers.

It is the same here.

This blog was dishonest. Quite possibly it is run by the same person who ran the community (demoncracy) for all we know. It did not frame it that way and the poster (demoncracy) did not do the bare minimum when spreading content from a reactionary source of prefacing it with a disclaimer. It would take so little effort to do that and pass a cursory vibe check.

Even if they acknowledged it as reactionary you have to admit it violated rules against shitreactionariessay type posts and further that the only point of such posts is to dunk on, debate, discuss them and that locking contents means they were creating billboards for users to passively consume, not critically consume out of this kind of content.

There’s just so much wrong here if you stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. Too many pieces that cannot fit except that the person in question is into misogynistic thinking and trying to spread that on a Marxist-Leninist website as carefully as they can. They edited their posts the other day last night to include links to scientific publications in support of their scientific-sexism, nothing else. That’s doubling down in defense.

You’re the head admin, you can do whatever you want. And I appreciate everything you’ve done to make lemmygrad a safe, welcoming, interesting place (as evidenced by the age of my account).

I agree that menslib needs attention, but not from people who act this way, not from MRA blogs that take this persecuted by feminists, silenced, thing that doesn’t include and center in the womens’ struggle the acknowledgement of the fact that while patriarchy harms men, it primarily harms women and men need to understand those harms, not just boo-hoo and cry over their own little troubles as a result of it. Only once that is made clear and understood can men begin to un-harm themselves, they can’t toss off the obligations of patriarchy towards themselves while keeping them on women, while not learning how to make sure they don’t put them on women and perpetuate it, that’s just giving them more freedom without liberating women. We are Marxists, we are more than self-interested, that means understanding and including the struggles of others. Intentional omission is a deliberate tactic by bigots and unacceptable.

I think inviting this person back after what they’ve done and they’ve offered no defense nor could they is the wrong decision.

It sends the wrong message about the value of this one person compared to all the women comrades here and their safety, compared to the safety of underage or young impressionable men on this instance who they were attempting to victimize and draw into this reactionary website and potentially way of thinking. I wish you would reconsider. I know I myself came off kind of weakly in my initial post. I sometimes struggle still with trying to be nice, the way my parents raised me, to be deferential. This kind of thing has shaken me though and I don’t think this person belongs on this website. Because they did infiltrate it, they did engage in hard to spot reactionary behavior. They are a threat, not a good faith user.

They got caught red-handed. They were careful enough not to be an open bigot (they had no choice, if they were less clever they’d have been zeroed much earlier) but what more proof would you need? If I’d not posted this, let them continue to post content for another month, would there have been any more evidence of the facts at hand that couldn’t be dismissed in the same way? It would just be more locked posts for a community whose very existence is a site rule violation as it focuses on a reactionary website and spreading its content uncritically. Community sidebar called the content “useful infographics”.

I ask you respectfully to reconsider that given the overwhelming evidence that has no other reasonable explanation. I believe this person acted in bad faith, will continue to do so. I do not think they are a comrade, I do not think they make lemmygrad better. They had all the time to contribute actual good mens-lib content, discussions, etc, including in their own sub but they didn’t.

Especially when they’ve shown no remorse, no interest in engaging in good faith discussion, just dipped out rather than face the music and scorn of the users here and initially what tipped me to this was the locking of any ability for others to interact or engage with their content critically. They’ve just acted defensive. In what way is such a person a good fit for this website when their beliefs include oppressive thinking towards half the world’s population and spreading sexist propaganda to other users here who may be vulnerable to it?

Because I think they’ll be back. I strongly think this given people mention this wasn’t their first account. And I think they shouldn’t be allowed back and should be given the boot if they try another account. But I’m not an admin here. Just a member of that half of the world whose oppression this person was denying and continued to deny to the last.

Thank you for taking the time to read all my rambling. I hope you might see some sense in it.