- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Summary
The “femosphere,” a growing online space for women, mirrors the misogynistic “manosphere” with toxic ideologies, including anti-gender equality views and strategies to “conquer” men.
The term describes communities like Female Dating Strategy and “dark feminine” influencers who reject liberal feminism, advocating traditional gender roles as empowering.
“Femcel” influencers urge their followers to give up on gender equality and use men for financial gain – in the name of feminism.
Critics warn these spaces mix conservative and feminist ideas, creating “anti-feminist feminism” that appeals to those disillusioned with mainstream feminism.
While less linked to violence than the manosphere, researchers caution against its potential for radicalization and harm.
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Wait, femcels are a legit thing? I thought that Lemmy meme group was just a joke.
First it starts at a joke but later, after gaining traction, the joke is forgotten and the whole group starts talking it too seriously.
That’s not what happened in this situation, but it is how we got those flat earther idiots. Femcel was a term used for years, even back on reddit, long before the API controversy and the exodus to Lemmy.
Indeed. Wouldn’t surprise me if it was inspired by the redpill sub
“Female Dating Strategy”, at least, has been around on Reddit for years and years.
I think that the femcel meme group here on Lemmy seem much happier to just post about being horny and I think pretty clearly don’t subscribe to this ideology at all.
Sounds like a snazzy new bunch of nonsense that’s just describing the age old concepts of prostitution and being a gold digger.
In a way they’re acting as feminists by proving that girls can indeed do everything boys do, including being assholes on the Internet for fame and fortune.
Yeah nothing new here. Just regression.
Feminism is about equality. This is not feminism
Idk, “equally shitty” does have equality in it. 🤔
I feel bad for all the dumb guys who get robbed blind by all these con artist grifters. Whether it’s someone like Andrew Tate or some OF model, they’re getting taken for a ride.
If there’s some young man reading this who has or is considering giving money to a manosphere grifter or some cam model, just know they don’t know you, they don’t care about you, they only want your money. You’re nothing but a mark to them. Get off the Internet, go to church, or go to school, or to the library, or do some volunteer work in your community. Meet a nice girl, in real life, treat her right, and cultivate a real, lasting relationship.
Yeah, don’t give your money to people give it to the church.
Ah, the original grifters for thousands of years.
Can’t tell if you dropped the /s here or not…
If you can’t tell, better safe than sorry, get your wallet out. It could be your eternal soul on the line.
/s is for cowards. If your sarcasm doesn’t come across then you’ve done it poorly. If you’re really wondering, yes they were bring very sarcastic.
Irrelevant to this post.
I think it’s relevant, but I admit I failed to acknowledge a critical part of this situation: the ways in which women are harmed by these circumstances. Obviously, there are the direct effects of the kinds of misogyny peddled by men like Tate, but there are also the less direct and mostly unintentional effects of the broader movement that helped create the conditions that made the manosphere possible.
Liberal feminism tried to liberate women, but unintentionally ended up confining them to a different kind of prison, one in which they would remain the person primarily responsible for keeping house and caring for children, but in which they would also be the sole financial provider, as well. Liberal feminism convinced women that it would be liberating for them to take on both traditional, household gender roles, but all it did was saddle women with an even greater burden.
Meanwhile, the movement to make women independent left a lot of men lonely, bitter, and resentful, ideal for manosphere grifters and parasocial cam models to exploit. It really was a scenario that ended up making essentially everyone worse off. It also absolved men of any of their previous responsibilities.
I think people need to abandon the idea that freedom comes from independence. Independence can be liberating, but it can also be isolating, and burdensome. A person who lives totally self sufficiently, alone in a cabin in the woods is independent, but also lonely and saddled with the entire burden of survival. Many hands make the burden light, fewer hands make it heavy.
Where liberalism fails time and time again is in its antisocial tendencies. Liberalism’s focus on the atomized individual so often disregards relationships of interdependence, or even sees them as antithetical or hostile to individual freedom. But this mentality ignores the inherently social nature of our species, as well as the absolute material necessity of social arrangements.
Liberal feminism convinced women that it would be liberating for them to take on both traditional, household gender roles, but all it did was saddle women with an even greater burden.
I disagree wholeheartedly with this sentiment with regard to early liberal feminism. Liberal feminism allowed women to vote, go to school, have a bank account without their
owner’shusband’s permission, get divorced, and gave women the freedom to choose what they want for their individual lives. If a woman wants to pursue a life full of traditional gender roles liberal feminism does not stop her from doing that.Liberal feminism succeeded, though not completely as there are still inequalities that exist, in liberating women within the context of a capitalist society. It roughly brought them up to the oppression level that of a man in a capitalist society. I’m not going to argue that it wasn’t a missed opportunity to bring upon a socialist revolution, it certainly was. And in hind sight was sorely needed as among other things it would have likely eliminated the chance of existence for in/femcels and the blight they bring upon the world.
Meanwhile, the movement to make women independent left a lot of men lonely, bitter, and resentful…
Honestly, that’s a problem for those men to deal with. It is also pretty obvious that a certain group of men would be bitter and resentful now that society makes it harder for them to chain down a woman.
I think people need to abandon the idea that freedom comes from independence.
This is an easy thing to say when the only people you’ve ever been dependent on were benevolent. What happens when you require support from someone that does not allow you to make you’re own decisions or respect your bodily autonomy? You also need to recognize that feminist women can, and still do, engage in loving mutually supportive relationships. The goal of liberal feminism was/is to allow women to be independent not to mandate that they are.
TBH I cannot really tell if you’re arguing that Liberal Feminism did not go far enough and should have been Socialist Feminism or that Liberal Feminism went too far by allowing a woman to live a life independent of a man.
You make a lot of really good points.
I should start out by saying that I wholeheartedly agree that it is a very good thing that women now have the right to vote, go to school, have a bank account, etc. I think those are unequivocally good things, and I am not advocating for a reactionary return to a time before liberal feminism did successfully liberate women in many very important ways. I should have expressed that, that was my oversight and I can certainly see how my comment made my position on that unclear.
Honestly, that’s a problem for those men to deal with
Well, that’s the thing, I don’t think it is just their problem, I think it’s our problem.
This is really my issue with liberalism, it’s inherently antisocial and hyper individualist, and thus fails to account for the ways in which we are interdependent. In fact, the power dynamics that you allude to in this statement…:
This is an easy thing to say when the only people you’ve ever been dependent on were benevolent.
…only exist because of liberalism. It was supposedly the right of husbands to have authority over, and, yes, even ownership of their wives and children, which is an antisocial concept. Some of those husbands were more benevolent than others, just as I’m sure some slave owners were more benevolent than others, but ultimately both power dynamics existed because of the supposed individual “rights” granted to those men by god or nature. Using liberalism to liberate women from institutions that liberalism helped create, isn’t ever going to work.
Like I mentioned before, to be a wholly independent person is going to live a brutally difficult life of isolation. There’s a reason we evolved to live in communities, because it aided our survival, both as individuals and as a species. We benefit from living in healthy, stable, high functioning communities, and so we should each be interested in the well being of everyone in our community, even the lonely, isolated, hapless young men. Not by returning to a time when they would be given ownership and authority over women, but by helping them understand that they are a part of a community, that they benefit from being a part of the community, but that being in the community comes with certain responsibilities and obligations.
they would remain the person primarily responsible for keeping house and caring for children, but in which they would also be the sole financial provider, as well.
Huh? Sole? House-husbands? I don’t think I’ve ever met one. The norm across the vast majority of working- and professional-class people I’ve encountered is for both partners to be working or, if wealthy enough (the minority) for the woman to be the stay-at-home child-raiser.
I could definitely imagine many, if not most women being disgruntled at the current socio-economic situation (at least in the US) where they’re expected to both work at a paid job full-time (just like their spouse) while also doing a majority of the unpaid child-rearing work.
The norm across the vast majority of working- and professional-class people I’ve encountered is for both partners to be working
I’m sure that’s true, but I was thinking specifically about single, working mothers. You’re right, though, it’s not only single mothers, these realities affect women who are in relationships as well.
Thankfully this is a community that was left on reddit. Same with the manosphere.
There seems to be a lack of gender culture war bs on lemmy that you see on a lot of other platforms. It’s good that there is a pretty progressive consensus on gender here. Probably enforced by a legion of trans people, and to that I say thank you for your service.
The Blahaj mods are doing everything possible to fuck this up
Can you explain yourself? I haven’t seen much other than positive messages and commiserating over the future of the queer community from Blahaj.
I think they’re referring to the recent drama over that Drag troll which caused a bit of a ruckus over on Blahaj and elsewhere.
The article doesn’t really address the brand of revenge “feminism” I’ve seen on that sub and mostly frames it as women who want to become trad wives because it’s easy. What I’ve seen is that they basically want to find sugar daddies while also really, really hating men in general, especially the “low status” ones.
How did they get to that point? I suspect it’s a variation of mean world syndrome, fueled by ideas like the poisonous M&M analogy (understood not as a call to be cautious but to treat every man as if they were bad) and seeing men and women as as coherent classes engaging in warfare. All watered down to simple talking points that fit in a punchy tweet. If men as a group do/don’t do this for me then it’s okay to be awful to any individual one because he’s the enemy too.
Hateful, dehumanizing thinking. So yes, they do mirror the Andrew Tate dudes pretty much exactly, including being trans-exclusive.
There was one female content creator who I was passively keeping an eye on who just went alt right. She blames other women for having more the ten partners for her inability to find/keep a boyfriend.
I’m a happily married man but if I were single, I wouldn’t be interested in a woman that hasn’t had more than ten partners.
Social media brain rot. Going by the vibes of the video, I would guess that she and her partners have different ideas of how quickly the relationship should progress.
I’m ok with this on one condition…
Fucking hell I lost
But so have all of you.
The only winning move is not to play.
The gender war continues, and my nonbinary ass is sitting back and not getting involved.
The best part about being in the middle is that both teams hate you! /s
I personally identify as a non-conforming man and the amount of hate I get from traditionalists on both sides is deeply disappointing.
Genuine question, what do you mean by non-conforming?
It means I’m not trans, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m non-binary - but I don’t like or accept the gender norms of being a man. I refuse to conform to societal expectations about what a man should look like or how a man should act.
Interesting. I’d have to say I’m the same. I mean I’m very cis and very straight but I hate traditional gender roles and norms. I’m wearing women’s yoga pants as I type this.
Yeah, people feel threatened by any behavior that doesn’t conform to their norms. I practice apathy towards their attitudes, and keep an eye out for violence.
Ditto, given my ADHD, love of fantasy and other things I’ve always been an outsider. Their judgment is their problem - my partner loves me as I am and that’s not only the opinion I care about the most but also the only one that’s really relevant since I’ve no intention of forming either a platonic or romantic relationship with any hater.
The only real thing that hurts is when my expression hurts my loved ones. I recently had to go to a funeral in the south and I dressed normally for my flights and transit but eschewed a skirt and wore slacks to the ceremony.
Thankfully as a large man, while I’m a friendly giant, I am a giant and physical threats are extremely rare. But I do have trans friends who have faced real danger.
Ace here. I feel you. I may be male presenting but I have no interest in anything beyond platonic, and even then that’s a stretch.
I’ve got some ace friends, we all see the insanity in the world, then focus on playing a board game. Current favorite: Terraforming Mars
Great game! I just played it yesterday for the first time in at least a year and it’s still amazing.
“If there’s war between the sexes then there’ll be no people left…”
… Only left leaning people.
First they came for the gendered minorities…
Damn, I worry this is going to create a lot of psychically and emotionally damaged people of all genders.
My advice to anyone dating is to protect yourself, but be open to the idea that someone may be a good person. If someone can’t be your friend, then they’re not lifelong partner material.
Don’t commit resources to someone until you get married, giving people money for a “relationship” is pretty much the formula of pig butchering scams.
Be careful out there folks.
On one hand? Woo equality I guess
On the other? This shit again? We gonna get a Femdrew Tate or some shit? Eesh.
One can’t dream that they will marry each other and finally leave the rest of the world alone?
There are some seriously scary trad wife content creators.
“Femcel” influencers urge their followers to give up on gender equality and use men for financial gain
I’m kinda struggling with the math here.
You might be able to date several men simultaneously and get some free dinners and maybe trinkets and baubles, but it would seem difficult to get much more “financial gain” than that given that most men don’t have enough money to say, rent a posh apartment for their side dish.
The only way to really get “financial gain” is through marriage, which of course is a game that has been played since the dawn of time, but is not particularly engaging content in that you need to be married for several years to be able to separate and carry off a significant chunk of the marrital assets.
Surely, if you had the requisite appearance and guile for any of this the quickest and easiest pathway to financial gain would be taking money from incels on onlyfans.
My only exposure to the term femcel was from lemmy.blahaj.zone/c/femcelmemes which appears to be the antithesis of what this article describes. My perspective on some irl comments I’ve heard has totally changed.
Looking over at reddit for a femcelmemes equivalent it seems like r/femcelgrippysockjail is the closest but damn do they hate men over there. Yet are weirdly cool with trans women?
I’m assuming femcelmemes on blahaj.zone is ironic or just unrelated? Either way, going to steer clear of anyone who associates with that term cuz damn that’s a lot of hatred and negativity.
Yet are weirdly cool with
other women
Their point is most groups this hateful reject trans women just as violently as Cis men. This is a case of odd internal consistency and I’d give them points for it except for everything else
People are comfortable with using “femcel” more loosely and jokingly than “incel” because women aren’t the Violence Gender™
“It’s incredibly conservative, but it’s trying to reframe it as being this empowering strategy.”
That is the exact vibe I got about whatshername shooting the dog.
They had this some 20 years ago, only then it was called “The Rules”.
Thanks for sharing this. TIL that femcels exist.
Is there a humanosphere as well? Or would that just be plain ol’ Fediverse?
I think that’s just most people.
Yes, but what most people think is not represented properly on mainstream social media, unfortunately.
