Ask Lemmy

Most of the time it's not too big of a deal but sometimes it's very clear that it's a male dominated social media, like when the pay gap between men and women is mentioned

I would say less than on reddit but still a thing. Being cisgender still is treated as a norm and the sort of folks who openly display misogynistic tendencies are fewer and farther between... But any innocuous mention to being trans will very get you a couple of dedicated downvoters or people who use gender essentialist arguements, silencing tactics (oh you're just being devisive) or transphobic rhetoric.

Not to say that it is bad comparatively. This is one of the most trans neutral places on the internet. It's not "trans friendly" mind you, I would categorize that as places where concensus about trans people being a normal thing to be has been reached and attention has shifted away from our basic rights as being up for debate... But trans neutral spaces are important too. We need holding spaces away from places where trans people talk openly where people can get to know us where the majority of support shuts down open hostility towards us prompting more nuanced interaction.

A lot of trans hostile spaces exist out there where being openly trans or advocacy for our needs invites a lot of death threats, calls for suicide, doxxing attacks and so on. If you see a comment section on youtube on a queer creator for instance that's overwhelmingly trans positive that generally means there's heavy moderation at play because they are trying to create spaces safe for their queer audience to interact with each other. What you as a casual visitor generally don't see is the mental cost being taken on by that moderation team to artificially create the illusion of that positive space. Here on this instance that level of moderation is unnecessary because generally speaking the volume is manageable.

Not a lot as far as I can tell?

That Lemmy hasn't devolved into an incel freak show is a barely functional alliance between the left lean and heavy moderation against the fact that Lemmy skews into Extra Opinionated Redditors (aka nerdy, lonely men)

When some poor lady tried to get a TwoX going here the comment sections were always a sausage fest of attempting to mansplain away women's personal experiences and concerns and that's really all you need to know about things.

Zero. Everyone is anonymous. So who cares.

Not much at all.

The shills and bots from Hexbear love using it as a wedge to divide people, so I'd say it's very important to them

on the internet everyone is just a wall of text to me. (pronouns: it/its)

I'm a lady and haven't had any trouble here. The only place I really notice how ridiculously male - skewed Lemmy is, is on the NSFW. That is definitely all "male gaze" stuff, with the occasional actual lesbian also posting stuff guys like. Even the posts OF men are FOR men, everything posted with some assumption only men are looking at the posts.

The other communities just aren't so gendered, I don't notice much whether someone seems to be one or the other, it isn't relevant to cocktails or cooking or gardening or science fiction.

Not at all! What matters is the person and what they have to say. If it's good content I'll upvote and chime in! 😃

Beneath each woman is a man, and beneath him is a teenage boy, and beneath him is a bot. After that, it's bots all the way down.