Thanks for the read.

Yeah, I'm not engaging with the bear vs man debate, lol.

I'm more concerned about how some reacted to it than the debate itself.

Also, somewhat off-topic, but since you mentioned sharing important explanations to others, I have some that have worked for me. Feel free to disregard if they're not helpful for you.

What I personally found persuasive when speaking with men is citing the research that 87% of rapes against women by men are explained by repeat offenders, which is 3% of men. That means 5 out of 6 rapes are done by a very, very small portion of men.

And it might explain some of the disconnect. 95% of men didn't rape anyone, so they might be genuinely confused at the strong reaction.

I also explain that rape causes the equivalent of $122,461 in damages to the victims. This is just what is quantifiable and measurable via econometrics - the subjective damage is obviously much higher (and I am personally seeking reparations for much higher than this based on my own calculations).

5% odds with a random man might not initially seem that bad to some until I explain that it's equivalent to rolling a nat 1 in D&D. That and you are literally rolling a 1d20 for each man you encounter, so unless you only meet at most 19 men in your lifetime, you're expected on average to roll at least 1 nat 1.

I also explain that addressing rape culture benefits men, too. About 1 in 3 men are raped in their lifetimes, and about 40% of women blame victims and survivors (of all genders). Also, in the majority of states and countries across the world, it is not legally possible, either in theory or in practice, for cis men to be raped. That, and a lot of (anecdotal and not measured, but I'll be measuring this one day) individuals, both men and women, believe that as long as no penetration happens, it's not rape. This belief is not just used to the benefit of cis male rapists against cis female victims ("It's not rape as long as I don't penetrate her."), but also been used against both cis male victims and lesbian cis female victims (by other cis women).

Often times, the counterarguments I receive are against the impressions left by bystander intervention training. I actually suspect that bystander intervention training is at best a profitable way to exploit funds for victims and survivors, and at worst a covert sabotage to create a bad defense for addressing rape culture. We don’t have good evidence yet that perpetrator-focused strategies actually work, and most strategies that have been rigorously evaluated are not only ineffective at preventing rapes, but sometimes increase false rape accusations against black men and decreases women's empowerment by reinforcing harmful stereotypes. Please, please stop funding, promoting, or supporting bystander intervention training, or at least fund a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a bystander intervention training program to measure its impact (and it would give strong, nearly irrefutable evidence in support of it if it actually works). As stated earlier, 95% of men don't even rape, so the training doesn't do anything for them. And for the 3% repeat offenders who explain 87% of rapes, well, I, and many others, suspect that serial rapists are probably not going to stop just because some training to tells them to. That, and ~80% of rapes are done by people you know, in private or secluded spaces. It's very rare for some random man to jump out of a bush and rape you then and there. Bystanders can only intervene if they are actually nearby.

I don't have the names of research papers memorized off the top of my head, but all of these are Google-able.

I did a lot of edits trying to recollect all the discussions I've personally had. Hopefully these cover 80% of those conversations.

Thank you. I was hard on myself, but the course was upfront that the exams would be challenging on purpose.

My understanding is that the grades are curved. I still feel bummed about the questions I missed, but from what I've heard from my classmates, I probably did relatively better even though I felt like I fell short.

The stuff I'm working on is too important for me to make mistakes, so I am especially hard on myself. I often feel like I'm the only one solving the problems that I am.

Thank you. It's been rough, but she's finally back home.

She lived 18 years, despite a heart birth defect. Most cats don't even live that long.

Thank you for this.

For some reason, I thought Lemmy had more women specifically because of how Reddit treats women. 😅

Still, it's not like people are incapable of understanding others who are different from them. I'm hopeful the men here will listen to reason.

Haha, no need to thank me!

It was more out of survival instincts and gauging my environment.

LOL I hear you on that. 😭

Ah, I see. 😅 Thank you for explaining it. 🙏🏼

Thank you so much for explaining all of this. 🙏🏼

Unfortunately, I don't even know what the argument is, so I'd need you to provide context.

I'm just trying to understand how irrational or aggressive Lemmy is towards women.

Thank you for describing the bear vs man thing to me. So it was basically a question posted on social media, and then the reactions to the question (and maybe others' comments) was divisive?

Oh dang, I was told it didn't matter which instance I joined. 😭

I chose it from some join Lemmy website.

Nothing on that website or on the instance sign up page shows the settings or permissions of the instance. It would be nice to view those before signing up.

This.

I support AI, but I don't understand why AI bros are complicating things or making things all-or-nothing.

OpenAI had enough money to hire a hitman on one of their whistleblowers. They can afford to pay for content, lol.