Proposal: New Men's and Women's Health and Wellness Forums

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In terms of total thread women's discussions are on the lower end of the scale. 2248 since 2006.

There are more posts (comments) 52912 which is at 20th position.

Maybe men's discussion won't do as well at that who knows, however I think in 9 years it will do better than some of those on the lower end of the scale of posts and threads.

It would be very difficult to extract men's health posts from the forum and why would they post if they have nowhere to post in the first place?

My research found that since 2007 women's discussion contributed around 200-300 thread per year except since 2013 were it fell to 15O and has only just broken through 200.

Obviously this based on the information available to me, you can get more accurate data by querying the database.

The way things are now, I don't plan on starting any threads in women's discussion. The last one I started led to this most recent humongous argument, despite my attempts at preventing it.

As much as I tried to get people to be civil in that thread, it didn't do any good. Starting a thread there is just like inviting another round of obnoxious bickering. I hate it.

So why even bother having a woman's forum if the rules aren't changed? I really think people just enjoy arguing with each other.

My feeling is to mitigate the risk ,to site the men's section could be made a a member's only area, so it won't be crawled (or you can use the robots.txt)

That would give an idea if such an idea is a grower.

It is just interesting that we have a section called Age/Gender related discussions but the only gender related forum in the section is for Women.

So if it is felt that a men's section isn't worth being there maybe the women's forum could be merged and we not have gendered forums, but instead have a forum for all gender issues.

Honestly it's being overthought, if somebody is being disruptive or posting inappropriately then it should be dealt with the same no matter what part of the forum they posted on. There is a reason for moderators right? There is more drama about potential drama than actual drama, what happened in the women's forum that sparked this or is it just because a couple members have decided to make this their crusade?

Dudes just don't post in the women's forum out of common courtesy, obviously some topics shouldn't concern you and your input is not needed but women don't post things in that forum that shouldn't go there either as it shouldn't be some separatist area of the forum. It's not rocket science, there doesn't need to be some fail safe measure to make sure no male eyes ever set sight on that forum as long as their is active quality moderating which shouldn't be too hard to find.

I'm not involved in any conflict in the women's forums, nor was I.

I think there was one or two problem user. Ironically some of those thread actual seeded productive discussions, however some of them were just bickering.

The vast majority of thread are either untouched by men, or the contribution is not adverse to the discussion.

I've discussed gender politics in PPR, which is the correct place for it.

Personally I would even say discussing the tampon tax, a good place for it is PPR. It is to do with women's health, but it a political issue.

What happened was I started a thread called "Are women with AS more likely to be assaulted?" or something like that. I don't remember and don't feel like looking it up at the moment.

It was a normal discussion for awhile, then a guy came into the discussion. He made a comment or two that pissed off or offended a few women, and the arguing commenced.

I was not offended, because what he said really did not affect me. I feel everyone is entitled to their opinion. I tried to get everyone to stop arguing, stated my opinion about not being offended, and then the fight moved on to another thread, basically.

And honestly, all that needed to be done was for someone to say, "sorry, that kind of comment is not appropriate here" and then if it continued, report anything they found offensive to a moderator.

But one person in particular got really hostile and made everything worse. I'm not allowed to mention that person, I'm sure.

I like ideas that move away from segregated suggestions, Jak jak raises some good points about this in the other thread. Segregation seems to reinforce fear and bias, create personal growth restrictions, and if it occurs in a local setting it can impact on regional/national issues which to me is not empowerment. This might be online, but it is none the less, a community.

To address bias a person has think critically about it, construct a knowledgeable confident self-identity and engage in comfortable empathetic interaction with people from diverse backgrounds. This can not be achieved through segregation.

There is however a need for a middle ground as the darker womens issues need a separation in order to encourage constructive discussions. Sensitive threads wont be started if there is a culture of apprehension that some unknowing 'so and so' is going to belittle the topic through a purely ignorant reply, it creates a climate of self censorship, and possibly a resentment because the same standard does not seem to apply to the male gender.

I still think the ethos/description of the Women's Discussion needs to be updated to a more mature reflection of issues relating to Women with ASD, and that the rules for acceptable behaviour need to be enforced like they are in the Haven.

Can you explain a bit more what you mean? I don't want people to be belittled at all.

Censorship can happen both ways so it depend how it is implemented.

In Universities safeguards that were intended for PTSD have been abused to create area censorship and segregation on campuses. It also happens that these ideas aren't backed by the experts as an effective treatment. The evidence doesn't back "trigger warnings" for the treatment of PTSD long term. It doesn't surprise me from what I've understood about conditioning for some time. However these activist are using such ideas much more broadly and loosely to shut down debate. It has been the year of "safe spaces"/"trigger warnings".

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavio ... arch-81946
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... nd/399356/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/book ... -good.html

There are dark and sensitive male issues too. For instance the male suicide rate in the population, abuse, etc.

I think if someone is talking about a direct personal experience, then I will be sensitive/polite as I can. I won't tip-toe around them though, because this reinforces isolation. This is provided I have something to contribute at all.

I people are making statement about genders then I will vigorously debate them, if I didn't agree.

Perceptions are often wrong. There going to be widely held beliefs about gender which aren't correct.

It was more a comment in response to this situation than specifically on your proposal.

I will try to explain. There are human experiences that are understood on a deep level by those who have lived through them, and the related discussions legitimately need a space, I think a heading in the thread title other than 'women only' and something to the effect of 'serious comments only' could be more inclusive.

Many people will have darker experiences that are too raw to leave exposed to comments made through ignorance, the alternative is just don't talk about them and self censor, neither are great options. It is a legitimate issue on WP, that needs to be addressed.

What I mean by the same standard not applying to men, is that folks with ASD are marginalised, even if the ratio of 1 : 4, women to men is inaccurate, women with ASD are still a marginalised group of a marginalised group. WP exists for people to have a voice which they might not otherwise have had, and I think the female sub group needs a legitimate space, not a token one which requires self censorship about the darker issues.

On trigger warnings, it seems like avoidance taken to extremes. A 'heads up' gives a person a choice, the reality is that we have to live with the stuff that has happened to us, and avoidance has a place, but is not a long term solution.
Its like confusing remedy with rectify.

There are similar barriers regarding the darker issues for men which need to be addressed, a method to effectively ban persistent bullies; its an ongoing problem, and I lack suggestions on how to deal with it. Creating a space that meets the needs of the female minority is pointless if it is also open to this level of bullying and abuse.

Its late and I am tired, I hope this makes sense.

Trigger warnings were never of any use for me. Never had PTSD no matter what bad things have happened to me. For whatever reason, I'm able to deal with it.

"Serious comments only" sounds like a good idea to me. I still think it would be nice for the men to have a place they felt was safe to discuss their issues. But if not enough people are interested, it won't be useful.

I think abusive behavior shouldn't be tolerated on any forum by anyone. Even those in forums specifically meant for people like themselves.

Hi, I have never used the title "women only" but that's because I assumed (in the past) that the content of a thread that I've started should make it obvious that I am looking for feedback from other women. For instance, I recently started a thread asking women what sort of supports they wished they had had when they were in upper elementary and middle school, how they coped with menarche, what they did about the mean girls etc. It should have been obvious - or reasonably obvious to the average human being - that men don't go through menarche, so women's feedback was being solicited.

The most recent thread I started was a skin care question. I did not put "Women only" simply because dry skin during the winter is not unique to the female of the species and this was a thread in which I did not care about the gender of the person who was responding. In the future, however, I will absolutely be specifying "Women only" if I was exclusively looking for only females to respond, even if the content of the thread should - as noted above - make it fairly obvious to the average person that feedback from females only was being solicited.

Thanks !

What should I do if I don't want women only, but also don't want a bunch of arguments to start between men and women within the thread? There are some women's issues in which I may only want responses from women, but with others I do not mind input from men.