This is a safe space: a space for women+ to come together as we are. All of our wants, needs, thoughts, feelings, experiences, losses, successes etc. are welcome. We are here to support each other during trying times and grief, as well as to celebrate each other. If you are a woman+, you belong here. Your contributions are valid and valued: this is the space for us to be ourselves, whatever state it may be that we find ourselves in. It is okay to be angry, happy, sad, disgusted, overjoyed, pensive. It is okay to be in need. We are here to support each other.
The prompts are entirely optional: any contribution/rant/thought experiment by a woman+ is always welcome. There’s also a sub thread for people to suggest future topics.
Some guidelines to help this space be a positive experience for everyone:
As always with the Avocado, don’t feel compelled to share beyond your comfort level.
Anyone who identifies as female, or who was socialized female/AFAB/otherwise has firsthand experience with the issues being discussed, is welcome to post. If you identify as cis-male, we ask that you please set your participation to “lurk” mode, unless otherwise explicitly invited to participate further (i.e. if we did an AMA kind of thread). I’m sure there’s plenty to be gleaned just by reading! (New Guideline, please take note.) This includes upvotes, we ask cis-men to keep their upvotes to commenters who voluntarily add “+up” to their comments and only those comments.
Please do your best to be mindful of others’ experiences when commenting or posing questions for the group. The female+ identity is Legion and contains multitudes, and not everyone who has experience with being treated as female by society identifies as female. Furthermore, racial and ethnic identities, sexual orientation, and many other factors can colour how one experiences their gender identity on a day-to-day basis.
Suggested Prompt (courtesy of Tiff): As stated previously on Tuesday’s thread, I’m trying to write a piece for The Avocado on (internet) etiquette in dealings with women+. I have been at it for over four months (!) now and am getting antsy and embarrassed. My problem is that whenever I sit down to write it, I find myself getting distracted by my anger at the injustice of the whole situation. I then end up spilling my ragey guts onto the page, which doesn’t make for informative reading that someone new-ish to the subject matter could actually take in.
So, to clarify: I’m writing a piece on W+ allyship specifically for men who are basically decent human beings blind to their own privilege. I very much assume that treating those guidelines as a starting point for how to interact with “Other” in general, specifically POC, could be considered a good idea, but as a white person, I don’t want to fall into the trap of whitesplaining racism. So, my gut feeling is to put in an aside along the lines of “BTW, refraining from ‘explaining’ the experiences of people belonging to a demographic that you are not and never were part of back to them, is generally a good idea.” and to leave it at that.
I would be most grateful if we could crowdsource ideas here, for me to condense into a coherent article/essay type thing, to either make part of the site’s general rules of engagement, or as an appendage to them. Unless you don’t want to be singled out, I would credit all contributors by name as part of the writing crew, who shall henceforth be known as the Collective of Awesome.
THANK YOU for being a part of this amazing group of people. You are the freaking best, whether you feel comfortable to chime in with your thoughts on this occasion or not. EXTRA THANK YOU to those helping a lady out here.
If you’d rather talk about something else entirely, that’s fine, too!
To borrow from Captain Awkward: Don’t have to be cool to be kind.
Have at it, luvs!