I’ve been happily posting away here on two accounts since just before the Great Migration, and have no problem being openly a woman on the internet. Up to and including correcting people who assume I’m a guy, and even occasionally acknowledging the existence of periods.

Which, honestly that was a bad tactic back on Reddit, my inbox was a nightmare. But here it’s gone much better, so thank you to anyone who ever received one of my corrections with good grace!

It’s also brought quite a few DMs my way from other women who try to stay more anonymous with their posts, a choice I can completely understand.

So today on International Women’s Day I just want to wave hello to the other women out there, even if you don’t want to break cover and wave back. Anonymous or not, cis or trans, I see you out there and you’re killing it.

This may break the community rule on encouraging discussion, if nobody wants to out themselves to say hello back. So I guess I should also ask a question.

Um…anyone else using it as an excuse to treat themselves today? I’ve given myself the day (mostly) off work and am doing some fun gamedev all afternoon instead, then we’re planning a takeaway tonight. Easily pleased, perhaps, but sounds good to me 😄

  • Aviandelight @mander.xyz
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    8 months ago

    There are dozens of us! But seriously I’ve been so happy to be a lady on here and have good conversations with damn near everyone. As for treating myself, I am looking forward to my husband cooking us a nice dinner this weekend.

    • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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      8 months ago

      Oh nice, what’s the food plan? Or is it a surprise?

      We’ll be having crispy hawaiian tofu tomorrow which is just about my fave food in the whole world, husband is also doing the cooking (he actually does that every day because he’s one of those weirdos who enjoy it). Still very much looking forward to it though, not having to cook for myself never gets old!

      • Aviandelight @mander.xyz
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        8 months ago

        We alternate cooking special meals on the weekends. Last weekend I didn’t a pulled pork butt in the crockpot and this weekend he’s going to do a nice steak dinner with mashed potatoes. Beef is a little expensive right now but we both wanted a real treat.

      • Ghidra@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Would be very curious to hear about more about your husband’s crispy hawaiian tofu! I love tofu in any and all fashions and am always interested to find new ways to make it :)

          • Ghidra@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            You know I’ve done frozen tofu before for stir fry and the texture turns out pretty awesome, i just fell out of the habit because of the forethought to prep being ever so slightly more.

            I’d be curious to try freezing then frying with a cornstarch dredge first, that’s definitely my favorite crispy tofu method. I’m definitely gonna give that hawaiian garlic sauce a try, that sounds killer!

  • Skvlp@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Cheers to the women of the fediverse, and the world, on your day. Glad to have you around :)

  • Betch@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Hiii! Happy International Women’s Day! Transwoman here.

    I never understood why some people are so weird online. I’ve gotten tons of creepy messages. I have an Instagram account where I only post my nail art and I get tons of creepy DMs on there. It happened when I posted pics on nail subreddits as well but I didn’t post there as much.

    I really don’t know if I’m going to be able to treat myself today as I have been feeling very low energy for the past couple days but I’ve been able to take a nice long shower and do some self-care and I still have some energy left so that’s promising.

    Since I have to leave the house to go to the drug store today, I might pick up some new skincare products while I’m there. I’ve been meaning to get a new exfoliating face mask for a long time, maybe today will be the day!

    • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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      8 months ago

      Oh that sounds like the perfect treat, take the self-care to that next level!

      My old IG account was mostly photos of cross stitch projects and yep, you guessed it, still got creeps. People are absolutely wild. I guess it’s because we had the gall to show our naked hands?!

      I hope you’re feeling a bit better soon, those low energy days (or weeks, or months) are the worst.

      • Betch@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        My old IG account was mostly photos of cross stitch projects and yep, you guessed it, still got creeps. People are absolutely wild. I guess it’s because we had the gall to show our naked hands?!

        Wow. Yeah, how dare we! We might have to start wearing mittens when posting so we don’t attract all those hand, nail and cross stitch fetishists 😭 (Edit: Just want to make it clear that I don’t mean to kink shame anyone. I’m cool with any kink/fetish as long as it hurts no one. It’s just about the weird, creepy and sometimes actually scary DMs)

        those low energy days (or weeks, or months) are the worst.

        Oof yeah, it often does end up being weeks and months but I’ve been getting more and more breaks between them so I’m hopeful!

  • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    I never felt weird posting to Reddit that I was a woman, and never got any weird dms or anything… no clue why, just luck I suppose. Or could have to do with where/how I shared that info… either way I was openly asexually female for the entire 5 years I had an actual account. Worst that happened was a bit of banter with a user about whether or not boobs float (something I honestly don’t know); they told me to go check and report back and I said their man boobs would be more likely than mine to float since I’m thin and not well endowed.

    But I’ve been more vocal about it here because Lemmy is an absolute sausage party, and it’s so so so so obvious. It hasn’t been weird here at all either, but there also aren’t a lot of conversations in which I feel it necessary to divulge (probably because it’s a sausage party, so those sorts of conversations don’t happen as much)

    I wasn’t using that as a treat myself excuse, but I’m shopping for a fancy new bed frame (with headboard storage, power strip, lights, and drawers underneath to keep my cats out) and it was gunna be a birthday gift to myself, but now it’s a women’s day/birthday gift 🤭

    • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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      8 months ago

      You definitely dodged some weirdos over there, well done!

      I think from conversations I’ve had, a lot of women had such bad experiences on Reddit they decided to go anonymous on here and I wonder if that’s actually why it seems like such a “sausage party” in the first place 🤔

      Oh well, mostly irrelevant really, as you say it’s not like it constantly comes up! Happy birthday and congrats on that fancy new frame, it sounds awesome!

      • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 months ago

        Hey thanks! I got a really high quality ultra plush mattress for myself last year, and it’s about time it had a nice frame to go on. Plus then I can use the old frame and decent mattress in the spare room, and give away the shitty futon that’s in there. Win win.

        I was around the internet back in the pre-social media days of “tits or gtfo” and all, so I know I dodged a firestorm of bullets. 😳

        I saw some sort of demographic poll a while back about the makeup of fedi users, and it was something like 10% being female? I suppose that’s probably a self-selected response type thing and probably not super accurate depending how they went about finding participants, and It’s probably also highly dependent upon the instance, but that’s why I said it’s a sausage party. Also every post about ladies things is like 80% “I’m a guy but”, which is fine and all but… feels sausagy.

        • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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          8 months ago

          We’re middle aged and still make our guests sleep on an airbed on the floor of the craft room, so two actual decent beds in one house sounds so grownup to me you wouldn’t believe 😅

          In our defence though we both work from home and I need somewhere to keep all this yarn, whereas house guests are relatively rare. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

          • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            8 months ago

            Haha I feel that’s pretty normal tbh. Most people I know don’t have spare space. Couch or floor or too bad get a hotel. Maybe they have a hide-a-bed or a morris bed, but usually not.

            It’s more that I can’t bear to get rid of stuff “just in case I need it, you never know when something is going to happen”. Poverty mindset. I actually almost never have people over and I don’t really want them over often, tho one of my close friends lives a few hours away so she stays sometimes.

            And if I can get rid of something junk and still maintain the things my mind has deemed necessary backup, all the better. Tho I’ll probably disassemble part of the frame to store it all upright when not in use… I move stuff around a lot as I remodel.

            I have a plant grow tent for year-round veggies in that room, and can use it as an office too, so not totally wasted space when not in use. It’s a big, old, much in need of expensive repair sort of place that I got cheap years ago, and it’s getting improved as I go.

    • Risk@feddit.uk
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      8 months ago

      I said their man boobs would be more likely than mine to float since I’m thin and not well endowed.

      Jokes on you! I’m a man and I’m also thin and not well endowed.

      That means the same thing for men as it does for women, right?

  • Head@lemmings.world
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    8 months ago

    My whole Instagram feed today seemed to be about how white women focusing on anything other than the women currently getting genocided could shut the fuck up so I’ve been pretty bummed all day.

    I don’t even know how to express how I feel about that. So, I should just accept unequal pay and getting talked over in my Monday meetings… because I’m at work, because I have bills to pay and a career to think about, instead of camping out in front of the Israeli embassy and making a scene all day? I just… idk man I’m tired.

    Don’t get me wrong, I do care. But I also care about the men and children getting killed alongside the women. It’s a horrible gross genocide and people are starving. But I still need groceries and don’t need to be catcalled on my way to get them. I’m fucking bummed.

    • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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      8 months ago

      I know exactly what you mean, my IG had started going that way around certain world events before I quit logging in there. Which was interesting because I’d moved to IG originally to get away from it on Facebook! These things are inevitable, it seems.

      There are just too many terrible injustices in this world for us to hold on to the fury about all of them all the time.

  • ThyTTY@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I don’t want to invoke any negative memories but my curiosity is unsatisfied - what the hell do these guys PMed you about? We’re all anonymous on Lemmy and Reddit, nobody knows how we look or where are we from and yet publicly stating your own gender is enough to open the floodgates. It is baffling to me. Don’t feel obliged to answer of course if that’s a problem.

    Going back to the topic - hello! I used today’s running routine excuse to treat myself with some sweet snacks. Unfortunately I didn’t pick the best ones so I’m left unsatisfied and with a thought that I exceeded my limit. Next time I guess.

    • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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      8 months ago

      To this day it baffles me too! But let’s just say general grossness and leave it at that :D

      Well done on actually doing the running! I’m supposed to be using part of this afternoon to go for a long walk as well as doing the gamedev stuff, but so far all I’ve managed is hanging out on Lemmy. Oops!

      I can honestly feel the disappointment of a poor sweet choice from here. Nothing worse than feeling like you’ve earned it only to “waste” the opportunity. You have my express sympathy.

    • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      As a guy with a wife and adult daughter who are active online, I just don’t get it either. My daughter was playing MMO games when she was little and I often had to take her keyboard and say, “Dude, she’s 7!” when guys would PM her really sexual stuff. She ended up just making characters with gender neutral names to reduce it. That’s from guys who know zero other than their gender. My wife gets all sorts of replies that are about her being a woman and nothing to do with the things she said. It makes no sense.

      I’m so glad to hear Lemmy is better! I hope it continues to be a place where our interactions are based on our ideas and not our bodies.

    • 1984@lemmy.today
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      8 months ago

      I remember being a male teenager long time ago and the brain just screams about sex all the time.

      That’s probably why some of the less evolved men out there starts pm-ing any lady they see.

      Just getting a response is of some value appearently.

      Then you get older and realize girls are evil so they lose their attraction. Lol. Mostly kidding.

  • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.eeM
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    8 months ago

    Hello back. I hope you’re having a good day. I am even though I’m not doing anything special to celebrate my womanness, just living regular life.

    • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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      8 months ago

      Had a very good day thank you, despite not really doing anything majorly out of the ordinary. Just on with the weekly Top of the Pops watchalong on Mastodon now, after a day of fiddling with code and cross stitch and meeting cute dogs while out on a walk. Not bad going, really! 😄

      No idea what timezone you’re in but it sounds like it’s earlier there, I hope your regular day is awesome! Nothing wrong with just a nice, uneventful regular day.

  • klemptor@startrek.website
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    8 months ago

    Heyo! I had no idea it was International Women’s Day until my trainer told me this morning. My husband just left for a weekend trip so it’s just me and the doggo tonight. I’m going to make a marsala and probably watch a bunch of Doctor Who.

    Happy International Women’s Day!

    • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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      8 months ago

      Ah brilliant timing, you can leave the washing up and watch as many episodes in a row as you want and nobody even needs to know about it. Love those weekends 😄

  • shadowSprite@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Happy International Women’s Day, from a fellow woman on the internet. I honestly didn’t even realize that was today, my life has been a complete mess lately. I’m sorry you’ve gotten gross messages online, I like to joke that I’m so unattractive and unlovable that even online no one bothers me 😂

    • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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      8 months ago

      I spent most of this morning thinking it was still Wednesday so right there with you 😅

      May your weekend be relaxing, and your inbox remain creep-free!

        • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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          8 months ago

          Oh that’s a can of worms. deep breath

          Currently cross stitching Errol from Discworld, a steampunk style world map, and a design of my own based on one of this year’s Eurovision entries.

          Currently knitting a pair of socks in ridiculous multicoloured yarn, and a poncho-style lacy shawl that will probably take a year (but it needs to be done by July 🤦‍♀️).

          Currently not crocheting or sewing anything but that will no doubt be rectified soon! And then of course there’s all the things that have been put into hibernation that I’ll hopefully get round to finishing one day eventually maybe…

          There’s a decent craft community on Fedi if you happen to be into any of these things!

          • shadowSprite@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            That’s badass! I’m useless with any craft needles, cross stitch, sewing, knitting, crochet, etc, but I spent enough time as a kid trying that I can appreciate the time and talent put into even simple looking pieces!

  • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Not a woman, but still: hello, welcome, 👋

    It’s a shame a lot of women still feel the need to hide in order to avoid bad interactions online. You’d think we’d have gotten past that phase by now. After all, half the folks on this planet are women. And since it isn’t 1992 anymore, girls are in fact allowed on the internet.

    Hiding perpetuates that stereotype, but I understand why they do it.

    • Iceblade@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Yeah it happened more than once back on reddit that I got some creeper sending a pm, would usually chat politely with them for a bit before pulling out the good 'ol “You do realize I’m a guy, right?” - unfailingly got them pissed off and angry real quick.

      For extra creep factor, it would usually happen after posting on /r/teenagers

    • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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      8 months ago

      It’s honestly just so much easier, I totally get it.

      But let’s keep it light! Assuming the “Dutch” part of your username is accurate, I’d like to congratulate you and your country on a banging Eurovision entry this year.

  • OpenStars@startrek.website
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    8 months ago

    Welcome to the Fediverse!

    Indeed, people are quite a bit more welcoming here than Reddit - ofc not everywhere, but more so, on average. If it helps, you can block not only individual users communities, but even whole entire instances - the latter by going into your profile, scrolling way down, and adding the instance name to that list. Do what you want, but for me, when TENS of people continue to spam-reply me WEEKS after I STOP responding, that’s the signal that they are refusing to control themselves, so I take matters into my own hands and block them. For that reason I blocked hexbear and lemmygrad.ml, and some people block lemmy.ml too but I do enjoy their memes and such and just stay out of their politics community so I have not gone that far for that one. If this describes you, note that this can improve your experience in the Fediverse by perhaps 90% so may be WORTH IT. People from those instances can still reply to your posts and comments, but you will not receive notifications anymore, nor see them while you are logged in:-).

    One thing more I wanted to make sure that you and your friends know: DMs are not private. I don’t know of any actual tools that makes reading someone’s DMs possible, but the signals are out there and not only admins but anyone could, in theory. Probably that won’t matter 99% of the time but e.g. sending physical addresses or phone numbers would be easy to scan for across the Fediverse by malicious actors.

    Anyway, I hope you feel welcomed! (fwiw, I am not a woman, I just wanted to share these thoughts in case they would be helpful:-)

    • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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      8 months ago

      Thanks although, as I said, been here quite a while now. Still it’s good advice for anyone newer who might be reading this, especially the part about the DMs!

      My block list is surprisingly short, so far, although let’s see if making such a statement in public ends up changing that fact 😉

  • 🐍🩶🐢@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    You are completely right. I got so used to Reddit being thousands of misogynistic, vile, ridiculous comments at every turn, yet in haven’t even thought about it until now. I haven’t seen a lot of that here. I haven’t been harassed at all or terrified to make a comment in fear of the hive mind making me wish I hadn’t been born. Thank you lemmings for being better humans.

    I wish I had the time today, but they made breakfast and lunch for all of the women in the office and had some fancy chat thing.

    Happy Women’s Day. Go to the spa. Take a long bath. Demand massages and cuddles. Something.

  • clara@feddit.uk
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    8 months ago

    i remember playing pokerstars vr like 5 years ago. i learnt after a few days to pick a neutral avatar and mute mic. it stopped being fun real quick after that, because it ended up effectively as a 3d simulator of regular pokerstars.

    haven’t really done multiplayer vr since 😅

      • Nikki@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        yeah! i figure that a lot of women online stay anonymous because of how creepy guys can be

        • thegiddystitcher@lemm.eeOP
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          8 months ago

          Except now we all know each other so any creeps better watch out!

          We’re also all getting pizza tonight, if you’d care to join in with that part 😄