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A feminist IRC channel (chat room). We talk about gender, politics, oppression and many other things. We lean geeky and radical leftist. We like your company!
No, we are actual feminists. Not trolls, not a parody.
To connect feminists with each other. To raise consciousness. To bring feminists to freenode and freenode to feminists. To improve feminism, and to be better feminists. To provide us with a friendly place to talk, learn and change the world.
We recommend installing an IRC client:
- Connect it to
chat.freenode.net:6697 - Register your nick
- Obtain a cloak (optional)
- Join
##feminism
If you can't install a client, IRCCloud offers "trial" accounts for no cost. Make sure you select the freenode network. You'll get a gateway cloak automatically.
Other common web gateways (kiwiirc, freenode webchat, matrix) are banned due to repeated misuse.
We define feminism as a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at eliminating political, economic, and social inequalities between genders arising from structural oppression and exploitation of those who aren't men.
We are far to the left of both conservatives and liberals. Deal with it.
No. Women get misogyny and men get male privilege.
All around the world, not just in the USA. So please don't be US-centric.
No. Please don't talk about these topics:
- your recreational drug use (including alcohol)
- your personal sexual exploits
- public displays of affection and flirting
New people are especially encouraged to stay on-topic. We prefer that people always talk about feminism, but are more willing to be lenient with long-time contributors.
Yes. Please don't use slurs. If you must use them in a critical or reclamatory way, please censor them l*ke th*s.
Yes, but not about everything. Some opinions are mandatory. The mandatory opinions are:
- Feminism is necessary and good (no MRAs)
- The channel rules are necessary and good
- Capitalism, fascism and imperialism are bad
- The police and military systems in capitalist nations are bad
- Men, white people, straight, cis, wealthy and abled people have social privilege and this is bad
- Structural oppression exists against women, people of color, queer, transgender, poor and disabled people, and this is bad
- Trans women are women (i.e. no TWERFs)
- Sex work is work, and those who do it deserve respect (no SWERFs)
If you disagree with any of these statements, you must either change your mind, keep it completely to yourself, or go away. It would be fine if someone made a channel to convert or debate with people who are on the fence. But it won't be ##feminism.
Those are not real things, are not threats to anybody, are not at all equivalent to racism, misogyny or transphobia, and therefore are ok to joke about at length. So no, we're not. Yes we are. No. Yes. Yes.
Yes! If someone is saying harmful things or behaving in a harmful way, it is absolutely ok to say so. What's the best way to criticize someone, you ask?
- Be earnest, rather than sarcastic
- Be assertive, rather than passive aggressive
- Keep it in good faith. No trash talking, pettiness or trolling
- Be ready to accept criticism in turn. Don't dish what you can't take
- Remember we all want the same thing. Don't be super sectarian. Don't be the stereotype of the left eating itself
If somebody criticizes YOU, please try to take it in stride.
All that said, a few kinds of criticism are not ok. Although we recognize the personal is political, this is not a space to express uninvited opinions or criticize other people's personal lifestyle choices, especially as it concerns health, diet, employment, body modification, and personal relationships.
Our sister channel, ##socialism, has some great educational resources
We also have a links page but it hasn't been curated in a very long time.
Privately, yes. But don't publish anybody's words without their consent.
Please note that this rule is hard to enforce so we can't guarantee that nobody is logging publically. Even if you write nothing, note that logs may include your metadata: join & part information, nicks, local username and ip address or hostmask.
If you notice anybody else publishing nonconsensual logs, please notify us immediately so we can ban them.
If it's an edge case you'll probably get a mod warning. If it's blatant aggression, you'll be insta-banned.
Apologize. Accept criticism in a principled manner, retract or change your comment accordingly, and move on, learning from your mistake.
If you try to fight with the mods, you will probably be banned.
Ask an op. We'll probably want you to apologize and prove that you've changed. Don't get your hopes up. Don't try to rejoin - we hate ban evasion.
If you want to say racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist or other oppressive things, go say them elsewhere. Preferably where nobody can hear you. Also you should be ashamed of yourself, and possibly punched.
We're not authoritarian or fascist. We're anti-authoritarian and anti-fascist. If you're authoritarian or fascist, get lost. We see no contradictions here.
Our channel is named ##feminism - note the two hash characters. We do not control #feminism. The operators of #feminism quit irc years ago, and banned everybody from their channel, including us. Ideally we'd like it to redirect to ##feminism, but freenode won't transfer ownership because of channel naming rules.
Our channel is regularly targeted by abusive and persistent trolls. Freenode only allows a limited number of channel bans, so our bot has to rotate them. This means many previous trolls are able to join for a few seconds before being re-banned. Please trust that there's a good reason. Moderating this channel is already emotionally exhausting enough without having to rehash everything on demand, especially to newcomers.
Long story. We used to only give +v to non-men (i.e. women and nonbinary-gendered people - we called this "Misandry Mode"), then we gave it to all channel regulars, and lately we haven't bothered to hand it to new people since the channel is rarely +m anymore. So it doesn't mean anything.
- Pinkwashing is a portmanteau compound word of the words pink and whitewashing. In the context of LGBT and intersex rights, it is used to describe a variety of marketing and political strategies aimed at promoting a product or an entity through an appeal to queer-friendliness, primarily by political or social activists. --Wikipedia
It's on github. See the contributors list.
Tell us your favorite balloon animal.
@Avani | @elky | @ferret_tails | @GorillaWarfare | @LambdaSix | @yar
Feel free to contact any of the moderators on IRC, if you have any issues or questions.
Mods have set their clients to highlight the word !femops - if you need to get all our attention at once, just type that word into the channel.