[Weekly thread] How are you doing with your communities?

Frankly, the lack of engagement is… predictable. I'm pretty sure the instance is not all dudes who are interested in women, but judging by the Moe communities posting anime women being the most popular Local communities, and many of the anime-specific communities mainly posting pictures of female characters with comparatively little discussion, ani.social likely has a large male-interested-in-women population (yes, I acknowledge there could be other genders posting that, or people of any demographic who like the art but are not attracted to women). So I'm grateful for their non-destructive engagement with a community aimed at women interested in men.

I'm glad such people exist, as a woman interested in men—I'd be very SOL if there were no men interested in women. No bad behavior has occurred so far on the community, and I doubt it will. But unlike real-life male-dominated environments where I feel normal (yes, I'm aware my privileged existence as what, at least online, seems to be one of the few women alive without a harassment or men-being-shitty-in-a-gendered-way story, is the reason I can have this perspective), it actually feels a little weird having one femgaze community on ani.social, where male-gazey communities (and communities that are ostensibly general purpose—for the anime they are named after—but in practice they're often male-gazey too) dominate. I have no issue with male-gazey anime content existing, men deserve a place to release their sexuality in a healthy manner, same as everyone else. (I am also very much taking advantage of the Subscribed-only view so I can avoid the tons of Local content I am uninterested in, which goes a long way towards my tolerant attitude :P I might not be so friendly if I had to see it to use ani.social, the same way people are irritated with otherwise-harmless Linux fans because they want to use Local/All and it's full of Linux posts that they personally are uninterested in.) It just feels weird to be on an instance full of it as a woman disinterested in male-gazey content who is also trying to start a femgazey community on the exact same instance.