Ovarit post on o/Lesbians: "Where have we all gone?"

Clover
Kozlik's regular account 🍀🐐

1,470

Feb 25 2025, 6:01 PM

#31

I think that Karen is definitely derogatory slang used to disparage women. It's certainly not a racist slur, as YYN points out the reasons for that. I hesitate to consider it a slur, because I don't see how a common name could be a slur. I guess because to me there is a massive difference in offense to being called "b*tch" versus "Karen," because of the etymology of the words themselves. And also because of the watering down ExitStageLeft points out: “it is now used to insult any woman for being anything other than demure.” So it's 1. so overused it has become noise, and 2. at its core, it's a formerly popular "female" name from a few decades ago. (Which means the most women with that name are now middle-aged and thus demonized, Victoria Smith's Hags has a good section on the term "Karen.")

Looking from a wider lens, an apparent "over focus" on the term "Karen" on Ovarit can indeed suggest that a large part of the userbase are white older women. Which, from looking at voting demographics from the 2024 USA election exit polls, can tell one a bit about their general political views, and thus the overall political views of the website itself.

nina from canada eh

Apr 17 2025, 11:42 AM

#32

the women who argue "not all men" are really saying "it is some women"

if it really is a good/nice man, then why waste that defending men generally?

I often tell straight women that gay does not mean the man is less sexist

any more than a man being a atheist makes him less sexist

dobby

129

Yesterday, 3:19 AM

#33

(Dec 16 2024, 11:43 AM)Clover I think one of the first telltale signs that Ovarit was leaning towards conservatism was when a detrans woman spoke about how she felt unwelcome on Ovarit. Back then I was surprised, because there is even a circle dedicated to detrans women! But it is an extremely inactive circle. And then I started paying closer attention and I saw what she meant. Sometimes you can just pick up a vibe and tell you're not "welcome" there. Especially if a detrans woman chose to be trans due to wanting to be GNC, when a large majority of Ovarit don't really have GC takes or support GNC, they just want trans to "go away" and I guess they think gender non-conformity is just magically going to go away with it..? It very much doesn't feel like a place where one can feel vulnerable/supported about such topics.

Anyway, I guess my point there is "just because a circle exists for a group of women, doesn't mean the website as a whole is welcoming of that group." I am disappointed to see one of them said “I came in here to say that lesbians get banned for standing up to the homophobic nonsense here.” Although I am a strange mixture of shocked and yet also unsurprised? Right-wing rhetoric doesn't jump out guns blazing right away, it creeps in slowly. The idea of "dogwhistles" gets a fair amount of mockery, no thanks to TRAs abusing that term to claim anything under the sun is a "terf/transphobic dogwhistle," but I do believe dogwhistles exist (I just know claiming is a dogwhistle is absolutely useless nowadays, but to actually pick apart the dogwhistle takes so much energy than it does for the person who uses it). Those who are part of minority groups are more likely to pick up on it sooner, more likely to voice concerns, and more likely to "act out of line" (get warnings/bans) when calling out prejudiced takes they see (especially when earlier concerns may have been dismissed). Or they can just get fed up with seeing such takes and just leave. Although, another caveat to all this that I'm saying, conservative/right-wing lesbians exist lol, so that might make a lesbian online community (especially on Ovarit which is welcomes right-wingers) even more fractured/less likely to engage with each other, since politics have become so extremely polarized.

TLDR; sadge for lesbian women on Ovarit.

All of this is so true 😭😭😭 i remember getting chewed out for my post asking "how can some of us (who want to) make Ovarit a more welcoming space for detrans women?" And i got ganged up on for "expecting them to do more emotional labor when they as women already do so much emotional labor." Um lol, most of the complainers on that post did literally no emotional labor and instead make women of color, lesbian women, detrans women, and other minority women do all the emotional labor for them and cater to their fee-fees. 🙄 it's honestly so tiring how these MAGA conservative white-supremacist rightwingers keep on taking credit for emotional labor done by countless other radfems and libfems :/

It's so strange how some people can't see through how disingenuous these rightwingers sound

LeftFem

Yesterday, 3:42 PM

#34

(Feb 13 2025, 12:22 PM)lesbiansherlock
(Feb 13 2025, 12:05 PM)ShameMustChangeSides
(Feb 13 2025, 11:50 AM)lesbiansherlock Lesbians are only used as a counter argument against TIMs, when it’s convenient.

When it comes to standing up for us I found most people on Ovarit really insensitive and low key homophobic.

The glee people had trashing everything gay, the original gay flag and any and all festivities during pride month was very telling. There’s a difference complaining about the furry and trans takeover and… whatever it is they do over there these days.

Also it’s just me being petty but a while ago I posted a thread with pictures of Blake Lively wearing suits (I mean what’s more lesbian than that) and it got deleted without any explanation so yeah bye.

Yeah last pride month really brought out the homophobes and made them way too comfortable hating on gay people.
Lol people lost it over a random town in Canada painting ONE crosswalk with rainbow colors… Says it all.

dobby bumping threads got me to read this, but I remember this, I think I stopped posting on Ovarit just after this thread. There were people concern posting about how colour blind or visually impaired people would use it, and it made me wonder just how ridiculous it was. Pride is for LGB people too, it's not a trans thing, and they way they were going after the rainbow flag just made me feel unsafe as a lesbian