But the deepest similarity between FDS and the broader manosphere is more than winking acronymic references and romantic strategizing. In both cases, that unfairness, the rigged game of it all, is used to justify an unapologetically selfish approach that strategically controls and exploits other people. These communities have a fundamental shared politics, even as they stand in supposed opposition to one another. A great deal of FDS chatter is devoted to recognizing, avoiding, and becoming immune to red pill sexual strategies.

A woman should immerse herself in the manospherian world, according to some FDS members. But in guarding against the red pill, FDS seems to have absorbed its basic values. The Red Pill delusionally believes we live in a world that benefits women to the detriment of men, particularly when it comes to sex and relationships. Similarly, FDS is deeply enthralled by evolutionary psychology around mating and reproduction but specifically focuses on men competing for sexual access to women.

Women who do not withhold sex are seen as betraying the sisterhood. Sex work, however, is hatefully treated as abhorrent and shameful. FDS is right about one thing: a patriarchal landscape that oppresses women. It takes issue with physical and emotional violence against women, particularly within the context of heterosexual relationships. In both realms, political action is spurned in favor of self-help. Similarly, a popular FDS post explains why playing patriarchy is favorable to fighting it.

In both communities, personal gain requires personal improvement. One user advises focusing on physical appearance:. Transforming yourself can be such an exciting journey I will never regret being so fed up with my looks and finally taking charge to becoming my ideal self. Putting effort into my looks before I leave my house has completely changed my life and the things I experience.

You may think you look pretty cute now, but take a serious look from the outside and see if others see you as attractive as you think.

Pretty privilege is very real and if you want to reap the rewards for it.. invest in yourself. FDS women are encouraged to own their desires and make demands, but specifically in the interest of attracting HVMs, so that they can get what they want from those men. FDS teaches women to instrumentalize themselves and other people in the interest of getting ahead. FDS recognizes that women currently exist in patriarchy and that this is unlikely to change for generations.

Given that reality, they aim to provide women with tools to end up in happy, fulfilling relationships that bring value to their lives or to forgo them altogether. The alternative is ending up in a relationship that brings a woman down, or worse, becomes dangerous and potentially deadly.

Although FDS may not explicitly call itself radical feminist or align with any political ideology, it is in many ways a modern application of radical feminist thought. The community is against pornography, prostitution, and BDSM. They argue that a woman is better off alone than with a man who drags her down. They educate each other about the early warning signs of domestic violence and provide advice on remaining financially independent financial control is one of the key reasons women cannot leave abusers.

They see the emotional and physical labor that women put into dating as valuable, and expect that men will bring at least equal value in return. FDS demands high standards of men, and encourages women to refuse to settle. This has, unsurprisingly, made many men angry and many women uncomfortable. Between this and their strict process for ensuring a female-only community, FDS has been a constant target of smears and harassment.

In a podcast released on April 27, former FDS moderators Reaux, Savannah, and Lilith pseudonyms, presumably discuss the reasons behind the decision to permanently shutter the subreddit in favor of their own website. Primarily, they cite the constant onslaught of harassment FDS has endured much of which is violent and graphic , and the misogynistic culture on Reddit which enables it.

The moderators describe attempts to have FDS banned from Reddit by spamming the sub with violent imagery and bannable content.

Moderators had to remain constantly vigilant, and often became the targets of threats, themselves. They list some of the threats they say they received while moderating FDS:. The moderators say they have had to report some threats to the FBI, and they fear for their safety if their true identities were ever made public. In addition to the threats, mods say they were often sent graphic material including but hardly limited to dick picks, AOC deep fakes, Nazi hentai, sissy porn, and child sexual abuse material.

Savannah pointed out that the work Reddit moderators do is unpaid, and a largely thankless job. While having to be so strict to maintain a female-only space, moderators would often be berated by their own community members for not keeping up fast enough with the demand.

Meanwhile, FDS was actually generating revenue for Reddit which, like many social platforms, depends on content creators to drive eyeballs and clicks to advertiser content. They actually enable it. Reddit has a long-standing misogyny problem on its platform. Many other female-centered subreddits were also banned in the same wave or forced to go private to avoid being swept up in the mass deletion, including many health-related subs for women.

Men would regularly attempt to take advantage of this trans loophole to try to gain access to FDS. So, what's the point? What's the point of being on Reddit? Rather than trying to continue to exist in this toxic environment and subject future generations of moderators to the traumatic experiences they endured, FDS decided to pick up and move to a new platform.

Female Dating Strategy wants to help women navigate the horrors of heterosexuality. The growing subreddit describes a dating landscape in which women are up against everything from sexual assault to reproductive control, the orgasm gap to the sexual double standard. Women should tailor their personalities and engineer their dating life in order to get what they want from men.

Founded in , FDS has drawn comparisons to the broader manosphere, the collection of online communities united in feminist backlash. Even the description of the subreddit has shades of the manosphere. One of the primary aims of FDS advice is getting commitment from HVMs on their own terms.

But the deepest similarity between FDS and the broader manosphere is more than winking acronymic references and romantic strategizing.

In both cases, that unfairness, the rigged game of it all, is used to justify an unapologetically selfish approach that strategically controls and exploits other people. These communities have a fundamental shared politics, even as they stand in supposed opposition to one another. A great deal of FDS chatter is devoted to recognizing, avoiding, and becoming immune to red pill sexual strategies.

A woman should immerse herself in the manospherian world, according to some FDS members. But in guarding against the red pill, FDS seems to have absorbed its basic values. The Red Pill delusionally believes we live in a world that benefits women to the detriment of men, particularly when it comes to sex and relationships.

Similarly, FDS is deeply enthralled by evolutionary psychology around mating and reproduction but specifically focuses on men competing for sexual access to women. Women who do not withhold sex are seen as betraying the sisterhood. Sex work, however, is hatefully treated as abhorrent and shameful. FDS is right about one thing: a patriarchal landscape that oppresses women.

It takes issue with physical and emotional violence against women, particularly within the context of heterosexual relationships. In both realms, political action is spurned in favor of self-help. Similarly, a popular FDS post explains why playing patriarchy is favorable to fighting it. In both communities, personal gain requires personal improvement.

One user advises focusing on physical appearance:. Transforming yourself can be such an exciting journey I will never regret being so fed up with my looks and finally taking charge to becoming my ideal self.

Putting effort into my looks before I leave my house has completely changed my life and the things I experience. You may think you look pretty cute now, but take a serious look from the outside and see if others see you as attractive as you think. Pretty privilege is very real and if you want to reap the rewards for it..

invest in yourself. FDS women are encouraged to own their desires and make demands, but specifically in the interest of attracting HVMs, so that they can get what they want from those men.

FDS teaches women to instrumentalize themselves and other people in the interest of getting ahead. The FDS personal improvement mentality necessarily places responsibility on individual women for avoiding victimhood and exploitation, which is, of course, inherently victim-blaming.

If you are [naive]—either completely avoid men, or learn to not be naive. If you have any traumas— work on them. Victimhood will not fly here It is a compelling fantasy of the individual triumphing over injustice.

FDS is no stranger to hate: the community takes a moralizing stance against porn and BDSM, and exhibits transphobia, whorephobia, and fatphobia. Of course, opportunism and desperation tend to play out somewhat differently for women, thanks to the systemic inequality that FDS is uninvested in collectively tackling.

FDS gives women advice on using men to their personal benefit, much as TRP does for men, but, unlike in the manosphere, this runs alongside strategizing on legitimate, proportional, reality-based concerns around everything from sexual assault to reproductive control. Regardless of their mutual disdain, or the respective legitimacy of their grievances, FDS and TRP are tied together by their fundamental ethos.

Neither of these communities are interested in equality, mutuality, vulnerability, or interdependence. Instead, their focus is on control and manipulation, and opportunistic personal advancement via sex and dating.

With my ex, I was able to get trips overseas, gifts, protection, devotion and admiration. The A. Club Deadspin Gizmodo Jalopnik Jezebel Kotaku Lifehacker Quartz The Root The Takeout The Onion The Inventory.

About Jezebel Store. Image: Angelica Alzona. By Tracy Clark-Flory. In Depth Features.

In Depth Features. Primarily, they cite the constant onslaught of harassment FDS has endured much of which is violent and graphic , and the misogynistic culture on Reddit which enables it. L ast week, the largest remaining female-only community on Reddit announced they were leaving the site for good. Men would regularly attempt to take advantage of this trans loophole to try to gain access to FDS. In both communities, personal gain requires personal improvement. The Red Pill delusionally believes we live in a world that benefits women to the detriment of men, particularly when it comes to sex and relationships. Women should tailor their personalities and engineer their dating life in order to get what they want from men.

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