Since I'm several pages deep and this thread is growing faster than I can read it, I'll just go ahead and drop my opinion.
I agree with the OP, we've definitely got a problem with regards to how we handle discourse on issues affecting women. When the "please don't call women females" thread first popped up I read it, silently nodded to myself, and went about my business. It shocked me a bit to find that, maybe an hour later, it had blown up so much and that there was so much push back against what seemed fairly obvious to me and is ultimately a very simple request. And then the thread just kept growing and growing. I already figure any thread regarding feminism, the treatment of women, etc is going to blow up (and not in a good way), but that one blind sided me because it was asking for such a small change.
In the several pages I've read through I've already seen many defenses along the lines of "If Era isn't progressive, I don't know what is" which entirely misses the point. Era may be progressive relative to other gaming sites, but gaming sites are hardly known for their progressiveness and many host some of the most vile, nazi-esque rhetoric so that's an incredibly low bar. Merely being better than the very worst isn't enough. Era needs to be a welcoming place where people can discuss politics, lifestyles, hobbies, etc without feeling like they are being othered. The best way to achieve this would be a shift in how the community itself treats these topics, but given the way this thread is going I doubt many will be swayed. As individuals we need to be more empathetic. We need to put aside our own experiences occasionally and actually believe someone else's stated experience rather than making the knee-jerk, "I've never had this happen to me so it must not be real."
And to the people worried about creating an echo chamber. Era already moderates certain things. Blatant racism and sexism are not allowed. That implicitly means certain topics such as, to use an extreme example, "Does race/ethnicity X need to be cleansed from the Earth?" are not worthy of discussion. So for those asking "what would we discuss" in response to the OP, there's a lot of things you already can't discuss because they aren't worthy of discussion. Somehow people still find lots of things to talk about. So to reference the "please don't call women females" thread again, accepting that women don't like to be called females and giving them that basic humanity isn't going to suddenly stifle conversation.
The moderation team here does a great job and generally cleans up a lot of the nastiness that happens, but that doesn't change the fact that it still happens. Or that once a problematic poster is banned there's usually someone lined up right behind them ready to be a jerk ass. Or that even posters who call themselves progressive or leftists frequently talk down to women about women's issues and their experiences. It creates an unwelcoming environment where every time a woman shares their personal experiences they're made to feel like they don't belong. And it wears on people. If it happens often enough they'll either just stop trying to broach those topics or leave the site entirely. If Era wants to be progressive, it needs a variety of different voices. If people from various backgrounds and walks of life don't feel like they'll be taken seriously here then they'll just leave. So it behooves us to at least try to listen to one another. And while I'm talking about women almost exclusively here, this is a thread about women's issues after all, much of what I've said can easily apply to other minority groups as well.
