MJ calls what happened to her in Zion national park “small ‘T’ trauma”. She knows women have experienced worse from their partners. But she still feels the anger of being left behind on a hike by her now ex. “It brings up stuff in my body that maybe I have not cleared out yet,” she said.
Five years ago, MJ and a new partner – he was not exactly her boyfriend, and the pair were not exclusive – traveled from Los Angeles to Utah for an adventure getaway. MJ, who is 38 and works in PR, was looking forward to exploring Zion’s striking scenery; its vast sandstone canyon and pristine wading trails were on the list. But on the morning of their big hike, MJ was not feeling well. She could not shake the feeling that something was “off”; indeed, MJ would learn on this trip that her partner was seeing other women.
As they made their way up Angel’s Landing, MJ’s partner started walking faster than her. “I could tell it was getting on his nerves that I was slow,” she said. “I was like, ‘Fuck it, just go ahead of me.’” He did without hesitation.
When she caught up at the top of the mountain, they took a picture together. Then her partner hiked down the mountain with a woman he had met on the way up, leaving MJ to finish by herself. They broke up shortly after that trip. (MJ asked to be referred to by her initials for the sake of speaking openly about a past relationship.)
Last month, MJ opened TikTok and heard the phrase “alpine divorce”, a label she now attaches to her experience in Zion.
And those comments are heavily upvoted. The community here has made it clear how they feel about women in abusive situations.
The intent of those comments varies wildly from “women should man up” to “why are we assuming women aren’t the more capable hikers” to “why are men even abandoning someone they supposedly want to hike with” etc. I think some have gotten more upvotes than they deserve but not all of them are just saying we shouldn’t be concerned about women being abandoned in the wild by their partners, and those that do say that usually have appropriate replies. What you described is certainly an issue but I don’t think it shows an overwhelmingly mysogynistic sentiment from the lemmy userbase at large.
Again, I’m not basing my opinion on the men on this site on this thread alone. It’s clear there’s a misogyny problem here that is not dissimilar to early days of Reddit or 4chan.
This particular thread, the overwhelming opinion is that these women have chosen the wrong men and did not communicate. The entire responsibility of being abandoned by their partners is placed on the women in these stories. And the women who have pushed back, have pointed out that this is a real thing that happens, that women have to be wary of men in situations like this, are downvoted and ridiculed.
You are unfortunately correct that this is a much more common view here than it should be. I hope that the arguments against it will prove useful in changing peoples’ minds; lemmy is not 4chan and I believe we are in general more capable of self-improvement. At least I hope so.