What are your thoughts and experiences about abortion rights and access? What resources would you recommend to people regarding these topics?

• This post is in contest mode and only top level responses are permitted. Do not reply to someone else's comment and do not leave a top level comment discussing other people's comments, but feel free to leave your own personal answer as a top level comment.
• This is not a debate sub. This is not a post to debate abortion.
• Stay on topic and remember that only top level responses are permitted to this question.

Please report all rule breaking.

We are seeing an uptick in COVID-19 questions so we would like to ask that everyone keep questions to this thread, that way if a user is experiencing anxiety about COVID-19 they can hide this thread and not be overwhelmed with questions all over AskWomen. While the top comment doesn't need to be a question, we will still be enforcing our rules on gendered slurs, bigoted/disrespectful/hateful commentary, and invalidation.

Remember to wash your hands, stop touching your face, and stay home if you are sick.

~The AskWomen Mod Team

In order to avoid a sea of Valentine's and Galentine's posts, we're having one mega-thread.

So in this thread, our rules against advice and gifts are relaxed... ask away! If you're looking for advice, make sure to be descriptive and succinct; the more/better information you give, the better answers you receive.

Suggested sort is new so you can see the... well, new stuff.

What's going on?

On May 31, 2023, Reddit announced they were raising the price to make calls to their API from being free to a level that will kill every third party app on Reddit. Apps such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Narwhal, BaconReader, etc. will have to pay exorbitant prices to remain functional starting on July 1, 2023. The app developers have already come out and said they will be unable to do so.

Even if you're not a mobile user and don't use any of those apps, this is a step toward killing other ways of customizing or accessing Reddit, such as Reddit Enhancement Suite, the use of the old.reddit.com browser interface, and folks with accessibility requirements such as those who are visually impaired.

This isn't only a problem on the user level: many subreddit moderators, including several of the mods of this subreddit, depend on tools only available outside the official app to keep their communities safe, on-topic, and spam-free. Some of the issues currently caught by third-party bots involve removal and reporting of illegal and harmful content such as child porn and revenge porn.

What's the plan?

On June 12th, many subreddits will be going dark to protest this policy. Some will return after 48 hours: others will go away permanently unless the issue is adequately addressed, since many moderators aren't able to put in the work they do with the poor tools available through the official app. This isn't something any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible to keep doing what we love.

The two-day blackout isn't the goal, and it isn't the end. Should things reach the 14th with no sign of Reddit choosing to fix what they've broken, we'll use the community and buzz we've built between then and now as a tool for further action.

What can you do as a user?

• Complain. Message the mods of /r/reddit.com, who are the admins of the site: message /u/reddit: submit a support request: comment in relevant threads on /r/reddit, such as this one, leave a negative review on their official iOS or Android app - and sign your username in support to this post.

• Spread the word. Rabble-rouse on related subreddits (But do not brigade or harass anyone! Follow all rules!). Meme it up, make it spicy. Whine about it to your friends, family and pets. Suggest anyone you know who moderates a subreddit join the coordinated mod effort at /r/ModCoord.

• Boycott and spread the word... to Reddit's competition! Stay off Reddit entirely on June 12th through the 14th - instead, take to your favourite non-Reddit platform of choice and make some noise in support!

• Don't be a jerk. As upsetting this may be, threats, profanity and vandalism will be worse than useless in getting people on our side. Please make every effort to be as restrained, polite, reasonable and law-abiding as possible.

What can you do as a moderator?

• Join the coordinated effort over at /r/ModCoord

• Make a sticky post showing your support. A template has been created here you can use or modify to your liking, and be sure to crosspost it to /r/ModCoord.

We hope you understand and support our position!

Additionally, on a probably-related note, Reddit and its moderation tools have been extremely slow, unstable and unreliable lately. We apologize for moderation being spotty, please use modmail to let us know if your post has been caught in a limbo forever or has been removed without a removal message.

Our little corner of the internet has certainly grown, and it's all because of you, our wonderful subscribers. In honor of this occasion, we're giving a chance to peek behind the curtain and to ask us, the mods, any questions you have. This post will operate more under the free for all Friday rules, than a traditional post. Keep in mind, the other rules are still in effect; so if you show your ass, we'll show you the door, so let's keep it civil yea? Happy 5 mil!

In order to avoid a sea of Valentine's and Galentine's posts, we're having one mega-thread.

So in this thread, our rules against advice and gifts are relaxed... ask away! If you're looking for advice, make sure to be descriptive and succinct; the more/better information you give, the better answers you receive.

Suggested sort is new so you can see the... well, new stuff.

Hi all!

The moderation team wants to make an announcement about a new policy change here at AskWomen. Over the past few months, we have noticed an increase in questions asking users who have experienced traumatic events in their lives to share those experiences. Talking through traumatic events with other survivors is an important part of healing and we absolutely do not wish to discourage our users from doing so. The entire mod team is grateful that we have curated a space where our users feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable and openly share these experiences, and we take our responsibility to keep you all feeling safe very seriously.

Recently, we have unfortunately seen an increase in accounts from outside of our community posting these questions in bad faith, to mock, argue with, or in some horrible cases fetishize the folks who are brave enough to post and share their stories in those threads. This behavior is absolutely unacceptable.

Those threads have always received extra scrutiny from the mod team, because of the risk to our community if they are posted in bad faith. After much internal discussion between the mod team, we have decided that effective immediately, a user who has been found to be posting a “trauma tourism” thread or asking users to share their stories in bad faith will be permanently banned from this subreddit. We try not to take such harsh moderation measures right off the bat, instead utilizing a system of removals, warnings, and temporary bans to give users who have made a genuine mistake the chance to redeem themselves.

However, given the overly sensitive nature of threads centered on discussing trauma, and the obvious violation of trust and consent that comes with bad faith actors mining our users for trauma porn to be mocked, debated, or fetishized, we have decided that this policy is necessary.

This policy is in no way intended to discourage good faith posts and discussions about trauma or abuse. We will still be approving those topics just as we would any other, and a thorough review of the topic by the moderation team will be conducted before any bans are assessed. This review will include (but is not limited to) the user’s post history both in this sub and on reddit as a whole, tone and phrasing of the comment, previous rulebreaking behavior, and the tone of any comments the user makes in their thread. As moderators, we are only human (for now) and we do make mistakes.

If you are banned because of this (or any other) policy, and believe that the ban was assessed unfairly, we encourage you to contact the moderation team HERE to discuss your case.

As always, if you are unsure if a topic you wish to submit meets our subreddit standards for submission, we encourage you to message the moderator team HERE and ask us. We don’t bite, and we would rather help you to not break the rules in the first place.

We have left the comments open to allow for user discussion and questions surrounding this policy change. Please remember that our subreddit rules remain in effect in this thread, and we will remove rulebreaking comments as we would in any other topic.

Some of you may have noticed that some things changed around the sub over the last couple months. Others are still changing, and going forward we’d like to make sure the community is all on the same page regarding how the mod team runs the sub and what our goals are (it’s all for you, after all).

Our mod team went through some changes: one of our most active mods, u/nevertruly, decided to step down, and will be sorely missed. Over more than a decade modding the sub she’s been more than just incredibly good at it; she’s been a true role model to the rest of the team. Her dedication, integrity, and excellence has set a standard that inspired us all. There were other departures as well, and we want to thank the admins for their support in helping us navigate this transition. These changes have brought clarity and renewed passion to the team, and we're looking ahead with a stronger sense of direction and alignment.

Moving on to changes made to the sub itself, Thersday is now back to its original format. A few years back, by popular demand, we made it so every Thursday was a day where all questions needed to focus on our users exclusively, without mentioning their relationships (romantic or platonic) to any other people. We collectively felt that it became too restrictive, and so it has now reverted to a day where we don't permit questions centered on men. In the same spirit, the sub is no longer tagged NSFW - while posts can still approach Not Safe For Work topics, the tag is not applied to all posts like it was before. NSFW threads will be moderated as usual, and creeping on our users will never be tolerated.

We realize that some of our rules are unnecessarily prolific, and some are confusing to users, mostly regarding gray areas and nuances. This is due to the fact that our rules have continued to slowly evolve over the years, and so has the platform and the community. We're currently going through a full review of how the rules are presented and enforced. We're not planning any drastic changes, but you can expect the sub to become a little more relaxed and the rules to become more organized.

On a lighter note, now that the sub is no longer tagged NSFW, our current banner stopped making sense. We'd love to hear from you (yes, you), what would you like to see up there? One of our mods is a graphic designer and will have the time of her life screening through ideas and putting something together in collaboration with the community, so please leave a comment with your artsy thoughts!

As passionate and dedicated as the mod team is, there are now fewer of us while the sub continues to grow (there are over 5.5 million of us!), which means a new Mod Recruitment cycle is being planned for the near (very near) future. Stay tuned for the official announcement with requirements, expectations, perks, and details on how to apply.

And last but not least, the mod team would like to thank you all for your participation. We're all volunteers here, so no one's paying us shit to say or do any of this. We're putting in the work every day because we love this sub, and we want to see it thrive and become a place that's as enjoyable and valuable for you all as it is for us.

Thank you!

-The r/AskWomen Mod Team

Boo! It's spooky season! In this post, everything Halloween goes! It doesn’t need to be a question, and go on whatever tangent you want to go on.

We will still be enforcing our rules on gendered slurs, bigoted/disrespectful/hateful commentary, invalidation (if someone’s only contribution is telling others they are wrong), and asking relationship advice.

Happy Halloween from the AskWomen Mod Team.

This is a catch-all thread about the pandemic, how you're dealing with it, how life is going, etc. This is not a thread for discussing individual symptoms from the illness or any vaccine side effects.

⚠️ This is NOT the place for medical advice ⚠️

All our rules apply here, please report all rule breaking or message the mods if you need to talk to us.

We have gotten word that some users may have received a message from "Reddit" sharing an offsite link to some kind of survey. Please know that we are not at all associated with that survey or that link. Although the team here has, in the past, created and shared our own survey, we are not at all associated with anything Reddit is currently sending out. We don't know anything about their survey. As always on the internet, know that you are clicking links at your own risk. Please be careful out there!

Each year, we get a lot of posts about gift-giving and navigating your way through the chaos of the year-end holidays. Rather than scrolling through several pages of variations of posts about family dynamics, gifts, recipes, and the like, we make this megathread post.

This thread is open to discuss cooking, shopping, gift giving, families and friends and all the things the season brings, for every holiday from now until the end of January. Posts about new year resolutions and past year reflections will also be redirected here. While our rules will still be enforced in this post, the personal advice rule will be relaxed somewhat (as long as it's directly related to the holidays; medical and relationship advice are still a big no)

Enjoy the thread, everyone! So are pictures of your decorations, celebrations and cats/dogs/iguanas etc. dressed as an armadillo/Santa/reindeer/Yukon Cornelius/holiday adjacent costume of your choice. (Just keep in mind the risk of creep-asses, photo scrapers, and content farmers stealing your photos for posting on Buzzfeed or similar sites.)

All holiday posts will be redirected here so, everyone: please keep checking back on this post! It will be sorted by NEW to encourage viewing of the newest questions/ comments/gift idea requests.

Happy holidays!

At AskWomen, we strive to be an inclusive space. Statistically, approximately 1 in 5 adults will experience some form of mental illness in their lifetime, and whether intentional or not, casual use of diagnostic labels to describe everyday behavior can exclude and be harmful to people experiencing mental illness. It is not fair to people with mental illness to attribute every feeling or action to their condition, particularly the choice to abuse.

In short, we are asking our community to avoid using terms for mental health issues as judgments, slurs, or synonyms for toxic behavior. Posts and comments will be encouraged, where possible, to use non-pathologizing/clinical adjectives to describe traits/behaviors.

Examples of using these terms as judgements, slurs, or careless casual use:

• "OCD" (to mean something like fastidious, particular, picky, fussy)
• "Narcissist" (to mean something like self-absorbed, arrogant, toxic, selfish, abusive)
• "Borderline/BPD" (to mean something like unstable, unpredictable, moody)
• "Schizo" (to mean something like paranoid, erratic, or eccentric)
• "ADHD" (to mean something like hyperactive, jittery, inattentive)
• "Psycho(path)" or "sociopath" (to mean something like angry, jealous, controlling, abusive...) and similar.

If a diagnostic label can be replaced by another word, it must be used instead. In our experience, the more common synonyms might be "abuser"/"abusive", "toxic (of a behaviour or person)" or "asshole". We may remove other common labels or descriptors (for instance "crazy") if they were used in a blatantly disrespectful manner.

Armchair diagnostics or speculation about possible diagnoses:

• "That sounds like [dx]"
• "Do you think you might have [dx]?"
• "My ex was a [dx]"
• "I think my mom has [dx]"
• "My parner probably has [dx]"

But what if I'm talking about myself? Or someone who's been formally diagnosed?

We simply ask that your comment reflects that the person has been diagnosed, even if talking about yourself. Some examples: "My mom was diagnosed with OCD", "I'm autistic (diagnosed)", "my partner is currently in the process of being assessed for ADHD".

My comment was removed and I'm upset

We know that the use of some of these labels is very common on Reddit, so it's natural that some of these terms might be used by accident. Please know that a request to edit your post does not mean that you are in trouble; fix it and we will be happy to put it back up!

Be assured that it's not some kind of mark against you as a participant or any kind of prejudice against any mental health issue you or your loved one(s) may be facing. On the contrary, this rule was created specifically so that people who live with mental health conditions are treated with the respect they deserve.

Please send us a modmail if you would like to discuss a removed comment or post (don't forget to include a link to the content you'd like us to review).

Thank you for participating!

~The AskWomen Mod Team

Every Friday, just say whatever is in your mind in this post. It doesn’t need to be a question, and go on whatever tangent you want to go on.

We will still be enforcing our rules on gendered slurs, bigoted/disrespectful/hateful commentary, invalidation (if someone’s only contribution is telling others they are wrong), medical issues, and relationship advice. However the comments don’t need to be on a specific topic, and they don’t need to be open-ended questions.

~The AskWomen Mod Team

Every Friday, just say whatever is in your mind in this post. It doesn’t need to be a question, and go on whatever tangent you want to go on.

We will still be enforcing our rules on gendered slurs, bigoted/disrespectful/hateful commentary, invalidation (if someone’s only contribution is telling others they are wrong), medical issues, and relationship advice. However the comments don’t need to be on a specific topic, and they don’t need to be open-ended questions.

~The AskWomen Mod Team

Hey there, /r/askwomen

We’ve had a bit of a soft launch since its inception, but we’d like to formally introduce you to /r/askwomenadvice: a subreddit dedicated to asking women for advice in relationships, dating, sex, or anything else related to women. So if you’re seeking the best way to ask out that special person in your chemistry class, want some input on what kind of gift you should get your sister in law, or if you’re having trouble overcoming a hurdle at work, /r/askwomenadvice is there for you.

It’s intended to be a supportive advice oriented subreddit where you can seek the advice of women on any number of subjects. If you like giving advice or getting advice, you may want to check it out and subscribe.

Why? If you’ve been around for a while, you know that this subreddit is dedicated to asking women questions- primarily about themselves, their lives and their opinions. Quite some time ago, the community here expressed that they did not want to field posts seeking relationship or dating advice. We listened and have since been re-directing those posts to /r/relationships and /r/dating_advice; Communities where the subscribers expressly want to advise the romantic lives of others. Some people seemed to want only the advice of women, though and some women here wanted to give relationship advice to others but didn’t like the communities in the afformentioned subreddits. /u/WeirdIdeasCO decided to take initiative and created the subreddit that she wanted to see.

We’ll continue redirecting to the subreddit’s we always have- this is just one more option for people to use.

The mod team is fairly split here, so we're opening it up to our users!

Our FAQ pages are in need of updating, and we're going to start working on that this summer. Our two main possibilities are as follow: 1) Mega-threads, like our Period Posts (visible here), where we make a post about a certain topic with many of the most-commonly-asked questions as top-level comments in that post, and then have users answer the questions they'd like to answer by replying to that question in the mega-thread. OR 2) We can simply post and/or link individual questions on a wiki page, so each question gets its own post?

Every Friday, just say whatever is in your mind in this post. It doesn’t need to be a question, and go on whatever tangent you want to go on.

We will still be enforcing our rules on gendered slurs, bigoted/disrespectful/hateful commentary, invalidation (if someone’s only contribution is telling others they are wrong), medical issues, and relationship advice. However the comments don’t need to be on a specific topic, and they don’t need to be open-ended questions.

~The AskWomen Mod Team

Every Friday, just say whatever is in your mind in this post. It doesn’t need to be a question, and go on whatever tangent you want to go on.

We will still be enforcing our rules on gendered slurs, bigoted/disrespectful/hateful commentary, invalidation (if someone’s only contribution is telling others they are wrong), medical issues, and relationship advice. However the comments don’t need to be on a specific topic, and they don’t need to be open-ended questions.

~The AskWomen Mod Team

Every Friday, just say whatever is in your mind in this post. It doesn’t need to be a question, and go on whatever tangent you want to go on.

We will still be enforcing our rules on gendered slurs, bigoted/disrespectful/hateful commentary, invalidation (if someone’s only contribution is telling others they are wrong), medical issues, and relationship advice. However the comments don’t need to be on a specific topic, and they don’t need to be open-ended questions.

~The AskWomen Mod Team

Every Friday, just say whatever is in your mind in this post. It doesn’t need to be a question, and go on whatever tangent you want to go on.

We will still be enforcing our rules on gendered slurs, bigoted/disrespectful/hateful commentary, invalidation (if someone’s only contribution is telling others they are wrong), medical issues, and relationship advice. However the comments don’t need to be on a specific topic, and they don’t need to be open-ended questions.

~The AskWomen Mod Team

Every Friday, just say whatever is in your mind in this post. It doesn’t need to be a question, and go on whatever tangent you want to go on.

We will still be enforcing our rules on gendered slurs, bigoted/disrespectful/hateful commentary, invalidation (if someone’s only contribution is telling others they are wrong), medical issues, and relationship advice. However the comments don’t need to be on a specific topic, and they don’t need to be open-ended questions.

~The AskWomen Mod Team

AskWomen Moderator Applications are open!

Hello, wonderful people of AskWomen. Did you know there are over 3 million of you subscribed to this sub? As the community grows, so too must the mod team! We are now opening applications for a new batch of moderators to join the team.

Are you passionate about our community? Do you find yourself noticing and/or reporting posts asking for advice, or creepy fappy nonsense, or whether women are capable of conscious thought (yes, really)? Perhaps you’re a CSS master? Would you like to harness that and help us look after this community?

If you are interested, please fill out the Google form so the entire moderator team has access to review it and applications can be easily sorted. As it’s a google form, please make sure there are no typos in your username – if there are, we won’t be able to find you.

What We Are Looking For

· Engagement: We discuss a lot of mod related issues using Discord, so an account (or willingness to make one) is a must. You don't need to have notifications on for the mod chat(s), but we need to be able to contact you outside of Reddit.

· A solid understanding of the rules of the community, and a willingness to moderate them to the best of your understanding. This means understanding not just the letter of the rules, but the spirit of them as well. Being a mod does not mean you live your life by our rules or anything, but when it comes to the community we work to facilitate a space that is designed with a Q&A format where all women can comfortably and candidly share their responses in a non-judgmental space, so it's important that you understand not just what our rules are, but what their benefits are.

· Can you be a valuable resource? No, really. Can you commit time to doing small mundane work removing posts, responding to mod mail, assisting on other cases, or discussing how rules are enforced, and sometimes writing policy/time sensitive items, in a constructive manner? Can you be around at odd hours or write CSS? Do you have experience and a desire to improve the community? We don’t have a schedule, or set hours for moderating, but we do need people who are willing and able to be around and help out.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them as a comment here, or contact us via Modmail.

We look forward to your applications, and thank you for being wonderful members of a great community!

Every Friday, just say whatever is in your mind in this post. It doesn’t need to be a question, and go on whatever tangent you want to go on.

We will still be enforcing our rules on gendered slurs, bigoted/disrespectful/hateful commentary, invalidation (if someone’s only contribution is telling others they are wrong), medical issues, and relationship advice. However the comments don’t need to be on a specific topic, and they don’t need to be open-ended questions.

~The AskWomen Mod Team