Today is a big day for the Ovarit project: we are now accepting donations from our supporters.
This journey started for me in 2013. I had concerns about a political movement that redefined the word "woman" and rapidly shifted the Overton Window on allowable feminist opinions. Redefined terminology effectively wiped out entire realms of feminist analysis by making them impossible to understand. Feminism could no longer be discussed without social repercussions. I felt like I was losing my mind because everyone I knew in political circles suddenly flipped their views on feminism, what a woman is, and how we are oppressed in patriarchies. The only clear directive was that you weren't allowed to question the new dogma.
When I found r/GenderCritical I was relieved to find I wasn't alone. Other people noticed the same issues and had the same concerns. Over the years, we created many communities that rejected this redefinition of "woman" and defied a political movement that repeatedly derailed movements for women's rights and liberation.
When our communities were suddenly deplatformed we decided that would not be the end of them. We immediately got to work building Ovarit so we could host communities ourselves, without fear that the platform we used would change its policies without warning and ban us without notice again.
The people trying to prevent women from organizing against the roll-back of our rights are trying to isolate us from one another. They want to prevent us from finding each other. They want to silence us. They would erase our dissent from all records if they could. They know they can't win by debating us. They never even consider if it is wrong to suppress women instead of attempting to discuss the issues with us.
I’ve covered the costs of running Ovarit because it's of vital importance to me that these communities exist, that censorship doesn't stop us from speaking up and organizing, and that we're able to find each other and find out that we're not alone. It made the difference for me. I don't want any other woman to be left in isolation and confusion.
Now we can move into the next phase of this project and make Ovarit more financially sustainable.
Donations will go towards:
- Previous and future costs of running ovarit.com, including server expenses, deployment expenses, and security consultation
- Previous and future costs of maintaining Ovarit LLC, including business filings and consultation
If we can cover those costs, we would like to pay developers and other contractors for software features and other work.
When you donate to Ovarit, you help ensure alternatives to male-dominated communication platforms can exist and thrive. Thank you so much for your support.
If you have any questions please let us know.
Are Donations Anonymous? Is cardholder information available to view?
As far as I've been able to tell, it isn't normal for any payment processor to keep the name of the cardholder anonymous from the business owner. When I am on our payment processor's website, I'm able to see the payments and the cardholder associated with them. We are not collecting this information, but our payment processor does let us see it. We won't be saving this information or distributing it. We consider it confidential and sensitive.
That said, there may be ways for you to keep your personal information anonymous from payment processors. Your credit card may allow you to make a virtual card to use: I've never done this and I don't know if it allows you to use a pseudonym but it's worth checking. There are services such as https://www.abine.com/ and https://privacy.com/ which allow you to mask your payment information through them to keep it anonymous from other parties (feel free to recommend any you've used below). Prepaid credit cards are another option which let you use any pseudonym.
Can people who don't have Ovarit accounts donate?
Only users with Ovarit accounts can donate via our site, but anyone who doesn't have an account but wishes to donate can do so via a paid subscription to Ovarit's official Substack.
Just a heads up that we're aware right now that the donation pages are throwing a lot of 50x errors and one-time donations aren't getting added to the tally, we're working on it!Tallies are working and hopefully the errors are fixed as well. Thank you everyone!The tally bar broke again and we will hopefully be able to fix it tonight.