[All these points apply to sex and to gender, so for ease of reading, I’ll just discuss gender]
Gender-exclusive groups are common in many societies, such as men-only and women-only social clubs and casual activity groups like a men’s bowling group or a women’s reading circle.
Sometimes this is de-facto, but sometimes this is enforced by rules or expectations, treating the club as a safe space for airing issues people have with other genders, or avoiding perceived problems with other genders.
I came across this old comment in a garbage subreddit by accident when researching. The topic is Men’s Sheds:
“Here’s the thing. No reasonable person has an issue with women having their own women’s activity groups. The annoying part is that whenever men try to do something similar, that’s a problem. Women either want them banished or demand entry, EVERY time.”
I think their claim is nonsense, grossly exaggerated at best. I also know of many counterexamples of men trying to get into women-only groups (as an extreme case, the Ladies Lounge of the Mona art gallery in Australia was taken to court for sex discrimination, with the creator claiming they would circumvent the ruling by installing a toilet). But nonetheless, I can understand why they feel this way, patriarchal social relations change how most people see men-exclusive spaces vs. women-exclusive spaces.
But my response to their claim is that, I am reasonable and I do have an issue with any group setting up places which discriminate based on gender. These safe places can form as a legitimate rudimentary form of protection, yes, but they maintain and often even promote sexism, and should all be challenged and turned into something better which serves the same purpose.
Of course, I’m limited by my own experiences and perspective, so I’d love to hear your opinions on the topic.
Bonus video: “Why Do Conservative Shows All Look the Same? | Renegade Cut” - a discussion about fake man-caves and sexism.
Is it problematic? yes. Is it evil? no.
As long as these gender-exclusive spaces don’t preclude people from participating in wider society, it’s fine. I can live just fine knowing I’m not welcome in womens safe spaces. I think most women are okay with not being invited to the boys weekend.
Just overall this seems like a non-issue. Where I draw the line is things like, men not letting women into certain jobs, or barring them from voting, etc. Basically if you prevent people from participating in society in some way. That has nothing to do with people wanting their own spaces.
This is pretty much where I stand. I don’t think gender segregation should exist but I don’t think it’s high on the list of things I want to dedicate energy to fighting. If you don’t want me on your hike I probably don’t want to hike with you anyway
I think the bigger problem is groups that aren’t explicitly gender-segregated but which are so hostile to ‘unexpected’ genders that they end up being segregated anyway. That’s the sort of thing we should be trying to eliminate as much as possible. And I think that’s much more common with men’s hobby groups than women’s but I’ve never been a man so I can’t speak from experience as a man trying to get into something female dominated.
Having been a man my whole life, I have never struggled to get into any female-dominated hobby group etc. It’s not an issue whatsoever.
Maybe female-dominated friend groups, but those usually contain more men than their male-dominated counterparts.
Some men just reaaaally wanna portray themselves as victims of gender discrimination.
“Here’s the thing. No reasonable person has an issue with women having their own women’s activity groups. The annoying part is that whenever men try to do something similar, that’s a problem. Women either want them banished or demand entry, EVERY time.”
Men exclude women because men view women as inferior, women exclude men because men view women as inferior.
Gender exclusive groups are OK when there is a legitimate reason. Unfortunately it just so happens that women-exclusive groups have a legitimate reason very often, which is usually “I don’t want to be hit on in every activity I do”.
Why are there women only career events? Because many women experience going to “normal” career events, have nice conversations, thinking they made a good business connection just to be asked out on a date and ghosted when they decline. They don’t get the same benefits out of “normal” events as men do.
Why are there women only gyms? Because women want to do sports without being hit on regularly.
Now you could say “Well, but that’s a problem of some men not sticking to the rules. Just enforce the rules.” But the problem is, the rules aren’t being enforced, women aren’t taken seriously or just told to suck it up, that’s part of life. You’re in a public space so it’s OK for a man to ask you out. To which the women’s reaction is: “Well, then I’d rather do X in a private space where there aren’t any men who could hit on me.”
As long as there are struggles that men face exclusively it’s totally ok to have men only groups. The problem:
-
men do not face the problem of being put in uncomfortable situations by women almost anywhere they go, so they have less topics or activities where they feel like they need a men’s only group. For most topics/activities men can go to a mixed-gender group and have the same experience as they would in a male-only group. Women can’t.
-
a lot of men’s groups do not form around “we want to address a typical male problem” but “we have prejudices about women being bad at x” or “we just hate women”.
And lastly historically the reason why women wanted to join male-only groups was because those groups were often used to make decisions and policies. Business is being made in golf clubs and was made in “gentlemen’s clubs”. Women wanting to join those wasn’t about playing golf. Sure, we can have a women’s club to play golf. It was about being left out of the informal decision making process, the deal making. In my personal experience women are more likely to discuss work matters at work with everybody and at any “women only” outing with colleagues work was hardly a topic. Whereas when it happened that men went drinking with “just the boys” the next day important decisions had been made and suddenly Mark was in charge of the new project. Just my personal experience and I’m not saying it can’t happen the other way around in female dominated fields.
-
Everyone deserves a safe space. And for a lot of women, that space shouldn’t have men. I’m a middle class, cis, white guy, almost everything is a safe space for me. It’s crazy people get offended when they are like me and someone won’t let them into their club.
As long as the discrimination isn’t used to hurt people but protect the interests of the group I think it’s fine.
As ~always with gender and politics, there’s a pretty big gap between what is and what ought.
What is: The people who make and seek out men-only groups have a stereotype of being shitty, sexist people. The stereotypes around women-only groups are a lot weaker and less negative. These stereotypes are not rules, but do certainly lead to some social stigma.
What ought 1: In a better world gender-specific groups might exist for people to find support and connection around their gendered experiences. There’s some experiences that aren’t commonly shared across genders and it can be a lot easier and safer to share with people who you know also have that experience.
What ought 2: In a still better world there wouldn’t be a significant desire for such groups because we are all sensitive and caring enough that such a group doesn’t make sharing meaningfully easier or safer, because it’s already easy and safe.
Not every men’s group is a shitty stereotype. It does seem unacceptably common, though. Not every women’s group is a safe space, and some are just as toxic and abusive as the far-too-common men’s groups. Do we ban them? I don’t think we can. Because women’s shelters need to exist even if men are domestically abused too and never in my fucking life have I heard anyone suggest a battered men’s shelter might even maybe be a good idea. Okay, fine, so violence and safety reasons … Except, shit, not everyone is hetero… A same sex partner can probably find out where women’s shelters are. And men are abused to by their partners, men and women, in alarmingly higher rates than anybody seems to take note of. And what do you do with Trans folks? Because their rights are human rights too and why the fuck do we still need to explicitly say that anymore? sigh
And that doesn’t even begin to cover social groups.
I guess if you’re not an asshole, a bigot, an abuser, or whatever … best you can do when you encounter these things (and you will) is ask yourself whether something gendered is reasonable or not. The answer might be yes, or no, or conflicted either way. I’d like to say that it should be okay if we don’t agree about the answers. I’d like to say that people should be able to accept that the other person is making a good faith effort to determine the relative “okayness” in an individual case with an individual perspective. Sadly, we humans seem not to be wired to do that. I’m just gonna continue thinking gendered stuff is pretty dumb on the whole with a couple of conflicted views on a couple of specific things because I know I don’t live in a perfect world.
Because women’s shelters need to exist even if men are domestically abused too and never in my fucking life have I heard anyone suggest a battered men’s shelter might even maybe be a good idea.
I don’t know where you live but men’s shelters are a thing. At least I know about them in Germany, the US has them, too. A large problem for men’s shelters (and why there aren’t as many as women’s shelters) is that they want to have only male staff (just like women’s shelters employ only women as staff), but there are less men going into social work. Also, men’s shelters don’t get the publicity women’s shelters get, so that is definitely a thing that should change. Men talking about being abused by women should be made more normal and I think it would help if there were more stories in the media about men fleeing from abuse and going to a men’s shelter. That would make the concept more widely known.
US. I’ve never heard of such a thing anywhere around here. That’s good, they should be a thing!
No.
I do have an issue with any group setting up places which discriminate based on gender.
That is your problem. Let people create the groups they want.
Username checks out
