[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.
I don’t think there is a one size fits all answer. The reason why women’s groups exist is because most of history has been men’s only clubs. Don’t need to make a space for that since it’s normalized.
But, as empathy and respect starts to grow in modern society, those spaces may not be needed.
I’m a fan of letting others individual organizations decide for themselves.
That is especially true for sports. I know trans sports is a complicated topic. There are some sports that give men an advantage and some that women are more suited for. There are others with no statistical advantage. I think you need to let experts in those fields make those calls bc they know what is safer for the players than I do. (assuming they aren’t just prejudice of course)
At my university there are CS clubs specifically for women because only like 1% of the CS students in both classes and clubs are female
My anecdotal 2 cents:
I was in boyscouts and I think it was a space to develop positive masculinity, and to learn things by looking up to older boys who had been through the same experience. I think girls being present would have changed the dynamic, because teenage boys act differently and talk about different things when around teenage girls.
Now that being said I’m certain not everyone in boyscouts developed positive masculinity. Boyscouts is far, far less uniform than people seem to think. There were 2 troops in my home town that were wildly different.
But at least from my anecdotal experience, Boyscouts was a good thing that benefitted from being a boys-only experience, and I wonder how it has changed now that girls can join boyscout troops.
Downvoted you for this stunning example of cultivated ignorance:
I think their claim is nonsense, grossly exaggerated at best.
One only needs to look at the scouts of America to see this in play.
Boy Scouts were sued to open their ranks to girls. That suit won, forcing them to open their org to girls.
Girl Scouts were then sued for the flip example - to open their ranks to boys. The suit was almost immediately thrown out for “misogyny”.
After that “victory”, the then-head of the Girl Scouts admitted in private and off the record that she would rather destroy the org in its entirety - essentially razing it to the ground and permanently locking up the name “Girl Scouts” from being used by anyone else - before admitting a single boy.
Now, because they have both boys and girls, the Boy Scouts have tried to drop “boy” from the name, to be called only “Scouts”. This precipitated another lawsuit from the Girl Scouts in that dropping that part of the name will only accelerate their own membership decline.
You literally cannot make this sh*t up.
Men’s-only spaces across the country, like private gyms, are being attacked from all sides on the claim that their very existence is “misogynistic”, and yet service-identical women’s-only spaces in the same city are immune from those same “rules” under the claim that any attempt to apply those same rules to them is also “misogynistic”.
One of the best ways to uncover bigotry is to flip the term in contention and see if it reads any different after that from before. If it does, you’ve found a bigoted pattern in play.
True equality reads identically regardless of how the term in contention is flipped.
Edit:
I have zero issue with women’s only spaces. They are needed. But FFS you cannot eat your cake, and have it, too.
Real equality can only be achieved by applying the same rules equally. If women are to be allowed to have their own women’s-only spaces, men must also be allowed to have their own men’s-only spaces.
Hence the term, equality. Because if things aren’t equal, why even use that word? You might as well call it for what it truly is - anti-male gender bigotry.
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.
The issue isn’t safe spaces. I mean, in the context you used, you are entirely correct - society in general is largely a safe space for white men.
The issue here is actually men’s-only spaces. And it is in that context that the anti-male bigotry comes boiling out of the societal woodwork under the weaponized mantra of “misogyny”.
As in, women can have all the women’s-only spaces they want or need, because to force them open to both genders is “misogyny”. And honestly, I am willing to let them have that olive branch.
However, they then turn around and demand that all men’s-only spaces be opened up to women, because to keep them men’s-only is also, somehow, “misogyny”.
Sorry, but that’s not how that works. That isn’t how any of that works.
The single most effective tool for determining if bigotry exists is to change the terms in contention, and see if things read identically to before, or oppositely to before.
If the two examples read wildly differently from each other, then congrats - you found a bigoted pattern.
So when you hear about men’s only gyms being cracked open for women to attend, consider how wildly different it would read if it was a women’s only gym being forced to admit men. That sure reads wildly differently, doesn’t it? That’s because there is deep bigotry in having the former being forced through while the latter is being defended against.
And honestly… if true equality in treating everyone with the exact same rules is “misogynistic”, why call it equality in the first place? Just call it for what it truly is: anti-male gender bigotry.
I don’t really know where I stand on this issue to be honest as I can see pros and cons for both.
But even if equality did exist (gender, sex, race, religion etc), equality doesn’t necessarily mean that equity is achieved.
I think the entire equity debate is confusing many of the inputs for outputs - which they are not. They are inputs, and are therefore equality-based, not equity based.
Take, for example, the old meme:
This meme is actually entirely wrong.
In the above meme, the left panel is an example of inequality. because the opportunity provided - the ability to see the game - is unequally provided across the three spectators. There is no equality of opportunity here, no equal ability to see the game due to the differing heights of the viewers despite the addition of boxes for all three.
It is the right panel which is the ideal example of equality - the ability to see the game. Here all three spectators have anny individual deficiencies that they cannot control and cannot overcome without outside help - their heights - made irrelevant by the equalizing effect of the boxes. All three heads are brought to equal and sufficient height for them to achieve equal opportunities to view the game.
Equity doesn’t even factor in here, because the enjoyment of the game is impossible to force across all spectators. To force equal outcomes - equal enjoyment of the game - would be monstrously inhuman and downright evil.
Sure, they’re okay. Honestly we might be a bit too strict about avoiding them, at this point.
Where it becomes a problem is if you’d like to join whatever group, but the only one available is not open to you. Which happened a lot historically, but is rarer now.
I think their claim is nonsense, grossly exaggerated at best.
Can confirm, in my experience the problem with mancaves is that you pretty quickly want to let women in. There’s no tradeoff, we can not talk about our feelings and make a mess in a mixed gender crowd, too.
Kind of a side note but I want to see peoples opinion. Do boys tend to make friends with boys and girls tend to make friends with girls because that is what is natural? Or is it due to the oppressive nature of our current time?
As a father of three boys. This is enforced far more by the mother’s of girls than anyone else.
My oldest made friends almost exclusively with girls before he was five. Without fail mother’s would move their girls away and toward other girls. This happened in a few situations, both structured and unstructured environments.
When it was dad’s with daughters, it was only about 1/4 of the time, and mums or dad’s with sons never did.
I have seen it the other way also, where boys were steered to other boys, but it was far less often.
I used to go to a men’s only yoga class, I was far more comfortable there than in a mixed class. The class was discontinued, not because of lack of interest… but because the instructor got pregnant, it never restarted. She was a great instructor very professional and targeted the exercises to men’s problem areas.
Men’s only spaces are important, as much as women’s spaces. Men’s mental health is often overlooked, and men’s spaces are an easy way for men to vent about shit that is bothering them.
Also “our current time” is a little strange, history it’s full of segregated spaces, even of just by social convention. Our current time is far more accepting of mixing than a lot of history.
men’s spaces are an easy way for men to vent about shit that is bothering them.
That’s what interests me. Why is that best achieved in exclusively male groups? What would actually be required to empower men to vent in gender inclusice spaces?
I mean what’s really needed: Spaces without women, or spaces without toxic masculinity?
Sometimes men don’t fell comfortable expressing themselves with women around.
If a space is toxic, men don’t express themselves there either.
Space where men can properly express their feelings are extremely rare. Between the toxic masculinity and men feeling judged by women and other men.
The latter and “oppressive” is a fully adequate choice of words. These gender-norms are enforced by punishment, ridicule, abuse and exclusion, often leading to latent trauma, emotional blunting and loss of empathy. It’s helps start the cycle of male violence early.
Really young kids don’t care and mingle freely. It’s a learned thing; the latter. Although “oppressive” might be a bit on the strong side.
Im not sure what isn’t oppressive about gender pay gap, domestic abuse/violence and generally treating females as inferior.
This is a question we’ve faced in the queer community forever. As LGBTQ people there’s a lot of blur between sex/gender. Bars have gotten into hot water with the community over the years for being sex/gender exclusive.
However, in the instance of a sexual environment, like a bath house or fetish club, is such segregation legitimate? For example, I am solely gay and only interested in biologically male genitalia. I completely support trans men politically but if I am in a sexual situation I am only interested in men with penises. However, my husband loves trans men sexually and finds men with vaginas hot af. So IDK. I guess that if I went to a gay sex club and there were trans men there that’s simply not my particular jam, like there are gonna be other cis gender guys there that aren’t going to be my thing either. But ultimately sexual environments would be the only acceptable segregation I can think of off the top of my head.
Also, note that there used to be an incredibly important annual lesbian music event, the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, that ran from 1976 to 2015 that arguably died because of their exclusion of trans women. From 1991 forward the festival, which was on private land, had a trans exclusionary policy that divided the attendees.
But ultimately sexual environments would be the only acceptable segregation I can think of off the top of my head.
the clubs i frequent are more sexually charged than bath houses and the straight women who show up have the unfortunate tendency to treat it like a petting zoo.
it got so bad that one of the places instituted a fetish gear requirement for entry and it was VERY effective at keeping straight women out, but it had the unfortunate side effect of push the straight women to the other establishments and it significantly reduced the levels of sexual charge in all of them.
Yes, obviously it’s not only okay, but such groups are very necessary and should be publicly funded and protected. However almost solely in the specific case of excluding cis men. For as long as patriarchy exists, safe spaces and protection from the structural and individual male violence are needed. They’ll naturally drop away as they become unnecessary, if capitalism, which fuels patriarchy, is permanently defeated.
“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.
I’ve had this discussion before.
Symptom v disease
As someone else said, speaking generally, women exclude men and men exclude women, both due to a large, problematic subset of men who believe women are inferior. Sex-/Gender- exclusive spaces sort of solve the problems of sexism, but in the same way a sandwich solves food insecurity, which is to say ‘unsustainably, and in a very limited location.’ However, creating sex-/gender- exclusive spaces is really only focusing on the secondary effects in a way that has no effect on the primary issue, and may in some cases make the issue worse.
Nothing about a sex-/gender- exclusive space inherently creates a positive effect. Arguing against this truth is definitionally sex essentialism, a.k.a. sexism, because if you think something can only happen culturally because of sexual biology of the participants, you’re there. It can be argued that an exclusive space may be a temporary necessary evil, but I’m leery of people saying ‘let me do this bad thing now because I promise it will lead to better things someday.’
A <class>-only space innately encourages/enhances otherization. If you spend your time in a group that frames their definition of the world around some arbitrary distinction, which can be anything from sex to race to religion to job title to grooming habits, it encourages people to think of the division as meaningful. To a racist, your skin color tells them something significant about you. To a sexist, your sex does. And so on, and so on. To my knowledge, there are no current societies that view, say, toenail length as significant, so you won’t see anyone making any clipper-only groups. However, you would know if you saw such a group, even if no one specifically told you, the organizers/members of that group believe the distinction is significant enough to warrant the separation. They would be, whether they knew or wanted to be or not, toenail-lengthists, or at the very least, participating willingly in toenail-lengthism.
Class analysis and racism are the same, folks. I too am shocked, but you can’t lie on the Internet, so here we are.
As a cis man, I think very lowly of men-only groups. Usually (from my admittedly limited experience) if a group goes out of their way to identify as “men-only,” the people there tend to be the kind of men who are very misogynistic and generally insufferable to be around, even for other men. Any group genuinely focused on the hobby or culture they claim to identify with wouldn’t really care about your gender.
Women-only groups though, I tend to sympathize with and respect a lot more, and IMO they are the symptom of the West being a heavily male dominated society rather than an innate desire among women to be exclusionary. If the world didn’t revolve around men and had genuine gender equality, there probably wouldn’t be a need for many women only groups either, but that’s unfortunately not the world we live in.
I can’t really speak on trans/nonbinary exclusion though because I have no personal experience being on the business end of it. I try to only participate in groups where they don’t care about your gender to begin with.
I was in a men’s group once for a few sessions, we talked about everything from anger issues, how to work on improving ourselves, how to handle rough parts of it relationships etc.
It was very nice, we were all very different people with different backgrounds and problems and I believe we all got a lot out of just opening up in a group like this.
This was hosted by the Swedish organisation Man which exists to help men with all the issues modern men are facing, hoping to combat toxic masculinity.
Personally I think a mixed group would’ve worked for me but I am pretty sure some of the people, especially the ones with violent history, felt more secure in a men’s only scenario.
On the flip side, I think men could use more men’s groups because male loneliness is problematic. Women don’t want to feel responsible for men’s loneliness (rightly so), so the natural solution is men need to do better at making friends with men. The problem is doing it in a healthy way
That said, I would suggest the solution is hobby groups without gender exclusion. Like carpentry, basketball, knitting, dance, ballet. Hobbies seem to self select.
Most of my hobbies are female dominated in my conservative area.
good point, but I fear that just creating male only spaces will not solve the problem with male loneliness. as can be seen in x-pill communities.
what men need to heal male loneliness is learn about how patrairchy has shaped their fathers & generations beyond, and how they haven’t learned to approach emotions in a healthy way.
a good book I HIGHLY recommend men to read is Bell Hooks - “The will to change”
she explains what damage patriarchy did to men and how to access and feel emoti8ns fully
I wish for all men to be seen fully in your entire vulnerability. we’re waiting for you.
I agree. I think hobbies are a good middle ground and neutral.
It would be nice if men wrote more books like that. The only men who would listen to a women tell them how to change are probably not the target audience.
I can only say be the change you want to see. It creates a chain reaction that will eventually reach men that wouldn’t touch the book.
even a small step in the right direction of confronting patriarchy will have powerful results.
I think there’s a parallel with other social clubs, too.
My medication kicked in while writing this and it shows. TLDR: in Germany, there are various social clubs including international cultural exchange groups (generally composed of immigrants/children of immigrants and Germans in a roughly 2:1 ratio) and clubs based around specific countries open only or mostly to immigrants from those or neighboring countries (whether openly or simply through convention, selection bias, and social pressure). The former are fun and the latter tend to be toxic unless there’s currently a large wave of immigration/refugees from the country they represent in Germany, in which case they can help coordinate resources and support, as well as help people deal with culture shock and the trauma of needing to flee their home country.
I’m an American immigrant in Germany. I love international groups and being able to bond with people about dealing with German bureaucracy as a non-native. I have zero interest in American emigrant groups.
In international groups, we do make fun of Germany, but it’s not mean spirited. We also commiserate about the actively negative aspects of living in Germany as an immigrant. In American groups, I suspect it would turn into U-S-A chants or something similar.
International groups here welcome Germans as a rule, whereas for groups for specific nationalities, it tends to be limited to people who can speak the language.
There’s a real need served by national groups for brand new immigrants who are overwhelmed by everything being different (often significantly more different than Germany is for an American), and they’re great for creating a sense of community that can be helpful for short term immigrants (though they can hamper long term integration).
I suspect I’ll warm up to American groups as a way to give new immigrants a crash course on German culture if we get a wave of American refugees in the next couple of years, because those are the demographics (large groups of people temporarily displaced from the same country who all come at once) that tend to benefit from these type of groups.
I’ve been told that national groups for Arab countries tend to be full of either bitter, unpleasant people and/or gay people and blatant alcohol drinkers, because everyone else just meets at the mosque. Although given that I have no first hand experience and the person telling me about it only has experience with a handful of cities, it may not be accurate for the rest of the country.
As a woman, I don’t tend to care too much about gendered groups. I’m of the opinion that if somebody doesn’t want me there, I don’t want to be there.
Depending on the context of the group, there’s a valid reason for their existence, for example pregnancy groups (probably sex-exclusive though?) as I don’t really see what a male/man would get out of it.
I’m sure similarly valid groups exist for men, but I can’t think of any right now.
I tend to be more okay with women’s only spaces just because they feel safe – due to certain men displaying overt and unwanted sexual desires and seemingly just unable to control themselves, which can be uncomfortable or trigger traumas – so naturally I believe men should be entitled to their own spaces as well.
If the purpose of the group is that they’re sexiest, I honestly don’t know why the opposite gender would want to hang around them anyway.
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.
Not every men’s group is a shitty stereotype.
determine the relative “okayness” in an individual case
Well, yeah?
OP asked the question in general terms, I answered in general terms. With more specific information you can make a more specific judgement. That’s why I said “stereotype, not rule” and separated is vs ought?
I don’t need to list out every possible reason someone might want a gendered group to show that there is a valid reason. Instead just give one. In fact I avoided talking about domestic abuse shelters exactly to avoid this sort of ‘whataboutism’.
The comment you replied to is just “not all men!,” but group-flavored. You’re right to call it whataboutism.
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.
