[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.
“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.
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.
“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.”
My rpg club took the incdusivity road in the 2010, and is now a very inclusive/diverse place. We do have the blue haired enbies that riqht winger hate, and some old players who after acouple of beer starts complaining about RPG becoming woke (An inclusive place means they’re welcome too)
We do have a couple of women only group and a point someone launched a men only table. While we had one of the old player complaining about the women only game, no blue haired enby complained about the men only game. So I have the impression that this whole women only space are OK, men only space aren’t is some bullshit.
Note that, this worked becaused the gender specific game include people identifying as this gender, are the exception, and have a justification. It’s not I don’t like wo•man so I want only a gender but * I want a game exploring masculinity/feminity and therefore will limit the cast gender*
That last sentence hits pretty hard. Like why would anyone want to be involved with something they don’t understand and/or care about?
This is dancing around the Karl Popper paradox of tolerance, but it sounds like your RPG club would draw the line somewhere and kick out someone acting blatantly disrrspectful.
It sounds like in this specific case, men wanting a male only group would be in a minority, so it makes sense that women and non binary folx wouldn’t feel disturbed by that. Vs. a men-only bar that all the business people go to or something, where exclusion would be the group in power enforcing their power.
This thread is the best evidence of why Men’s groups exist.
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
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.
By most measures, I’m a pretty stereotypically “manly” guy, and you can say pretty much the same thing about most of my male friends.
I’ve never really felt as though a woman being present in any way impeded anything we were doing. If anything it improved things in a “the more the merrier” kind of way. As long as they’re ok with the cigar smoke, fart jokes, having to pee outside, etc. anyone is welcome to participate in our bullshit.
But I do feel like we can get in the way of women bonding and venting it the ways they need and want to. The old “it’s not about the nail” kind of thing.
And of course, there’s a whole lot of guys who are just dangerous toxic assholes who probably shouldn’t be allowed to be around women in general, but trying to figure out which ones can and can’t be trusted is a tall order and it’s a lot easier to just say “women only.”
So I don’t really see much point in men-only spaces, but I do see it for women-only spaces.
There’s some exceptions, sure, like men who have certain kinds of trauma that involve women may need some safe places to work that out. And it’s not that women can’t also be dangerous, toxic assholes, but in terms of numbers, severity, and actual risk, things are kind of on a different level than with men, so it’s easier to deal with that on a case-by-case basis.
What does it’s not about the nail refer to?
I know it as a reference to this video.
In my marriage this is often reversed. I find myself telling my wife, sometimes, “It’s not about the nail!”
Can you help me understand what the video means?
It seems like the guy is right that the nail is causing her the problems, but the woman is right that the guy keeps interrupting her?
I don’t always pick up on social things like this.
Frequently when someone complains about something they are looking not for a solution, but for commiseration. They want the other person to connect with and empathize with them.
This isn’t inherently gendered, but the stereotype is that men always try to fix a woman’s problem without really hearing her.
The video makes the cause extremely obvious on purpose, both because it’s funny and also because in practice it often does seem obvious to the person listening. But learning to empathize before offering solutions is a really important step in learning to communicate, because humans are emotional beings and can feel like our problems are being minimized if the response to them is a solution.
Thank you <3
No problem! Before my wife and I got married our counselor showed us this video and explained it the same way, and it’s been very useful for both of us to be able to gently correct the other by saying, “it’s not about the nail.”
Lol for me personally this mental image would be counterproductive because if someone really did have a nail in their head, I’m calling 911 first and listening to them 2nd while 911 is on the way. We are literally trained to do this for any emergency. (The patient can always decline EMS but we don’t want them to arrive too late.)
But I agree for non-emergencies its good to let people speak uninterrupted and not push solutions, while recognizing your own boundaries and frustrations (if the other person is not trying an obvious solution).
“Gender is cringe and we should get rid of it”
On a more serious note: I do not think that groups that define themselves in terms of exclusion are very good long-term. And neither do I think that issues of social inequality or discrimination are solved through segregation.
Especially when it comes to gender we see huge cultural divides and I think we’d have a lot healthier a society if we could share more understanding.
In particular I don’t think that exclusion based on gender or sex characteristics can build a healthy community. Not an egalitarian at least.
The same way that white-exclusive or black-exclusive groups would be pretty corrosive to a society where people of either skin colour coexist.
Furthermore I’d argue that this kind of strict segregation of people along gender lines into specific roles and social groups is how a lot of sexism is (historically and contemporarily) maintained.
I firmly believe that the only way to achieve the society we want, is to live it. How are we going to have temporary measures now but trust me, in the far future we’ll fix this (if the measures are not temporary you’re just engaging in principled discrimination imo) if we want a more equal society we should live it, fight for it, be the more equal society.
I want a more equal society.
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’.
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.
freedom of assembly and association
I think males naturally create their own exclusive spaces, and as such, I think women deserve to have theirs.
One of my first comments here was asking as a male if my input was welcome in a women’s community. I was told it was not, so I didn’t say anything else.
And despite not being trans myself, I have been welcomed in a few of the trans communities here.
I try not to be bothered by being excluded. Why would I want to be involved, if I’m not welcomed?
I would think the core difference is how testosterone and estrogen affect us differently.
Testosterone makes people more physically aggressive, meatheads if you will. Estrogen makes people more mentally aggressive, intellectuals if you will. (Note that by aggressive I mean dominant and engaging in form of activeness rather than purely violent.)
So when puberty kicks in, usually, boys get much more physical and girls less as they are more attuned to the dangers involved. This leads to a somewhat natural separation between the two.
The meatheads are far more likely to do dumb shit than the intellectuals, but the intellectuals are also far more likely to distance themselves from the meatheads due to that dumb shit. Which is why, in my momentary opinion, the sensible thing to do is to more closely manage the levels of testosterone and estrogen levels where they are more moderately balanced so as there will be no need for either fear or exclusion due to our differences.
Biological Essentialism my dude, that’s simply not true.
What’s not true? And what is true instead?
The amount of effect on mentality based on hormones is far far far far less of an effect than you state.
Most evidence points to the main effect coming from society, and not from biology
So what are you saying? The trans state of mind is less biological impulse and more societal pressure?
Don’t be silly. That’s too far the exact opposite way.
I’m stating that you’ve oversimplified an incredibly complex process, and there’s is no singular thing which affects behaviours that is provably linked to hormones.
Hormones do not act alone. No one factor is responsible for sex and gender differences; rather, a number of genetic, hormonal, physiological, and experiential factors operating at different times during development result in the phenotype called an individual
Thanks for clarifying.
No.
This post has clearly brought up a lot of interesting discussion. I just want to add my thoughts…
I never thought of myself as someone who would benefit from male-only spaces as I tend to not like men, but in my mid 20s I started going to bars and clubs oriented towards gay men because I was exploring my sexuality.
I found that often these places have a strong sense of community and camaraderie that I have grown to see as quite sacred. Part of this sense of community is rooted in a shared experience of our gender identity and sexual identity.
Sometimes having women in these spaces could ruin the vibe and sometimes having women in these spaces had no negative effect or was even positive. It really depends on the attitude of women coming into those spaces. Are they there to gawk? Are they there to seek community?
If you made a blanket rule banning women I think it would be very detrimental. For example there are trans men who havent come to terms with this yet, and cutting them out of a space like this is bad.
It would also be disingenuous to claim only women were the ones ruining the vibe. Some men are creeps, controlling, judgmental etc.
To me the important thing isn’t that we ban non-men from entering into the space and say it’s a men-only place. That excludes people who would be good to have there and doesn’t guarantee you remove all of the bad people from coming. But I do think it’s important to have spaces that we say are for men. This is a place for men that caters to men and if are not a man don’t expect it to cater to your needs.
It’s like if you have a Mexican restaurant in the United States oriented towards serving Mexican customers. You can go there even there even if you’re not Mexican, but it’s disrespectful to get angry if people don’t speak English well.
There are always both men and women, who, upon finding out that a space exists that isn’t for them decide to try and enter those spaces out of protest. I think in most cases it’s probably best to let these people in. Either they will acclimate to the culture or they will get bored and stop going eventually. I know that this will make the space less safe or comfortable feeling for some people, but there’s literally no way to have community without also having people be part of that community that are sometimes unsafe or uncomfortable to have around.
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 overtly 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.
My personal preference is mixed groups, but if someone wants a gender-exclusive safe space that’s their business and I don’t think that should be denied to them. 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.
