Asklemmy

"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.

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.

This thread is the best evidence of why Men's groups exist.

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

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.

Since this part of the premise is obviously incorrect, there is no point in discussing it further

freedom of assembly and association

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.

“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.

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.

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

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.

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)

Yes and I don't care about the rest of the culture war.

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.

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.

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.

Sure, of course they are.

I'll even go so far as to say that even more fine grained groups are okay. What becomes a problem is when every group excludes people that really shouldn't be.

You get a chess club, why the fuck can't a woman join? Right? Calling it a men's club is just exclusionary for no purpose. Even the girl/boy Scout divide was pointless in any real sense, and was a missed opportunity for those scouts to have guidance on how a scout is supposed to treat others.

Hell, when it comes right down to it, even a specific cis organization is fine, just the way trans specific ones are. The problem, again, is when a club is exclusionary just for the sake of it.

We all have aspects of our lives that aren't shared by people with other genders and/or types of genitals. There's struggles and discrete experiences that a trans man can have that I never will, and vice versa.

But, again, once it ceases to be about that kind of specificity, it starts being bigotry in disguise and needs to fuck right off. Ain't no good reason women shouldn't be allowed into things like community action groups. A gender division there is just pointless and stupid. If they also exclude trans men, it's as bad (maybe even worse).

Hell, the masons are full of shit in that regard. Fraternal orders are hypothetically okay, but since when have the masons actually been about men sharing the unique aspects of life that men share? It's just exclusionary bullshit (and I've seen it from the inside, so I know it's utter bullshit). They're the best example of how not to be a gender based organization.

I'm not saying that men shouldn't be able to gather and just hang out. We should, as should women. There really is a different vibe, and there's no way around that. But once you start organizing that on a bigger scale, you have a different threshold to meet.

Since, historically, most of the men's organizations not only excluded women, but actively served to continue oppression of women, being a de facto patriarchal enforcement group, those groups get the worst attention. They weren't really men's groups, they were power control groups that men only could use to gain, maintain, and exploit control. That's why there's pushback on them, not the fact that they were/are gendered.

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.

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.