Women dominated/women only spaces

In my experience, any man who has a toddleresque ( great word) response to female only spaces is probably a bit me me ME like a toddler. When they hear that this is pretty silly behaviour and possibly they need to develop a bit more empathy, they often sulk - which proves the point.

I went to a mixed sex school, and a quite conservative (catholic) one at that, but they actually bent over backwards to get an even gender split, in anything from math, languages standard stuff over home economics to IT, i.e. encouraged boys to do home economics as much as girls to do IT. I never felt held back.

The first time I really realised that girls where doing sciency and math things less often was when I decided to study engineering.

Strange how different different people's experiences are. I guess I was quite lucky.

I'm really intrigued by the comments about girls' schools. I went to a mixed school and never considered the benefits of a single-sex education from this perspective. A bit of an eye-opener!

i work in a girls' school and it is amazing

they have no idea how privileged they are to be the default, to not have to fight to be heard, to not have subjects that 'aren't for girls'...and that in itself is fabulous too, the not knowing any other way

I discovered Mumsnet during the joyous period that we were living together until the divorce came through. STBXH would ask "Are you talking about me?" and the answer was "Yes, of course I am", even if I wasn't.

Can't remember who it was, probably Oscar Wilde, who said the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

This thread reminds me of a conversation with DH a week or two ago:

DH: Are you on MN again? Are you all talking about your husbands?

Me: No, that would be boring. There are lots of other topics to discuss

DH: Are you sure you're not secretly bitching about me?

Me: No, I do that with my RL friends (not true actually if I have a problem I talk to him about it)

Goodness me, that Harvard study has made me quite teary. I went to a university which had tuition in very small groups, and wasted three years in terrified silence. All my tutors and most of my peers were male. I guess I totally conformed to the norms identified in the study.

What I want to know is: how can I bring up my DD to be less "female" in her behaviour? I want her to have self-esteem, as well as respect for others, and I want her to be able to fight her corner in mixed spaces. I'm going to start a new thread, in fact (if she stays asleep) as this is quite a tangent to the OP

Thanks everybody. I knew we would get the answer within minutes SweetTheSting!

I would love to see it in action it must be funny (although probably a bit depressing too...).

Oh, didn't put in the link! here it is

There's this study "Women and Men in the Classroom" - a Harvard study from a few years ago. Well worth a read.

I bring it up in every class I teach as part of my opening/introductory talk about how the class works and what I expect from them. (I teach Freshers). I ask them to think about who gets the most airtime in our discussion seminars, and ask them to self-monitor to encourage everyone to be heard.

I don't think it always (often?!) works, exactly, but it's important for them to know that it happens like that. And it usually provokes good discussion!

Hi Beachcomber That is Dale Spender's party trick. I've witnessed it in action and is quite funny watching the toddleresque tantrums that the men resort to.

Thanks, Beachcomber, we are thinking of the same thing, I'm sure.

A variation on this can be seen on places like the BBC message boards where there are Colonel Blimps complaining that the BBC has been feminised with women taking most of the top jobs.. in fact of course that isn't true at all. Men still take the majority of the top jobs at the BBC.

SweetTheSting, there was a woman lecturer who did an experiment in her class - she only let the men speak/ask questions for the time that women generally speak for in these situations.

The men were putting their hands up to speak but she ignored them in favour of women. It was done to highlight how uneven these things are - the men hated it and got really angry. Sorry I don't remember the details any more than that! Someone will be along later with better info no doubt soon - I first read about it on here.

I think another reason that some men feel threatened by women's spaces is because they think we are hatching world domination. You know those deluded sorts who think because women want not to be oppressed, that that means we want to oppress men.

I think this is in part because they are unable to conceive of a society without a binary gender hierarchy. They are not able to frame things other than in a submission/domination dynamic. Which is pretty fucked up thinking.

Thanks for that link, Dworkin, loved it.

Welcome to FWR!

I think men (and women) 'judge' that women are more dominant than they are in a mixed discussion also. Someone posted something on here recently (but can't find it on a quick search) which was a survey of some group discussions in an academic session and both men and women thought women spoke more than 50% when in fact women had spoken less than half the time.

Doulas for men???? Brilliant! Male ones, presumably, so they can, y'know, assert their essential male-ness in the female dominated space of childbirth? Which is where you came in, OP rapidly followed by [head desk]

also, lol @ doulas for men.

I don't think it's that they're threatened by any old women-only space, you hear of the odd occasional cry of sexism over women-only swimming sessions but you don't hear about women-only swimming sessions being the root of an evil feminist conspiracy to destroy all men.

It's women led organisations, and women's spaces which are powerful and listened to and effective in what they do.

Doulas for men! WTF?!