Young dependent male children in women's only spaces?

No one is saying that - if your 8 year old isnt ready, use the family or the disabled - ask the center staff for the best solution - just dont assume that its ok and girls should as usual be made to accomadate . Most kids are ready hence it being the age that in my experiance most leisure centers use. And as for women shelters its the lack of money for decent buildings and sufficient support workers that are at fault not femenists or indeed traumatised vunerable women who want a man fre space for just a short time.

Bertrand on page 2 or so there was a flurry of "mothers of boys who fear sending their sons into the mens or boys of 8 who actually can't cope in the men's alone should stay at home for a few years" type posts... thread took a more reasonable turn again after that but there has been quite a lot of "an 8 year old should be able to..." posting throughout the thread... Perhaps those are what Honeybadger is referring to.

"the utter calousness towards single mothers of a young boy and the mocking and ridiculing of women being uncomfortable of the safety of male toilets and changing spaces (by women who don't even a single male to trans in an adult changing space) is shameful. 8yo boys, our boys, can just deal with it. adult women oh no the risk is to great."

Can I ask- where is the mocking and ridicule? Or the suggestion that adult women are at risk?

Is it possible that people are reading the extreme views the OP is quoting from her Tumblr excursion and attributing them to posters on here?

i'm finding the hypocrisy stunning also - your child doesn't read at 8 DON'T worry children develop differently. your child isn't ready to go alone into an unknown space full of stranger males naked - that's ridiculous he SHOULD do it and you're a crap parent because he isn't ready.

agreed but would add there also needs to be understanding of the women who do not have men in their lives and are raising their child/ren completely alone. when you exclude boys you totally exclude the single mothers of boys (and indeed the non single ones who get zero support with childcare from their partners anyway)

Elizabeth, those women are expected to either stay with their abusers or go elsewhere.

HoneyBadger.. I really hope you reconsider and do post here, I find your contributions really useful.

I suspect these women would expect the boys live with abusive fathers they probably think like father like son or some such shite

OP, what do those who don't want boys in refuges suggest happens to the boys?

Actually the refuge issue reminds me of a refugee issue...

We are in Germany, the state with the most refugees. Some of my fb friends volunteer at refugee reception centres, and others donate things and make in some cases very useful contributions and in others what seems like quite well meaning but misguided projects (there was a big thing on handbags for refugee women, and the people in actual contact pointed out that they already have far too much to carry and are having valuables confiscated in order to qualify to receive aid, but these "realists" were shot down by people wanting to give refugee women "a bit of luxury...")

There was a big burst of enthusiasm on our support for refugees fb page for only allowing women and boys under 12 into the country after the Cologne attacks... it sits uncomfortably with me as the mother of an 8 year old boy - but also a 10 year old girl... Obviously it is not ever going to be a real, workable option not to allow male refugees, but I was taken aback by the almost universal agreement that would be ideal. Awkward, difficult topic to think about...

I think a lot of people have tried to justify it by saying they're worried about their daughters, not adult women. Apparently female children are more deserving of protection than male children of the same age.

PrincessTeacake a couple of people mentioned refuges before we all got obsessed with swimming pools :o Obviously a much more urgent issue!

Obviously if a mother couldn't take any boy children into a refuge with her that would be insane - not even a baby/ toddler/ preschooler? What is she supposed to do with them? Obviously that would lead to most women whose children happen to have been born male just staying with abusive partners, rather than abandon their tiny children!

Surely the Tumblr posters arguing for no male children in women's refuges are actually arguing for a situation that would create more male abusers, as those male children would remain, with or without their mother, with the abusive father and copy his behaviour, repeating the cycle of abuse, instead of having the chance to break it if their mum escapes to a refuge with them, especially if they are young enough or sensitive enough to the reality of the situation/ not brainwashed by the father and able to be "on their mother's side".

thing is i actually am a radical feminist and yet even i am put off of returning to the feminist boards (used to be a frequent user years ago) by this thread.

the utter calousness towards single mothers of a young boy and the mocking and ridiculing of women being uncomfortable of the safety of male toilets and changing spaces (by women who don't even a single male to trans in an adult changing space) is shameful. 8yo boys, our boys, can just deal with it. adult women oh no the risk is to great.

if we were telling mothers they are irrational to not want to send their girls unaccompanied into a male changing room at 8 they'd be up in arms - yet boys - fuck 'em. why? do you really believe 8yo male children are less vulnerable?

and at my male child now being compared to male to trans adults ffs.

I'm on Tumblr, OP, what Radfem blogs would you recommend? I'm happy to show some support if you need it!

I think boys of 8/9/10 should be in their own loos and changing rooms (10 feels better for me but i am happy with the others)

I am very disappointed that a number of posters on here seem to be dismissing a womans fears of sexual assault or rape...of their boys

Of course not all men are rapists or child molesters but there are cases of boys being raped or assualted in male toilets

I appreciate that older boys shouldnt be in womens spaces...i agree with this completely, but it feels like some people are saying that it doesn't happen so stop making a fuss

And again i know that its not all posters and maybe its just my impression of the tone

BertrandRussell it is not all about anxieties and insecurities though - the "NT" thing isn't always clear cut, and there are children with anxiety or possibly undiagnosed SN who can't quite organise themselves to get changed and their things put away in a locker and find their way through to the pool at 8, in an unfamiliar setting especially... Plenty of 8 year olds would struggle to go alone into a changing room and get sorted. Plenty wouldn't - mine wouldn't now, but he was quite anxious a couple of years ago and looked 8, although he wasn't... I remember a time when he would pretend to have been to the toilet, if pushed (usually by DH) to "stop being so stupid and just go into the mens on your own, you don't need mummy all the time" - it wasn't about the mens being full of men, per se, it was about it being a very unfamiliar, alien space full of adults he didn't know ... he would go in and come straight back out claiming he'd used the toilet in 0.2 seconds, and then squirm in agony til finally marched back with a parent to one toilet or another.

I can imagine a child being like that at 8 - I am glad it was just a phase for mine, but the phase might last longer for others or actually not be a phase and be part of a bigger picture of anxiety or disabilities the parents haven't quite figured out / got diagnosed. Plenty of high functioning autism, for example, isn't diagnosed until well after the age of 8... and as I said before things like dispraxia can mean a child might not cope at 8, might at 9 or 10... but hardly justify using a disabled changing room especially if there are "more" disabled pool users....

"In the old days" kids took themselves to the pool at 6 and would have been mortified to be accompanied or whatever - yes. I am quite a fan of old fashioned child hood in some ways - my kids play out, get themselves to school by bus, stay home alone, at ages I think appropriate (usually younger than MN says) but I appreciate not every kid can do that at identical ages. Way back when presumably a lot of kids then just didn't go to the pool, couldn't do the bus journey, would have lost their pool entrance fee or got off at the wrong stop long before negotiating the changing room, so stayed at home and missed out, as some posters advocate mothers of certain boys should do now...

"This thread has just made me deeply uncomfortable. Is this what feminism is all about?"

Well, sometimes, frankly, yes! Feminism isn't easy. It means thinking about all sorts of things we'd rather not think about, and challenging our own attitudes and assumptions.

I genuinely don't see why anyone would have a problem with a NT 8 year old going into the right gendered changing room, but I understand that some people do. I just think that the right of girls to have a woman only space, (and boys to have a men only space for that matter) is important enough for people to get over their anxieties. I also think that it's not fair on men (not a phrase I have used much in my life to be honest!) to give children the idea that they are likely to be paedophiles.

Swimming unsupervised is 7 here so long as they know how to swim.

Don't know about changing for PE in school - they use the gym which has changing rooms but the changing rooms aren't actually separated by gender so not sure what they do. I take DD to the gym for gym club and everyone changes together in one of the changing rooms, once some man was taking a shower in there when we came in and quickly went and hid round the corner of the shower area

If that's aimed at me, Lurcio, that wasn't my intent. I said upthread that family/unisex changing rooms are the best solution.

Unfortunately the concerns of both groups overlap. Will hide thread for a bit, then.

Yes I have thought 'time to do things differently'.

To make space for others. Which I will do as I have no wish or desire to make anyone feel uncomfortable when getting changed. I am aware how vulnerable people can feel.

There is however no consideration for how uncomfortable that makes me feel. Apparently I should be fine with it, or not take him swimming or campaign for better provision.

So someone else is entirely happy with their son using the men's changing room. Or whipping off a towel by the side of the pool. So I should be too. Despite the fact that for me the former is not something I am comfortable with or the latter, even if allowed, would be humiliating for my son.

Yes I am embarrassed that I hadn't thought or noticed this earlier. I guess hadn't noticed in my rush to get them in the pool for lessons and out again that my actions might offend someone. So yes I will change what I am doing.

This thread has just made me deeply uncomfortable. Is this what feminism is all about? A safe place for women provided she isn't bringing male children over the age of eight

It seems like I'm going to be the 'in my day we didn't do it like that' poster.

When I was 7 or 8 (late 60's) I would never go swimming with my parents, just with my mates.

I have wonderful memories of summer 1969 swimming just about every day in my local pool (about 1/2 a mile away). I would have been mortified to use the women's changing room

What do people do on a beach? I'd say they use common sense!

Tilder- but you read the thread and though "Oh yes, wow, I hadn't thought of that- time to change the way we do things" which is great. I still don't know why you feel you won't come back.