Longing, longing for female only spaces

never

Night feeds and childcare etc are women's work, and it's only right that women get on and talk about that so as to be better at it and make life easier for their male partners doing important work, but having political discussion? That's having ideas above our station. Somebody's got to come and put us in our place.

Few men seem as interested in offering support about night feeds or advice on children being bullied in schools as they do in waxing lyrical about feminism

Ha, that's very true. I see us lot out and about on various other threads though - sleeping, feeding, funny, whatever - ridiculous how the idea of women talking together lures them in, isn't it.

hangry I know what you mean too.

I've got a group of brilliant women friends (on FB and in RL thought the two circles don't seem to overlap). I work in a male dominated profession too but am also lucky enough to have a few fantastic women colleagues. My male friends and colleagues are all very nice but it's not the same thing, is it?

WI
Towns Women's Guild
Soroptimists
National Women's Register
Girl Guiding

Women's only holidays - also, I've been on yoga holidays, and most of those (but not all) have been women-only, though not by design.
Women's only gyms
Women's only swimming sessions

Good to hear about your tech director. Do you have a women's network at work? I find that helps with work being so male dominated. I work in IT, and the last few months have been on secondment to another department, which is all women, and such a breath of fresh air after so many years where I've been the only woman in the room.

It occurred to me something which is quite popular nowadays. Why not a female gym?

Irrelevant for most of the people here, but I joined a thai boxing forum that had a woman's only subsection and to be able to even view that section you had to link your facebook to your account (privately, only the moderators could see it) so they could quickly check you are female. I thought it was a good idea, even if a less extreme version was used and men could view but not post, that would still be good.

Few men seem as interested in offering support about night feeds or advice on children being bullied in schools as they do in waxing lyrical about feminism

Quite.

I know what you mean, hangry. For instance, when every other post on a thread is by a bloke, you'd think they might realise they were taking up a disproportionate amount of air time, but, no... apparently the thread is all about them.

I wander around in a few areas of MN and have to say that the FWR seems to attract male posters, and especially mansplainers, more so than any other area. Few men seem as interested in offering support about night feeds or advice on children being bullied in schools as they do in waxing lyrical about feminism.

I found a local feminist group via Meetup, they also have a social group for women. I'm not sure if men aren't allowed to join or just haven't tried but in the year I've been going along I've never seen any.

And it's not a case of being exclusive, sometimes it's nice to be able to talk or debate without being mansplained, or having to explain why some issues are important to women. I would guess that if a man came along and was respectful and prepared to listen most of us would welcome him; if he tried to tell us how to do feminism he'd get the chipped mug and the soggy biscuits.

It's difficult because as soon as you start saying that you want a female only space and publicising that, you're going to get a load of males who identify as women loudly demanding to be included. It'd have to be some kind of secret underground women's network for it not to be infiltrated 😔

Meet-up is pretty good, actually. I've met some lovely people through there.

That reminds me, if you fancy a women-only holiday and like walking you could get yourself along to the Women's Holiday Centre at Horton in the Yorkshire Dales.

Equity is not the same as equality.
Personally, I'm after equity.

Or try Meetup

Oh come on. There are women-only activities that are based around more than domestic skills. How about Walking Women - you could go on tough hiking holidays in the Alps with them if you wanted to. I'm sure there are women-only cycling clubs too.

I have to say this idea that feminists fancy some women-only spaces suggests that its not actually 'equality' that they're after. Imagine how up in arms you'd be if you couldn't join the local archery club because 'it's men only'.

Set up a women only feminist group if your local one is mixed.
My feminist group has male and female members and runs a mixed book group but our core meetings are women only.
Every few months we get men emailing us complaining so we always say 'if members would like to set up mixed meetings to run in addition to our all women ones they are very welcome to' but nobody ever does.
It is honestly very easy to get things off the ground. It starts off with you alone in a coffee shop at a regular time and gradually more people find you.
It's easy on the internet to get the idea you'll be burnt as a witch but the witch burners never bother to show up in real life.

Do you not have any female friends? Your post seems a bit rants and irrational to me. Do something which is more female orientated and make some female friends.

Get thee to a nunnery?

Plenty of female only topics in MN- hang around Good Housekeeping, Arts and Craft, Style and Beauty, Home decoration, Infant Feeding, extra-curricular, primary education, Food/recipes, gardening... never see any (known to be) male posters there. Can't imagine why...

It's like MN of old. Y'know, people having conversations and helping one another, not having bunfights.

Of course Auntie but when it's a bloke in FWR arguing about the tenets of feminism and constantly turning the subject matter to what he wants to talk about, I question his motivation and reserve the right to be irritated by his ubiquitous presence in what I consider to be a primarily female space.

Another recommendation for the WI. Or volunteer for Girlguiding - it's all about offering positive role models for girls and young women.

Posters - of either sex - can take up as much airtime as they like in any topic they want. That's part of the point of open, largely unmoderated sites (other sites are available, as they would say on BBC).

Personally, I'd like to see posters choosing which topic to post in somewhat more carefully. But if ever I post that I know I'm likely to get flamed - even the mildest suggestion of a better topic can lead to extremely vocal flaming as thread police.