women at Girton College Cambridge aren’t allowed 1 hour out of 83 hours to swim in a female only environment

How exactly does you kind of feminism encourage women to be strong,@lucydo? All you seem to be doing is making it clear that women are responsible for any issues they encounter and responsible for sorting them out. And they are weak if they haven't been able to do that.

ecumenical what did the pool attendants do when you complained about this behaviour?
wonderblah thank you for your great post. Just when I though nobody on this board had a sense of humour. this has not gone unnoticed. Hilarious.
But, in the end, isn't it sad that, back in the day, Feminism was about women being strong, and encouraging other women to be strong. A man challenges you? Challenge him back. What is to be gained from being weak, and enabling other women to be weak?

StarlightLady
What's really regressive and Victorian is (some) men's behaviour and attitude to women. When that changes (i.e. never) then there will be no need for women only spaces but until then they are necessary for safety and comfort/dignity. It's not a matter of 'pandering' to outdated segregation, it's a fact of life for women that (some) men pose a threat to us and, while that is the case, it is totally reasonable to want to protect ourselves from that threat. The problem is men and yet women are still somehow 'wrong' for our reaction to their behaviour?

Urgh crunchermuncher what is it about saunas that draws the sleezy men out from under the rocks?

Sorry I should have explained about the men pushing women out of lanes thing. They dont physically push them, they block the lane by swimming down the middle, block the full end of the lane so she cant turn, ridiculous exaggerated arm movements whilst swimming and splashing which miraculously stops when shes moved lanes.

I'm not too bothered about swimming with men but I've given up using the sauna facilities at the local leisure centre due to inappropriate behaviour from random men practically every time I went there (leering, staring, sitting too close, trying to chat when Id made it clear i didn't want to interact etc)

Why is it so difficult for some people to understand that other people may feel differently to them?

Why not turn your disapproval on to the men who make womenfeel uncomfortable and the society that enables this , rather than the women who want some time out from feeling intimidated? Pretending you're ok with something you're not is not healthy. Why should they have to do that, just because you're fine with it?

Isn't that the basis for all kinds of coercion and trampling on boundaries?

I swim alot, and have done for years, at many pools, public and private. I've never seen any evidence of male harrassment. Ever.

Lucydo I used to swim a lot, I had a man shout and scream at me when i dared to swim faster than him - he was a slow poke in the medium/fast lane and funnily enough he said fuck all to the man (who was bigger than hin) who had just left our lane. We get a lot of men wuth fragile egis who cant handle a woman swimming faster than him, I've seen other men deliberately try to push women out of the fast lanes even though its the men who arent fast.

Another man was staring at me whilst i swam, then followed me into the near empty changing village by who took the shower right next to me (theres 3 separate group showers with 8 shower heads in each) , then he went into the cubicle next to me (despite like the showers, I'd chosen a cubicle that wasnt the easiest one to walk to, to trst if he was following me) and then he proceeded to push loads of his clothes under my side of the cubicle - I had strong suspicions he was either trying to sneak his phone hidden in the clothes or as a distraction to film me over the top. I legged it sharpish as it was dark and i didn't want to face this guy alone in a dark empty car park.

Then there was a group of about 4 or 5 men who were taking it turns to go under the water to leer at women in the pool then loudly laugh and talk about the women's bodies amongst each other.

I don’t give a flying fuck if some women think that other women shouldn’t have female spaces, because of XYZ. It’s not up to you to police these women and tell them that their feelings are wrong, if they want a space away from men. The only issue I would have is the fact that it isn’t actually a female swim. It is a woke mixed swim.

I would have no problem with a
female swim,
female/non binary swim,
male swim,
male/non binary swim.

There is a fucking avalanche of shit sandwich posts on this board of late.

I'm on your side but ... shit shit your thinking shit ... but totes on your side as long as you know your wrong ok?

It has not gone unnoticed.

There are many reasons for single sex swim sessions. It is important that facilities who refuse women their right to single sex spaces are made accountable.

The world is mixed (genders). Work places are mixed. Beaches are mixed in the UK, Restaurants and bars are mixed.

And yes, I would complain about not being able to go swimming because I had been locked out by a men only session. I am not going to support double standards.

I'm not sure anyone objects to men only sessions, do they? I don't, although their reasons may be very different.

A fundamental principle of feminism is surely being able to freely associate without the enforced presence of men IF wanted.

And I think it unlikely that the Girton College swimming pool women's hour is driven by patriarchal men forcing segregation on their wives and banning mixed swimming.

It falls neatly into the category of occasions when being in a state of complete or partial undress in the presence of men might reasonably discourage some women from participation at all. Applies across the gamut from smear tests to changing rooms to certain sporting activities.

It certainly doesn't affect all women, plenty are not concerned.
But forcing compulsory male presence on other women in intimate or vulnerable circumstances is not in any way feminism.
Women self-exclude for very valid reasons.
And suggesting their only options are suck it up or miss out entirely is not on. Other options are available. Like one hour a week to put a cozzie on without the fellas around and have a swim you wouldn't have otherwise been able to enjoy.

Women not did not only fight for us to have the vote, they also are still fighting for us to be equal amoung men.

In my view, All women's’ sessions are equivalent to what you find in totalitarian regimes. Then, you have the danger of being excluded when men ask for men only sessions.

It is not feminism, it is backward progression which panders to men who do not want their wives mixing with other men.

I think there are significant differences between male non-binary motivations and female non-binary motivations.

The non-binary bit is bonkers.

Apart from the need of trans/NB people to feel validated as women, why on earth would a NB person feel the need to be in a session without men? Like what possible motivation could there be?

Requesting one solitary hour a week for any women who want to swim in a same sex session is fine.
Declaring 'nonbinary' is welcome too is completely daft and expressly allows men to join in, undermining the entire premise.

Non-binary groups often talk about 'smashing the binary', they mean this and the binary distinctions they are focussed on are sex binaries. This isn't about gender but sex and has serious implications.

The people who want to swim in a segregated session could go. To one of the single sex colleges (not sure if they have pools) or use one of the public leisure centres which offer this (eg Abbey).

It's the only college with a pool, or it used to be. And the college student body, the JCR, and administration are all in favour of the session.

I don't think it's wrong for a mixed sex college to have mixed sex leisure provision

Neither do the (confused) women who wrote the sign, nor the JCR, nor the mistress, nor the senior tutor. None of them are opposing the pool being mixed sex. Noone is lobbying to abolish all mixing of the sexes in Girton's pool.

Requesting one solitary hour a week for any women who want to swim in a same sex session is fine.
Declaring 'nonbinary' is welcome too is completely daft and expressly allows men to join in, undermining the entire premise.

Is there a list of character traits you need to have to be able to say you're non-binary?
Some information comment here:

www.teenvogue.com/story/9-things-people-get-wrong-about-being-non-binary

It seems anyone can say they are non-binary, there are no limits to the possible reasonings and all of those are 'real and valid'.

• The people who want to swim in a segregated session could go. To one of the single sex colleges (not sure if they have pools) or use one of the public leisure centres which offer this (eg Abbey).

I don't think it's wrong for a mixed sex college to have mixed sex leisure provision.*

I'm pretty sure neither of the women's colleges have a pool, and not sure if their gyms are open to students from other colleges.

I don't think it's wrong of colleges which have women and men to have one or two single sex sessions.

What is this binary crap about? Is there a list of character traits you need to have to be able to say you're non-binary?

Girton is a mixed College.

There are all women colleges in Cambridge, but this is not one of them

The people who want to swim in a segregated session could go. To one of the single sex colleges (not sure if they have pools) or use one of the public leisure centres which offer this (eg Abbey).

I don't think it's wrong for a mixed sex college to have mixed sex leisure provision.

lucydo that's fine, but other women have different boundaries to you. Why should your boundaries be respected, and other women's not?
Just because you have never been made to feel uncomfortable at a swimming pool doesn't mean no one else has. Our pool runs over 50 sessions, I could go to them but I choose not to, doesn't mean I think they shouldn't take place

It would go against all that has been fought for, equility.

and yes, I would be perfectly happy to make Hampstead Pools all mixed. What I would fight for is women-only spaces in prisons, hospitals, and refuges. Where women NEED seperate spaces.

I want to swim where Errol's swimming

They could have a male only and female only hour. Non-binary is ridiculous I agree.

I'm a bit torn on female hour only in general though. Where I used to live there was a large ethnic minority population. At the local pool, the women only swam in the women-only hour. But it actually enabled their oppression in my opinion. If they'd had no swimming, they could have agitated for cultural acceptance to go and swim in any mixed public session. The one hour allowed the blokes to say: 'but you can swim - in your women-only hour'. Thus denying them the other tens of hours of public swimming they were technically entitled to.

The women only hour got ridiculously busy and not everybody could get in.They could have put on extra women only hours but that's a slippery slope towards supporting that culture's enforced segregation which seems regressive to me.

The other effect was that the general swims became increasingly male dominated.