This is why we can’t have nice things

I bf three DC - some of the most unsympathetic and ignorant comments came from other women - women who never had or wanted kids, ff, or were older and had kids in different child rearing cultrue.

DMum had similar with monpause flooding - male bosses avery sympathic older women or wemen going through their own menopause very unhelpful - their experiences were very different to DMum's.

I had awful periods at one point in my life still no idea why and GP weren't very interested - people question that even on MN.

You see that all the time - well my experience was this therefore eveyone must be. Women are often more than 50% of population and their experinces of biology vary widely and with age.

I think it it was serious and they wanted input into polices they'd have sectioned it out more - into pg, bf, periods, menopause etc so everyone knew what the topics were and what if any the aims were and it would be less likely to be derailed.

Though I agree sister's stance is annoying as is lack of push back or better handling from employers - though I think it indicates it was always a tick box exercise less a nice thing more an illusion of a nice thing.

Does your sister think that other marginalised and historically oppressed groups should be allowed to have their own support and discussion sessions? Would it be mean to have a First Nations group that was closed to people of other backgrounds? Or an LGBT group that was closed to straight people? Generally people don't think this is mean, but when it's women sometimes they do and the only logical explanation is that they don't believe that sex is an axis of oppression in its own right or that sexism exists. Which is certainly an opinion that many people have, but it's obviously incompatible with feminism, so does your sister believe that she is a feminist?

This is so stupid and I’m sorry but your sister is just not thinking very clearly. As if women would shove into a meeting about erectile dysfunction or male pattern baldness or recovery from prostate surgery. And if they did they ought to be told to bugger right off. That’s not what women have campaigned for through history, and it’s not what they’ve achieved, either. Women fought for and gained access to political and social spaces, not intimate ones. And that’s before you get to the fact that women are at risk of rape by men and are encouraged to feel that stringently policing their interactions with men is the way to stay safe from assault. Hard — and probably foolish — to switch off that fear and that socialisation and welcome men and male bodied people into vulnerable conversations and spaces. And the fact that historically (and currently) women’s bodily functions have been treated as unseemly and disgusting. When every tampon ad you saw growing up was about discretion and hiding any sign of menstruation, and most of your sexual partners have reinforced the idea that periods are unmentionable and foul, it’s not really possible to talk in an open way about those issues or menopause in front of men. And when men’s mags and music videos routinely sexualise breasts while social media treats them as obscene how are women supposed then to welcome men into conversations about breastfeeding? These are the reasons we still need single sex spaces and groups.

*swerving

God I am glad my employer seems to be serving all this shit.

They ran a womans health week - all mentions were about women/female employees. I attended the classes (partly for topic interest and partly to be able to see how they pitched it).

It was excellently done. The menopause session was open to all female staff. No alternative language used. The presenter used "women,girls" as needed when presenting.

At the end she mentioned she was hosting a separate session for management and that it would be open to men/male employees as an information session.

Honestly. So fucking refreshing.

You might find that no men show up. Or the ones that do have had experiences with their wife, mother, sister, daughter and does have insight into support etc. from a different perspective. Or just wants to learn how they can be supportive.

I remember being on holiday (when we weee young adults) and getting sat at a dinner table with some ladies who went on the describe their various gynaecological procedures in detail. Looking back, maybe they just wanted the table to themselves...

capital W you dummy

Women are very good at embarassing men when they talk about women's stuff. I'd go to the meeting, all guns blazing and talk about everything woman, with a capital E and a capital C. Time to get brave, time to talk about those heavy bleed times and hysterectomies and losing a Tampax. Yes, go for it - shock em to the core.

Radical feminism rules

For those in be in Canada - is there half as much consideration or First Nation health and sex based murder/disappearances, issues etc?

I wonder if they changed it off their own bat or got complaints...

Given the opportunity I imagine some blokes might rock up.

• Partner having menopause issues oh I'll get some info
• Colleague or someone on team having issues get info
• Some maybe who want to be seen as feminist types

The most likely though-

Those who get irritated by women getting 'special stuff' when men have problems too. Thinking could bring up 'male menopause' if he is really arsey

Those who can't resist opportunities to tell others what the REAL situation is on things they have not/ won't experience. You get these with things for certain groups often. Esp to do with women's things, race things, disability things... Well all the protected characteristics and so much more!

I'm in Canada myself, and I think a lot of this stuff is reflexive. People now think it's just the thing to do.

But the thing about being uncomfortable about leaving people out of groups - that predates gender ideology. Many many people here have been taught that single sex things are just not on, because they are sexist against women. They really struggle to get their heads around the idea of women and men really being different, and they often seem to feel like admitting material differences means admitting sexist ideas could be justified.

I think many are uncomfortable in scenarios where it seems to clearly lead to unfairness, like prisons and sport, but it's like they don't have the tools to work through the problem.

A few years ago I worked in another location of the same organization and one of the male staff left a handheld weight in a female staff member’s cubby with a note saying “you wanted a big one”. Then he took a photo of it at an angle where it looked like a penis and sent it to everyone. So issues beyond biology come up (he had to apologize, the boss was irate about it).

Apologise???? Irate??? This was a threat - a direct sexual threat. that fucker should have been fired.

I'm glad you are leaving that employer OP.

Now ideally, all that would be documented in various HR policies, but how things are meant to work in theory don't necessarily pan out in practice, especially if it's left to your manager's discretion. Having that kind of meeting would raise awareness amongst female staff around issues that may not have arisen for them yet, and also enable any gaps in provision to be identified and possible solutions suggested. That's going to be a lot more difficult to do in a mixed sex group, and I have to admit I would be tempted to go overboard in regaling the gory details of the various experiences I and my friends have had (and being middle aged women we've all got a story of one form or another) to see if it scared the blokes off.

I've peaked all over again tonight

I said I wouldn’t presume to push into a men’s meeting about prostate cancer or beard care or erectile dysfunction or whatever

But surely the same logic makes all these issues 'women's issues'? It would be rather exclusionary to just discuss things like menstruation or menopause. Actually it may be unkind so better not discuss those things at all...

I think I would be tempted to play them at their own game and email to say that their use of 'female identifying' is excluding trans men who might benefit from the group and Afab non binary people.
You could say how terribly concerned you are that such people will feel excluded and probably 'unsafe'

Maybe that will make clear the absurdity that it is now impossible to have a group that isn't for literally everyone otherwise someone is going to throw their toys out of the pram about being excluded. The only way it could now be done would be to have some insane wording about a group for cervix havers, chest feeders and those who are or might become pregnant or experience the menopause ie those people formerly known as women

Like when Prince was 'the artist formerly known as Prince' for a while. Maybe we could have a secret symbol and term ourselves 'the people formerly known as women'

The poor organisers, who were probably well intentioned, would have been better just to say that they were starting a group to discuss female biology at work and see who turns up. I would be willing to bet that whoever complained about the original email was almost certainly just virtue signalling and had no intention of actually going along at all. (The other alternative that there are men who do have a burning desire to attend such a group is a bit too grim to contemplate)

Could it be possible - just a faint chance I know - that this might be an undercover group set up by GC women? Worth going along, you could take a secret sign, like a dinosaur broach or something...

Perhaps the inclusion nonsense was forced on them by HR dept??

@Ritascornershop
Thanks for the update: Scheduled before work Good to know! That seems appropriate.

I fully support women's sex based rights. However I don't see the need for discussions of women's biology belong in the workplace. I can get all that information from the internet, media and coffee with friends. If menopause is anything to go by, the amount of useful information available could be written on a post-it note. The rest is the usual stop smoking, eat right and exercise and who doesn't know that?

If women want to get together and discuss this on their lunch break, fine. They should be able to exclude males. But me, I'd rather go for a walk.