Why single sex spaces

I guess it all comes back to everything being women's fault.

Enough- she was judged!

On here I saw plenty of comments like. Why didn't she get a cab.
Why didn't she get a bus.
How much had she had to drink.
Why was she even out with Corona.
Etc.

And then from police types etc.
Women need to be more streetwise learn the law.
I'm sure there were more, this is top of head...

Oh and also that speaking for other groups risks marginalising them comment.

When the topic is issues that are wholly or predominantly ones that men/ boys face.

Then i listen to what the affected groups have to say. Things like-

Situation re MH and suicide in YOI
Knife crime/ gang activities with boys involved
The particular issues with MH in men, addiction, rough sleeping
Etc etc.

Surely the best picture is gained from listening to those with first hand experience?

And if you feel it's something you want to give some of your available time/ money to (always limited so can't support everything). Then you can raise awareness by sharing the info online or in RL, donate, volunteer etc etc.

Is that not the way it goes?

I do not want to go to the same toilet with men. It is not the trans I worry about but the man who commit sexual assaults from groping to rape and murder. Do I want my daughters to go to a basement toilet in a restaurant where any random man are allow in? No way. This is insane.

@NiceGerbil I agree, and no one tells a school boy he shouldn't be in uniform when his phone is pinched, but a groped women will be asked about clothing and judged.

In the sad recent case of Sarah Everard, reports said she was dressed in thick clothing, doing nothing wrong, walking on the road not cutting through the park. She was judged not to be at fault of causing bad male behaviour, but what if she was in summer clothes and walked through a park, would that mean she was inviting it?

Women need safe spaces due to poor male behaviour.

' If we say that only women are qualified to talk about issues relating to the female sex, are we then also saying that only men are qualified to issues relating to the male sex. In which case I can see it wouldn’t be such a leap to think that we might start segregating society along sex lines. I’m which case it’s not such a leap to worry that women might be pushed back to the margins of society. Once again. It just feels a bit regressive to me.'

Seriously?

Very few men have anything useful to say about it though.

Most get very defensive. Certainly I don't see men marching, agitating about MVAWG. I mean. A few. But in general.

If men are so worried then given they have been in charge for always. Made the laws, set up criminal justice system. Are still majority in power and in police courts etc.

If they are interested. Then it would have been sorted years ago.

This is bizarre now.

Comments that I've seen a lot though.

This first though.

'Men should be taught to keep women safe.'

NO. Our society needs to move away from the not my problem nothing to do with me thing.

To one when in society it is seen as usual for EVERYONE to look out for each other.

To not pause and decide against calling the police/ telling bar staff/ keeping an eye on something that might be dodgy.

There's so much that can be done that would help generally. I can give examples if wanted.

And also. There's a difference in the way Society acts when men do dodgy things to women/ girls that otherwise.

In general.

See young person grab cash from till in shop and run. Shouts. Trying to get snap. Look which way they went. Police called. People generally hang around to talk to police if witnessed.

See a schoolboy being mugged. I don't think most would ignore. If a few prob then stepping in some will some won't. Certainly though a shout, call police, from other side of road shout I've called the police leave him alone. Stick around check he ok. Wait with him police. Make sure he ok to get home etc. (Dunno if police would turn out for that where I live!). But I think most would keep an eye and check ok.

I mean just off top of head.

And women do step in. Being an act first think later person isn't sex specific. Same as men, some do, some don't.

The way that the things you see. Obscene comments shouted, a girl looking worried about the way a man is behaving on the tube, noticing a young woman is being followed. In pubs and clubs. Grabbing groping etc.

Something about it in our society seems to make it. Up to her to deal with. Not a sort of societal no.

The thing that annoys me is twice I've had blokes say. This happened man was being awful to women/ girls. One wanted cookies for noticing. One didn't know if or how he should do something. Second situation was really dodgy and regular.

I said to the first why didn't you do something? He looked baffled. Like what?
Told his mates who you know to take him home.
Told the bar staff.
Maybe other things?

The second I said look this is really bad. You need to tell boss see what to do. Call transport police. Have a word with him. Something. Just do SOMETHING!

@334bu I completely agree with your post, women's safety and dignity are the key reasons for single-sex spaces. Also, children use these spaces so safeguarding for children too.

Another issue is that the battered woman will often still side with her abuser over a stranger so better not to get physically involved. A friend of mine tried to step in and defend a woman and she told the police he'd started it!

Very few people will be in a position to intervene in an attack.

It's more a question of whether attitudes can be changed and whether that in turn can change behaviour.

Wow talk about a derail.
It would be wonderful if women didn't need single sex spaces but as everyone on this thread knows that is not the world we live in at the moment.
So why single sex spaces? Because we still need them for safety,dignity and privacy reasons.
So why can't we include transwomen? Because they are male and present the same danger to women as any other males and also, as they are members of the opposite sex, they are just as much a threat to our dignity and privacy as any other member of their sex

Also, would it then stand to reason that a group of women would be obliged to intervene and fight off a lone attacker beating up an innocent man? (can't see this happening).

But if a woman is already being physically assaulted, the average man is far more likely to be able to stop the perpetrator than the average woman due to size and strength.

I'm still not sure if anybody is obliged to physically fight somebody to defend a complete stranger. Wouldn't calling the police be the best action? Especially as you can then end up in trouble with the law if you hurt them.

But if a woman is already being physically assaulted, the average man is far more likely to be able to stop the perpetrator than the average woman due to size and strength.

IME although men might be physically more able, women are psychologically more able in these cases. I've faced down a good few violent men in my time, both personally and professionally. Men tend to get thumped but women tend not to (although there have been close calls).

I was about to post something similar.

A woman has a much better chance of defusing the situation and a violent male knows he's more likely to get away with thumping a male as it may well be dismissed as a scrap.

DH and I have both done martial arts. He could kill me with his little finger. I could probably hurt him if he stood still. I do get your point.

When I was attacked I know that the average man would have been much more likely to be able to physically remove the attacker from me than the average woman. That was my point I guess.

Yes, in a verbal dispute that hasn't tipped over into violence perhaps there's something to be said for women being less likely to be hit if they intervene.

But if a woman is already being physically assaulted, the average man is far more likely to be able to stop the perpetrator than the average woman due to size and strength.

And before someone comes on to say they are a female black belt who is stronger than their slim husband... I've said 'average' there for the sake or argument. In most cases, it's true. There are always outliers but I'm talking about averages / norms.

I'm not sure about stranger male on female attacks because I've never come across one.

Except on myself of course. How sad that I didn't even think about that. But yes, I've been assaulted in the street of course.

A man is more likely to be able to help a woman actually being physically attacked in real time than another woman is.

IME although men might be physically more able, women are psychologically more able in these cases. I've faced down a good few violent men in my time, both personally and professionally. Men tend to get thumped but women tend not to (although there have been close calls).

I'm not sure about stranger male on female attacks because I've never come across one.

Would a non-violent man like my partner be expected to put himself in danger to protect a woman from a violent man? When he's already many more times likely to get attacked and seriously injured than the average woman.

A man is more likely to be able to help a woman actually being physically attacked in real time than another woman is.

A man is more likely to be able to help a woman actually being physically attacked in real time than the woman victim is to be able to get away or defend herself.

Individual men are not our enemy

No, but individual men are responsible for their actions.

Here's an example for you to ponder:

A poster on here was involved in a group set up for women to discuss the physical effects of miscarriage on women's bodies a TW (MALE) insisted they be included in the group, now what the hell insight could that TW provide to the group, they would never and will never suffer a miscarriage therefore the physical effect of miscarriage will never impact their body.

Women should have the right to discuss issues they want to discuss in the manner they want to discuss them without male involvement, it's not hiding the issues away and whispering about them as in Victorian times, it's women deciding what they want to talk about and with whom.

I just don’t understand why some women are so keen to push sex specific concerns back into the shadows, as it were.

No-one is suggesting this, women should be the ones speaking about their issues, their voices front and centre, their voices listened to, their experiences driving the narrative.

What you seem to be saying is that women need men to speak on their behalf. In a sense you may be right because men are listened to more than women in this patriarchal society but that's what needs to change not be entrenched.

Of course men should be taught to keep women safe. But how? Until we have a way of doing that (so forever) we need sex segregated spaces. And actually if/when we teach men that we still need sex segregated spaces for dignity.

And to the PP who's lovely transwoman friend would never harm a woman. I'm sure that's true. Neither would mine. Neither would my teen DSs ( at least I bloody hope not). But I know, because he told me that my teenage abuser absolutely would have self IDd as a transwoman on some days of the week so he could get into my "female only spaces." So while it's totally shit for the 'genuine' (for want of a better word) and innocent TW we have to keep them all out. Because we just can't tell if they are the nice kind or the rapey abusive kind.

In the same way my teens know to cross the road if they are walking behind a lone woman in the dark. They know they aren't going to attack her. She doesn't. In the same way my feminine looking 14 year old has to chose to use the mens (and he's been told to fuck off to the ladies more than once) or hold it until he gets home. Unless we can find somewhere witj 'a toilet' rather than mens and womens. Women's safety and comfort at knowing they are in a female only space comes above his need to pee.
It's shit. It really is.

Men should be taught to keep women safe.

Maybe we need to have a male protector everywhere we go?

I think it is marvelous to still see complete optimism that teaching males to not harm women will mean 100% compliance.

Even Star Trek could not achieve that!

And I still cannot believe we are being told again that safety and privacy should be removed because of someone’s nice friend. And this time we are told we have regressed to the 1950s because we do.

Again we see someone blindly prioritising males over females fully telling us that ‘one’ trans criminal shouldn’t mean policy reflects that potential. All the while ignoring the glaring statistics of just how many transitioned males are in prison for sex offenses. How many got a lenient sentence by the way and was not sent to prison for their crime? I know of at one, how many are not published.

And when those sex offenders are out of prison, how do we know how to avoid the spaces they are in? Will they have a sign to warn us?

I would tell your friend that perhaps they should have considered females who needed to not have them as a male in their space in the first place and why they didn’t start to campaign for specific services for their needs years ago.

In my youth I would have been one of those saying I would share. But as I discovered more women and girls in my life being raped or sexually abused, I soon realized that those voices were being withheld out of fear. So, I understood then that the answer is no now and it actually always was.

That some males took that entitlement, is not women’s to fix now that the issues with that ‘entitlement’ are exposed. Females should have been given full rights from the start, not ‘full rights minus those of vulnerable males’.

Crack on though. Readers and contributors alike on this thread have likely seen this before and see the hypocrisy behind it.

Men should be taught to keep women safe.

How would this work in reality?

Would a non-violent man like my partner be expected to put himself in danger to protect a woman from a violent man? When he's already many more times likely to get attacked and seriously injured than the average woman.

Why would a non-violent man be any more responsible for defending women than a non-violent woman would?