to think this is a bit sexist

[captaincake]

Why are men excluded? women's winter workshop

Sounded like a great idea - until I read just How basic the course was - I guess its just advertisement to buy more oil/wipe fluid/extra products.

I would love to know more about my car, I can't really remember how to do the air in my tires and under the hood is pretty much a mystery. I have only just learnt how to jack up my car and change a tire and im not proud of my ignorance so I was going to say that course would appeal to me....but even i can manage that frankly pathetic list of what the course covers

This started out as a feminist thing though - back in the 70s, you'd get women running these women-only car maintenance workshops as a way of teaching each other stuff without having to put up with men being patronising and intimidating.

I reckon, though, that men as a sex are less competent with cars than they used to be. Back then, cars were relatively simple machines and a layperson could work out how to carry out basic maintenance. Now they're run by computers and there isn't much hope of fixing them if something goes wrong.

I bet though that if Halfords advertised this as being open to both sexes, a lot of men would be too embarrassed to turn up and admit they don't know how to do stuff.

It is a bit sexist really. It's assuming that women need extra help taking care of their cars and also that they might be too intimidated to attend a free workshop that might be full of big, scary, handsome men who will obviously have superior car-taking-care-of skills and will be using all kinds of technical terms like 'oil check' and 'tyre'.

What about men who are crap with their cars? Where is the workshop for them?

Having said that, I can't really bring myself to care that much. The workshop doesn't apply to me so I'd just leave it to the interested parties.

But there are probably quite a few women of my mother's generation (just off 70) whose husbands die and they have to do lots of things for the first time. (Had my mother died first, there would have been a ton of stuff Dad couldn't have done without being shown how, too.)

Mind you, some cars are badly designed - I had one where you had to dismantle half the stuff under the bonnet to change a lightbulb. My current car is like that for the battery, but at least that is less likely to need replacing than a bulb.

On balance, I am not against the course per se, at least to see if demand is there, but it really is very basic; I should have thought something with a bit more detail would be better.

An interesting set of opinions thanks everyone.

I think you should have a look at this everydayfeminism.com/2015/01/reverse-oppression-cant-exist/ and dig around for other information on why reverse sexism doesn't exist. Prejudice does, yes, but offering a class to women only does not have the same connotations as offering something to men only.

It might be sexist in that yes, there is some assumption that women know less about car maintenance than do men. Where cars are concerned I'm not sure how valid a concern that is but I do know that amongst both men and women there is often an assumption that "technical" things are "blue" and for "boys". It pisses me off mightily, but then I carry a multitool that includes allen keys, 2 types of screwdriver and several spanners around with me. Thus whether I train in a women-only group or a mixed-gender group I don't want to be around people who assume that because I'm female I don't know and won't be able to understand how something works.

And trust me, it happens a lot. I have had no end of conversations in bike shops in which the assumption is that I will not know what I'm talking about. And you just know that if you were male, you would not be having that conversation.