To ask what single sex spaces mean to you?

[Thisisouting]

Why are single sex spaces important to you as a female?

I am not a mindless sheep I just don't want to lose the option of single sex spaces.

Needed for non cubicles changing rooms and refuges (and certain doctor appointments)

If we go too far in segregation then we end up like some parts of the middle east where women cannot go out without a chaperone and are stuck at home the rest of the time. This would make it more likely for women to be raped as they are no longer seen as real people and just as something to target.

So mostlyBowling and notOneOfYou, if feminism is still so desperately needed (and in some parts of the world it is), why are people deserting it in ever increasing numbers? Why do they no longer want to be associated with it?

Personally I don't think public single sex spaces are a good thing, I think that proper individual room toilets rather than cubicles are much more appropriate, and that family style areas changing areas with large and small cubicles are fine.

Even without the trans debate, I don't think it's right or appropriate that gay/lesbian teenagers are not given any choice but to change with everyone else, whether it makes them or others feel uncomfortable.

I'm also personally aware of at least two cases where girls (straight as far as I know) in school changing rooms or toilets have sexually assaulted other girls, as with many sexual assaults it was power and bullying rather than a sexual motive. I suspect that many of these assaults go unreported. Having individual toilets or cubicles opening into an area where no one is undressed and teachers can supervise is much safer.

Ska - does that mean you think the transwoman in Canada who spent 10 years suing a women-only rape crisis centre, damn near bankrupting them (a charitable organisation run on a shoe string to help rape victims) in the process because they said that given the nature of their clients they didn't think it was appropriate to have a male-bodied individual volunteer as a counsellor? Is that the sort of sex-segregated space you think is driven by hysteria?

Clarky - because the popular press, which is highly misogynistic (see Daily Mail side-bar of shame passim for examples) has done a number on persuading people that it's irrelevant. Do you have any issue with the factual accuracy of any of the issues I've raised? Do you personally still want to say "feminism's work is done" in the light of those examples?

And there we go, mostlybowlinghedgehog a perfect example of the nonsense usually thrown around here.

Read my post. I actually mention refuges. Perfectly acceptable to be a single sex space.

Refuges, single sex wards, prisons.

Less so for me - changing rooms, toilets.

Places where you are vulnerable, basically.

But that's the whole point Ska - the legislation now in place in Canada doesn't allow for any single sex spaces, not even refuges and rape crisis centres. Those of us talking about this aren't crazed transphobes. If someone turned round and tried to oust my trans colleague from her job because she was trans, I'd be right there on the picket line beside her. I want trans people to have the same employment rights, right to live in their houses unharrassed by landlords, rights to rock up at a hotel and get a hotel room, right to walk down the street without being harrassed. I don't have a problem with that. What I do want is a few, very few spaces, where it is appropriate for those spaces to be single sex, to be defended. And the danger is that there are precedents in other countries which suggest this is not going to be the case.

Women's prisons are another particularly dangerous area, where you have a lot of very vulnerable women, many of whom have experienced sexual abuse (particularly child sexual abuse) at much higher rates than the female population at large, housed in a place where by definition they're not allowed to get away. And male bodied individuals (still retaining their penises) are being put in prison with them. I think this is wrong. (I also think it's wrong to house trans prisoners in with men - I think we need specific trans wings).

mostly where have you got your information about Canada from?

mostlyBowling

So, your reasons for women not wanting to be associated with feminism are:

• we have been brainwashed by the media because we're too stupid to think for ourselves. Anyone who disagrees with you and your standpoint simply isn't as intelligent

• men

What issues did you raise?

You feel you weren't paid fairly and can take a company to court. Yes feminism's won because unequal pay is illegal and you can seek recompense if it happens. In the same way that fraud is illegal and perpetrators will be tried and punished if found guilty.

"38 US states still allow child marriage". Untrue.

primogeniture - who cares. It has almost no bearing on 'the status quo' or 'protecting the patriarchy' as could be claimed nor am I especially bothered about something which has a slight impact on fewer than 100 people.

abortion - that's a tough one. I think there's a necessary debate to be had re. the age of a fetus when termination (assuming a high chance of survival for the mother and child without a termination) as to me, the MAP is a non-issue, nor is a very early abortion but, when a child could be born and survive but it is still legal to abort, well, I'm a lot more unsure.

You seem bent on othering. I suspect that you disagree with any form of differences when it suits you and wouldn't accept intrinsic differences as, for example, the reason for an imbalance of sexes in STEM jobs.

Safety from potential male violence and unwanted attention, safety for young girls, privacy, dignity and the support of other women

And vice versa of course. It's not just male behaviour....

Ska this is the Canadian case Lest you think this is fake news, I've also checked "Global News" (which I always do in the case of news sources I'm unfamiliar with) and it is a legitimate mainstream news site.

Child marriage in America: Independent article; CBS article; New York Times article; Washington Post Article. We're talking about girls as young as 12 here. But okay, I get that you think feminism's work is done and we don't need it any more. I guess you and I will just have to agree to differ on that one.

Even without the trans debate, I don't think it's right or appropriate that gay/lesbian teenagers are not given any choice but to change with everyone else, whether it makes them or others feel uncomfortable

I'm confused as to why it would be uncomfortable fit gay/lesbian people.

Surely it's about sharing spaces with people who have the same body rather than sexuality.

I'm straight but when the need arises to share areas I am able to do so without trying to stop drooling over every male body there.

I'm sure many many gay people cab be in a room with people of the same he see and not fancy any of them too?

Golf clubs and gentlemens clubs, of which I fervently wish I was a member if only to get away from all this feminist bullshit being rammed down my throat daily.

sits back and awaits flaming

Sorry, busy morning - I only have a few minutes and this is such a huge question to answer. I'll try to come back to the thread later I promise.

But a quick Google search shows these articles, suggesting that there ARE demonstrable gender inequalities in societies across the globe, (including in the "not so bad" UK):

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_inequality

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/this-is-what-gender-inequality-in-britain-looks-like-in-charts-10386937.html

Another search shows why we need feminism:

pulptastic.com/11-important-reasons-still-need-feminism/

www.huffingtonpost.com/casey-cavanagh/why-we-still-need-feminism_b_5837366.html

medium.com/@cassandrathng/the-importance-of-feminism-27aee593cf96 (this one's by a trans woman if that helps?)

They suggest things like the following:

• Physical differences and the results (strong vs weak)
• Gender stereotypes and the results (masculine vs feminine)
• Rape culture, assaults, every day sexism, outright sexism, discrimination
• Income and poverty disparity, property inheritance
• Relationship and household division of chore issues
• Differences across the globe (some places still stone women, or don't educate them)

There's so much more I could go into but I really have to go out.

I genuinely ask you, have women really got it better, or do you mean that you're okay? Is it just that this stuff doesn't noticeably affect you enough to care?

I think feminism is a beneficial force for women AND men, for all of us, and that your post is the equivalent of people saying racism doesn't exist because they just don't notice it or care about it themselves deep down.

Sure, it's a horrible thing to look into. It's easier to yawn and say you're bored. But if you give a shit about people of any gender, I can't see why you wouldn't acknowledge that this stuff matters.

I'm also an older poster and I'd love to hear more about this time when women were flocking to feminism. Because however far back I go, all I can recollect is being called an ugly embittered loon who gave real women a bad name.

On MN? They mean another tedious thread where everyone has already made up their mind and are not prepared to listen to the other side, lots of repetition, and a lingering feeling like me and others like me are simultaneously "attention seeking", "fetishists", "not real", and "a pox on society".

"not real", and "a pox on society"

I've never seen either of these and would challenge them if I did. Do you have a quote?

In terms of feminism on this particular issue. Forget about trans stuff.

The law scheduled for a hearing in Autumn will allow gender identification to overrule sex segregation. Self identification is just that. No conditions, no medical certificate, nothing.

I have no doubt that decent men will not take advantage of this rule. Nice men do not want to make women feel uncomfortable.

So that leaves you with all the men who have absolutely no trouble making women feel uncomfortable.

Or those who actively like to make women feel uncomfortable, or worse.

This law has achieved the almost impossible goal of existing exclusively for those men who are guaranteed to exploit it.

It's fairly impressive when you think about it.

Feminists have tried to halt it at every turn. Feminists protect women. They have no hidden agenda. They're not power crazed man haters.

Last year when Maria Miller received objections from women over the proposed bill, she called them 'women purporting to be feminists'. The very women trying to protect women's interests are being dismissed. The ones who have the stats, have done the research, know the science, who understand how parliament works, who make representations through all the right channels.

What chance does any women have if those who represent them are so relentlessly ignored?

If you think feminism is not needed, you don't have an understanding of what the word means.

The ability to be a woman free of a man's gaze, if only for the couple of minutes it takes to change.

To feel comfortable with my dcs waiting outside the toilet cubicle for me, knowing no-one is going to whip out a penis for a public pee or for any other reason.

Honestly? For me personally I can't think of when they have been that significant. True I don't agree with men overnight on postnatal wards but I think I also wouldn't like a female partner of another patient being there overnight - it's more about general privacy and space for me.
In terms of toilets, it's the cubicle which is the precious private space.

I can understand though that it is significant to others and they should be protected.

Thinking about it - I guess I would feel a bit weird washing my hands next to a man after using the toilet. I don't think I would feel weird about doing that next to someone that was dressed as a woman but who I thought might be transgender.
But that's just me.

Out of interest, are women who identify as men happy to be in men-only spaces? Or do,we think a good number might use the lack of penis to remain in women-only spaces? How,would such a man fair in a man's prison, for example?

Women going to prison without a rapist or woman killer imprisoned there with intact male genitals and a weight/upper body strength advantage.

Women in refuges not having to be on guard because there is a man living there too.

Women getting changed in their work locker room without a man stripping off too.

Women not being too scared to go to the local gym/swimming pools because there is a man who uses the female changing room.

Like many women and girls, I have been abused as a child and groped at and harrassed by men in my teens. I don't know how I would react to someone I perceive to be a man (overridden of course, by him perceiving himself as a woman) getting naked next to me or being alone with him in a small room full of cubicles to shove me in. But I guess I'm going to find out. Funny how my feelings don't matter as much as another "woman's" so long as that woman has cock and balls.

They mean safety to me. I feel I am statistically at greater risk of violence and harrassment from men than from women, so I am more relaxed in a women-only environment. However, it is profoundly unfair that I should get to enjoy this safety while men (the men who aren't violent or harrassing) don't. Everyone deserves to be safe. So while I personally enjoy the privilege of using segregated spaces, I think they are wrong.

As for privacy/dignity etc, I am not bothered about any of that. I would be happy to breastfeed, change clothes etc in front of people of any gender IF nobody was going to verbally or physically assault me.