Good summary. And rightly so. It is important to men and women for postive reasons to have some single sex activities and spaces. I fully support that.
The issue here is that this was a ‘family fun run’ that excluded all females over 12 apparently because some men in the mosque objected. That is not ok.
Enforced segregation of men and women for religious purposes often leads to women losing personal autonomy as men assume control of roles around this.
We see it in Afghanistan where for religious reasons women are subjected to extremely curtailed lives where in some cases they are not even allowed to be seen at the window if their house. They are not allowed to be educated, be treated by male doctors or work. This also means they can’t access medical care.
There are some Muslim leaders in this country, albeit currently a small minority, who would like to bring in far stricter rules on women. At present our laws are there to protect us all but we can’t let the double whammy of allowing exemptions from the law for religious groups and giving more democratic power to these groups.
This is what our government are currently doing because they want the Muslim vote. PP in another thread noted that there are currently approx 30 Labour seats that are vulnerable to loss to a ‘For Muslims’ party. This would take us part way down a very slippery slope.