Women dominated/women only spaces

[mumwithdice]

I mostly lurk on here learning loads, but this is something I'm curious about. What on earth is so threatening to some men about women dominated or women only spaces?

If this is a Feminism 101 question, please just tell me. That said, I asked here because I want to know what you all think. I don't know what I think which is why I asked.

This thread reminds me of a conversation with DH a week or two ago:

DH: Are you on MN again? Are you all talking about your husbands?

Me: No, that would be boring. There are lots of other topics to discuss

DH: Are you sure you're not secretly bitching about me?

Me: No, I do that with my RL friends (not true actually if I have a problem I talk to him about it)

I discovered Mumsnet during the joyous period that we were living together until the divorce came through. STBXH would ask "Are you talking about me?" and the answer was "Yes, of course I am", even if I wasn't.

Can't remember who it was, probably Oscar Wilde, who said the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

i work in a girls' school and it is amazing

they have no idea how privileged they are to be the default, to not have to fight to be heard, to not have subjects that 'aren't for girls'...and that in itself is fabulous too, the not knowing any other way

I'm really intrigued by the comments about girls' schools. I went to a mixed school and never considered the benefits of a single-sex education from this perspective. A bit of an eye-opener!

I went to a mixed sex school, and a quite conservative (catholic) one at that, but they actually bent over backwards to get an even gender split, in anything from math, languages standard stuff over home economics to IT, i.e. encouraged boys to do home economics as much as girls to do IT. I never felt held back.

The first time I really realised that girls where doing sciency and math things less often was when I decided to study engineering.

Strange how different different people's experiences are. I guess I was quite lucky.

In my experience, any man who has a toddleresque ( great word) response to female only spaces is probably a bit me me ME like a toddler. When they hear that this is pretty silly behaviour and possibly they need to develop a bit more empathy, they often sulk - which proves the point.

Please see pubs/clubs thread as a great example of this.

I went to an all-girls secondary school. Sixth form was a bit of a shock, particularly as one particular teacher let the boys dominate while joking about the girls' tits - particularly mine. :(

I agree that a lot of men are so used to being the dominant voice that they can't conceive that women would talk without them.

I know more one man who spits nails at the fact that Germaine Greer will only take the first question from a woman at any of her speaking events.

Imagine?! A noted feminist, doing feminist things?!

Also: see any thread, ever, about the Bechdel test in a male-dominated space. Or discussions about women and their representation in a male-dominated area. You don't have to scratch the surface too deeply before you come across some men who just cannot bring themselves to view women as full humans.

Hello, btw!

VictorG I know more than one men who spits nails at the mere mention of Germaine Greer. I know many more who roll eyes when the name Andrea Dworkin is mentioned.

Mere names and yet such a reaction!

I came across this the other day which I thought was very rousing.

I participate in a women-only activity regularly. Dh isn't jealous - he's one of these rare types who treat women as human beings.
I'm inclined to think that men who are jealous of women only spaces are largely just attention seeking. How dare we not focus our full concentration on them!?
Some are definitely threatened though, but I suspect that they're the ones who actually know how unreasonable and unfair they, and society, are. They'd be the ones who put their self-interest above all else.

Dworkin - I know! The irony being that the last time I saw GG she was advocating a feminist overthrow of the patriarchal capitalist system and still managed to tell the audience that all women were hopelessly in love with their sons! And Dworkin, of course, told the men how much we believe in their humanity!

And yet still some men refuse to listen.

Beach - that's really interesting.

My partner wanted to know why he wouldn't be welcome at say, 'Reclaim the Night'. He thought it was a bit off. Five seconds later, once I'd mentioned rape survivors, he understood perfectly. I didn't need to go into all the other things (though I did, of course).

You've got to wonder at the motive of those who refuse to understand such clear explanations, haven't you?

Good article Beach. Explains it nicely.

good link beachcomber

I like the Marilyn Frye analogy:

"it is nothing extraordinary for a master to bar his slaves from the manor, but it is a revolutionary act for slaves to bar their master from their hut"

It comes from MF's book Politics of Reality (which is an excellent read)

The difference is that currently the world is set up as a predominantly male space. Men have much more space in which to manoeuvre and be heard than women.

And women as a group are oppressed by men as a group - women need to create spaces which are closed to the oppressing class, so that they can freely discuss female oppression and its consequences, without feeling the need to moderate their speech in order not to hurt male feelings or be attacked by men who are threatened by feminism.

Men may well wish to spend time in men only spaces for reasons of camaraderie (women do this too) but they do not need exclusive spaces in which to escape from oppression or discuss oppression; because they are not oppressed (for their gender).

"it is nothing extraordinary for a master to bar his slaves from the manor, but it is a revolutionary act for slaves to bar their master from their hut"

It sounds like we should be demanding the blokes fuck off out of the cabinet whilst we have some kind of ideological sit-in, does it not?