hitchhiking trip, no women only groups allowed.

[GotMyGoat]

Saw a poster in the ladies toilets at work today calling for people to join the geography department in a hitchhiking trip to Amsterdam.

Apparently anyone can join in, but please no women only groups (safety reasons)

Can anybody think of a good reason why there cannot be a women only group's, other than that we need a man to protect us whilst we simper in our hiking boots from other big bad men?

Will be writing to the department tomorrow to complain about it, as at the end of a very tiring day it had me really annoyed.

Sorry, should have explained - its a university, so this is aimed at university students mainly, though it does seem to be open to any staff/postgrads who want to join in.

how big is a "group" and are they allowing male-only groups?

when we hitched to paris for uni rag week we had to travel in male/female pairs as this was felt to be both safest for us and also least intimidating for potential drivers.
two males together may have attracted violence (men are more often beaten up than women) and two women may have attracted sexual advances.

Apparently 'it's for charity' - but sounds like a jolly to me!

Poster says nothing on the subject of male only groups, so I can assume they are allowed and deemed to be safe.

Badguider - those rules make me squirm a bit, though the logical part of me thinks 'that makes sense'. I just don't like gender stereotypes - no no no.

I think hitchhiking is irresponsible and stupid anyway, but there we go.

It does seem silly: women travelling together are safe because they can look after each other. If they'd said, no single sex groups, that would actually have been more reasonable on the grounds that groups of men are more likely to be at least perceived as troublemakers...

I was really racking my brains, as I washed my hands, trying to think of some biological reason it wasn't safe for women to hitchhike without a male chaperone. Maybe if three women travel together and are simultaneously on their periods their heads will explode when they cross country borders?

No?

So I can only assume that this nice poster is just reminding me that I am a sexual object in need of male protection - which makes me feel a little bit sick.

Can you complain to your student union?

It's the same old same old. They are worried about women getting raped by men so they restrict women's freedom.

Now if everywhere in the world banned men-only groups in public, they wouldn't have that problem would they? Sure, a lot of innocent people would be penalised but isn't that what happens now? Oh but it happens to women so not quite so important.

What a load of shit. I have a male acquaintance - an unfit, xenophobic, never-been-further-than-50-miles-from-North-East marshmallow of a man. The idea that his presence within a group of me and my closest female friends would make us "safer" is a joke.
Is there any way you can question it?

Now if everywhere in the world banned men-only groups in public, they wouldn't have that problem would they? Sure, a lot of innocent people would be penalised but isn't that what happens now? Oh but it happens to women so not quite so important.

Precisely.

I have had no more problems hitching with women than hitching with men.

I think it's more important for the students to travel in a grouping of people they trust regardless of gender.

Why on earth are the university assuming that the men they insist the women travel with, are less likely to rape them than the random lorry driver?

Basil that is a very good point. I'm going to send a friendly email this morning, asking them to rethink that policy, and change the posters.

I was going to make the same point Basil did. There is a certain irony in insisting women travel with men when presumably they are worried about them being attacked by men.

Excellent point Basil.

Well, quite, Basil. It's a fairly common rapist strategy, to insist on 'protecting' a woman, despite her objections, in order to get her somewhere she can be raped by the supposed protector.

Goat - you can point out that statistically, they're far more likely to be raped by men they know, than men they don't.

That'll flummox 'em.

if the university is going to start worrying about student safety maybe they can start with not organizing hitchhiking trips?

my problem is with pointless activities justified 'for charity'. If you want to go to Amsterdam, pay for it.

This kind of thing really pisses me off. There is absolutely no reason why a female only group would be less safe than any other combination of genders.

We have a similar thing going on at work at the moment. The owners are having a new floor fitted but don't want to do it while the shop is open. So a member of staff has to stay to supervise the work until 3am (they're proposing shifts)

I'm not eligible anyway because of childcare issues, but I overheard one of the management staff saying the other day that the owners are happy for [male manager] and [male supervisor] to stay alone at night, but not [female supervisor] or [very capable, trustworthy female member of staff who was also in the running for supervisor] to stay alone. There is no difference except for their gender. It's ridiculous. What do they think is going to happen? The place is covered in cctv ffs! Makes me mad.

They organised one of these for RAG week at my University. It was almost entirely taken up by groups of females, and raised in the range of £14,000.

The next year, they decided it wasn't safe for female only groups. Strangely, that year sign ups plummeted and they managed a few hundred.

I would have thought that the most unsafe group of all would have been the all male one?

But Oh no! ... I guess I should keep my silly little female opinions to myself and be grateful that they assign the poor girls a male protector.