Writing workshop for women and what happens...

[TerfnTonic]

... say it with me... a man turns up! Why of course.

I have found that my university is providing this coding course for women www.codefirstgirls.org.uk/courses-we-offer.html except it's not just for women, you just have to identify as one, or be non-binary. It's also aimed at women who are 18+ in age, yet they call it Code first: girls. You'd think it was for children...

I doubt a transwoman would miss the marketing specifically for women - they would be on hyper-alert for it.

do only transwomen wear dangly earrings??? Come on.

I'm not sure what the dangly earrings have to do with anything lol

There are very few women who can't spot a transwoman, @mypointofview, despite what some people think.

Ugh. www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/bmag/whats-on/art-connects-peace-one-day I was going to sign up for this until I realised that it would likely feel the very opposite of a 'safe space for sharing' for me. I mean, how does being with people who 'identify as women' make it any safer than a mixed space? For me it actually makes it feel LESS safe as I know the sort of narcissists who will likely enjoy taking over a (supposedly) women only space . Or do you think I misunderstood the wording and it was actually aimed at transwomen rather than actual women .

I can't bear this. Women have fewer rights than they've ever had. At least prior to this they had the freedom to be together in peace.

I hate the term "safe space". Some women never feel safe. (Though safer when it's women only.)

Arty men have been erroneously turning up at women's writing workshops since long before transwomen were a thing, believe me! And they are often overly talkative...as I know to my cost...

I know a lot about how men behave in terms of dick-swinging, and from OP's description, it's pretty clear that dick-swinging was what this guy was all about. "Didn't notice the 'for women' bit" my arse - he did read it and felt like crashing. I'd put money on it.

But then arty men have always been super-confident around women. There's a type that feels both included and superior.

fermat Again, confirmation you haven't been in writing workshops! Look, I've no doubt that what you're describing is a terrible problem. But it is the case that men are often just...a problem...in workshops, even when they're not dressed as women. Partly because there aren't enough men going to workshops to give them a habitat, as it were. Personally, I'd always choose a mixed workshop though. Women on their own tend to write about domestic life. Men, when they've finished talking, often read violent work. A blessed relief after nine pages of counting the cracks on the ceiling during sex and fishing bits of lego out of the back of the sofa.

Also nine times out of ten there aren't enough women to make the numbers up and it's thrown open. Men looking for workshops will know this. And there are, to my knowledge, few to no men only workshops.

What would happen if women turned up at a transwoman event? They can't turn them away on account of biology, can they? Biology is just a 'social construct'.

Men are perfectly at liberty to organise men only workshops, it's not the responsibility of women to provide for them.

Pm'd you Potato

I'm sure I've seen an explanation of why it's fine to have transwomen only activities and spaces, but not ok for women to have women only activities and spaces. Basically the whole privilege/disadvantage/ you owe it to us stuff. It's like it's fine for a transwoman to pick biologically female only sexual partners but not for lesbian women to pick female only sexual partners. What will happen in effect is people will give up on holding women only events, what will be the point? And women will lose those opportunities and freedoms. And there will be people behind this ideology smugly saying 'Good.'.

The second you add "for women" onto something these days it's like a magnet. You could market a workshop as "advanced toenail clipping for women only" with some kind of blurb about it being nail clipping in a supportive female space... and there would be at least one rocking up demanding to be included - just to stop you having nicely clipped toenails and a chinwag.

And there are, to my knowledge, few to no men only workshops.. If men wanted them, they’d exist. Believe me!

This is why so many lesbian groups have gone underground and meet privately, and aren't advertised anywhere. Which is sad for young and newly out lesbians who can these days only find male inclusive groups which are inevitably centred around and dominated by those males.

Women on their own tend to write about domestic life. Men, when they've finished talking, often read violent work. A blessed relief after nine pages of counting the cracks on the ceiling during sex and fishing bits of lego out of the back of the sofa. In my experience the men tend to harp tediously on about the romantic and sexual experiences of their youth while the women write about art, life, death, language, and yes, very interestingly about motherhood.

To be fair the dangly earrings were just an annoyance, as if that is all that being a woman is. Cultural appropriation is a genuine consideration but wear daft earrings and call yourself a woman and you will go unchallenged, even if you have a beard and sabotage women's voices in exactly the way specified by your biological sex. He definitely DID notice the "for women" aspect of the workshop. It was marketed as a weekend of women's voices, all the facilitators were women and it was specified as a safe space to share your work. One woman was visibly uncomfortable to share her work which was about women's suffrage, at the end of her reading he snapped his fingers in mock appreciation. I wish I'd had the guts to call him out, I didn't. I need my job! I'm embarrassed to say I am not as gutsy as my fore-mothers.

The last writing workshop I was on was in fact a mixed workshop. Very interesting. No-one of either sex wrote about lego (interestingly, I think the script-writers for the very successful, and ultimately slightly tedious lego movie franchise are male, but that's by the by). I was lucky in that this was a group of civilised people interested in learning from the group leader, who was a well-known local poet. I learned a lot from it. The fact that this was a civilised group doesn't mean I don't recognise the behaviour OP describes - I've experienced it myself in a number of contexts.

As @endofdiscone says, I doubt he'd have turned up if it was a mixed workshop, the fact it was marketed for women only acted as a lightning conductor.

"he snapped his fingers in mock appreciation" - what a total prick. Why should women have to put up with such posturing nonsense like this? Grim.