women at Girton College Cambridge aren’t allowed 1 hour out of 83 hours to swim in a female only environment

[papayasareyum]

I’ve just read this. Apparently they wanted 1 measly hour for women to swim, without men.
1 hour. The rest of the time, the pool is available for men and women. This is Girton college, a women’s only college, Cambridge.
A www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6665283/Fury-posters-women-non-binary-gym-sessions-defaced-Cambridge-College.html
A man was outside protesting apparently.

"I'm really pissed off my health suite have stopped male/ female only sessions. I don't feel comfortable being in such close proximity to nearly naked men (far closer than swimming) and the fact almost no women use that facility any more says it all."

And thus public spaces are handed back to the male, where they always belonged.

lucydo

so something like hampstead ponds,
one male pond
one female
one mixed

you say no make them all mixed?

can you see no reasons why men, or women, might value time with only their own sex, at leisure, for multiple reasons?

I mean take it up with the chaps who go to the chaps pond if you wish.

I think they would NOT be keen to have women in with them.

Why change something that has value to people, to certain communities?

Errol - typo?

Ahem. A few single sex sessions.

I thought you were taking this thread in a whole new direction.

Yes, men are moaning about losing one hour a week - but they are not the ones who defaced the poster. That was clearly a Gender critical woman

Do you have any evidence of that? The report refers to a male student.

I can't see anything which says Girton is giving in to his demands.

"A male student reportedly waited outside the gym during the allotted period in protest against the session, according to the student news site The Tab."

lol

what a complete dick

he can go in

that't the whole point!

when mras catch onto what this means more widely, they are going to have an absulte ball.

They say also that the "women and non binary hour" in the gym and pool has "largely been respected".

How the fuck do they know whether the people in theer identify as women or non binary????????????

If they are asking them all then they would have told any who didn't say female or non binary to come back later.

I think they arLOOKING at them and ASSUMING THEIR GENDERS well fuck me that's disgusting.

so something like hampstead ponds,
one male pond
one female
one mixed

Actually, unless my memory is faulty, I believe it’s

One Male
One mixed
One Female and anyone who self identifies as female at any time, so mixed

'Non-binary' grants access all areas. It means whatever the individual claiming the identity wishes it to mean eg claim identity of both sexes or neither.
If policies continue to include non-binary then there cannot be sex-based rights or spaces.

I know a couple, friends of my daughter’s. They’re both non binary. She’s an adult human female. He’s an adult human male. They’re in a relationship. So they’re basically a boring old hetero couple, am I wrong?

I swim alot, and have done for years, at many pools, public and private. I've never seen any evidence of male harrassment. Ever.
And as a fat old woman, I don't care what people think of me. Why should I buy into what concept anyone else has about what my body should look like? Why can't posters see that normalising these concerns, by saying they are rational, is harmful to women? I really think that Feminism is going backwards.

I want to swim where Errol's swimming

They could have a male only and female only hour. Non-binary is ridiculous I agree.

I'm a bit torn on female hour only in general though. Where I used to live there was a large ethnic minority population. At the local pool, the women only swam in the women-only hour. But it actually enabled their oppression in my opinion. If they'd had no swimming, they could have agitated for cultural acceptance to go and swim in any mixed public session. The one hour allowed the blokes to say: 'but you can swim - in your women-only hour'. Thus denying them the other tens of hours of public swimming they were technically entitled to.

The women only hour got ridiculously busy and not everybody could get in.They could have put on extra women only hours but that's a slippery slope towards supporting that culture's enforced segregation which seems regressive to me.

The other effect was that the general swims became increasingly male dominated.

and yes, I would be perfectly happy to make Hampstead Pools all mixed. What I would fight for is women-only spaces in prisons, hospitals, and refuges. Where women NEED seperate spaces.

It would go against all that has been fought for, equility.

lucydo that's fine, but other women have different boundaries to you. Why should your boundaries be respected, and other women's not?
Just because you have never been made to feel uncomfortable at a swimming pool doesn't mean no one else has. Our pool runs over 50 sessions, I could go to them but I choose not to, doesn't mean I think they shouldn't take place

Girton is a mixed College.

There are all women colleges in Cambridge, but this is not one of them

The people who want to swim in a segregated session could go. To one of the single sex colleges (not sure if they have pools) or use one of the public leisure centres which offer this (eg Abbey).

I don't think it's wrong for a mixed sex college to have mixed sex leisure provision.

What is this binary crap about? Is there a list of character traits you need to have to be able to say you're non-binary?

• The people who want to swim in a segregated session could go. To one of the single sex colleges (not sure if they have pools) or use one of the public leisure centres which offer this (eg Abbey).

I don't think it's wrong for a mixed sex college to have mixed sex leisure provision.*

I'm pretty sure neither of the women's colleges have a pool, and not sure if their gyms are open to students from other colleges.

I don't think it's wrong of colleges which have women and men to have one or two single sex sessions.

Is there a list of character traits you need to have to be able to say you're non-binary?
Some information comment here:

www.teenvogue.com/story/9-things-people-get-wrong-about-being-non-binary

It seems anyone can say they are non-binary, there are no limits to the possible reasonings and all of those are 'real and valid'.

The people who want to swim in a segregated session could go. To one of the single sex colleges (not sure if they have pools) or use one of the public leisure centres which offer this (eg Abbey).

It's the only college with a pool, or it used to be. And the college student body, the JCR, and administration are all in favour of the session.

I don't think it's wrong for a mixed sex college to have mixed sex leisure provision

Neither do the (confused) women who wrote the sign, nor the JCR, nor the mistress, nor the senior tutor. None of them are opposing the pool being mixed sex. Noone is lobbying to abolish all mixing of the sexes in Girton's pool.

Requesting one solitary hour a week for any women who want to swim in a same sex session is fine.
Declaring 'nonbinary' is welcome too is completely daft and expressly allows men to join in, undermining the entire premise.

Requesting one solitary hour a week for any women who want to swim in a same sex session is fine.
Declaring 'nonbinary' is welcome too is completely daft and expressly allows men to join in, undermining the entire premise.

Non-binary groups often talk about 'smashing the binary', they mean this and the binary distinctions they are focussed on are sex binaries. This isn't about gender but sex and has serious implications.

The non-binary bit is bonkers.

Apart from the need of trans/NB people to feel validated as women, why on earth would a NB person feel the need to be in a session without men? Like what possible motivation could there be?

I think there are significant differences between male non-binary motivations and female non-binary motivations.

Women not did not only fight for us to have the vote, they also are still fighting for us to be equal amoung men.

In my view, All women's’ sessions are equivalent to what you find in totalitarian regimes. Then, you have the danger of being excluded when men ask for men only sessions.

It is not feminism, it is backward progression which panders to men who do not want their wives mixing with other men.