The history of single sex spaces

[somebrightmorning]

Hi,
I am wrestling with this idea of the consequences of turning spaces for the female sex into spaces for those who say they are women.

In order to know the loss entailed by this,I would find it useful to understand more about when and how and why single sex spaces came into being.

My thinking is:

• when did each type of space come into being (so for instance we’ve had convents for a thousand years...... sports clubs for a lot fewer years) . How? Why? Was it positive or negative?
• what did women do before it came into being?
• what was the relationship between the fight to open up Male only spaces to women and the fight to create female only spaces?
• did women’s own view of the single sex spaces vary according to class? And vary over time?

I realise this is more of a booklist than a thread and would be appreciative of a point towards any literature.

After all history doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes.....

Try a search on " women's toilets and great exhibition " ( vague recollection that women weren't going because of lack of facilities...so not spending a penny. )

Separate monasteries for men and women go back to around the fourth century, I believe, that is, when monasticism started.

Try these?

www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/womens-right-work-toilet-bathroom-victorian-london-wwi-factory-protest

www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/History-of-Womens-Public-Toilets-in-Britain/

Or this

www.bbc.com/news/world-41999792

That’s great.
Thank you.

Nowadays however, under the 1992 Workplace Regulations, not ensuring that men and women have separate toilet facilities is illegal for employers.

Interesting bit of information there from one of the articles posted.

We've seen instances of various companies replacing signs so that men continue to have their own toilets while women no longer have their own; instead they are lumped in with the gender neutral label.
Or all toilets being changed to gender neutral. Is this illegal?

UNESCO recommends single-sex toilets in order to boost women’s access to education. In Mumbai in India, there are fewer toilets for women than for men, and women must also pay more than men to use the facilities. This has led to the ‘Right to Pee’ campaign promoted by Indian feminists.

Ironic how this is a global recommendation, but girls in schools across the UK are being denied access to single sex toilets due to self-id and/or gender neutral labels being fashionable at the moment.

At the Roman Baths in Bath it was more a case of seperate sessions, right into the 19th century. Men went in starkers, while Jane Austen and her mates had to wear long linen shits that floated around them like a fried egg giving them all personal space.