This is why we can’t have nice things

[Ritascornershop]

I’m in Canada where (for the most part) people are either blissfully unaware of what’s going on and/or are at pains to make sure no men have hurt feelings ever.

I got an email at work last week inviting the women on staff to a meeting once a week to discuss female biology as it relates to work (being pregnant, breastfeeding, menopausal etc at work). Next day comes a correction “all female-identifying staff”, a few hours later “and men, though we will be discussing women’s biology, so just if you’re comfortable with that!”

I email the sender for clarification (not that I needed it, I just wanted to say I wouldn’t attend a “women’s group” that had men in it). Email comes back saying all staff are welcome if they have “something to contribute”.

I mentioned this to my sister and she said “but women have fought to be included in things so we can’t now exclude men.” I said I wouldn’t presume to push into a men’s meeting about prostate cancer or beard care or erectile dysfunction or whatever, but she was firm that it would be unfair. I despair (& salute the strong British feminists and their common sense and sense of humour and outrage).

God I am glad my employer seems to be serving all this shit.

They ran a womans health week - all mentions were about women/female employees. I attended the classes (partly for topic interest and partly to be able to see how they pitched it).

It was excellently done. The menopause session was open to all female staff. No alternative language used. The presenter used "women,girls" as needed when presenting.

At the end she mentioned she was hosting a separate session for management and that it would be open to men/male employees as an information session.

Honestly. So fucking refreshing.

*swerving

This is so stupid and I’m sorry but your sister is just not thinking very clearly. As if women would shove into a meeting about erectile dysfunction or male pattern baldness or recovery from prostate surgery. And if they did they ought to be told to bugger right off. That’s not what women have campaigned for through history, and it’s not what they’ve achieved, either. Women fought for and gained access to political and social spaces, not intimate ones. And that’s before you get to the fact that women are at risk of rape by men and are encouraged to feel that stringently policing their interactions with men is the way to stay safe from assault. Hard — and probably foolish — to switch off that fear and that socialisation and welcome men and male bodied people into vulnerable conversations and spaces. And the fact that historically (and currently) women’s bodily functions have been treated as unseemly and disgusting. When every tampon ad you saw growing up was about discretion and hiding any sign of menstruation, and most of your sexual partners have reinforced the idea that periods are unmentionable and foul, it’s not really possible to talk in an open way about those issues or menopause in front of men. And when men’s mags and music videos routinely sexualise breasts while social media treats them as obscene how are women supposed then to welcome men into conversations about breastfeeding? These are the reasons we still need single sex spaces and groups.

Does your sister think that other marginalised and historically oppressed groups should be allowed to have their own support and discussion sessions? Would it be mean to have a First Nations group that was closed to people of other backgrounds? Or an LGBT group that was closed to straight people? Generally people don't think this is mean, but when it's women sometimes they do and the only logical explanation is that they don't believe that sex is an axis of oppression in its own right or that sexism exists. Which is certainly an opinion that many people have, but it's obviously incompatible with feminism, so does your sister believe that she is a feminist?

@MsFogi

Sadly very few women will attend and then your employer will say "Well we did offer it but no women turned up so clearly they don't need/want any support".

Maybe I'm overly cynical but given the wide range of topics and my experience in male field and women support groups it wouldn't surpise me if this was the aim all along.

I bf three DC - some of the most unsympathetic and ignorant comments came from other women - women who never had or wanted kids, ff, or were older and had kids in different child rearing cultrue.

DMum had similar with monpause flooding - male bosses avery sympathic older women or wemen going through their own menopause very unhelpful - their experiences were very different to DMum's.

I had awful periods at one point in my life still no idea why and GP weren't very interested - people question that even on MN.

You see that all the time - well my experience was this therefore eveyone must be. Women are often more than 50% of population and their experinces of biology vary widely and with age.

I think it it was serious and they wanted input into polices they'd have sectioned it out more - into pg, bf, periods, menopause etc so everyone knew what the topics were and what if any the aims were and it would be less likely to be derailed.

Though I agree sister's stance is annoying as is lack of push back or better handling from employers - though I think it indicates it was always a tick box exercise less a nice thing more an illusion of a nice thing.