Women's 'Private Spaces'

[Howseitgoin]

Clearly private spaces for women are considered a necessity by many due to a propensity for male sexual violence. Given this threat is much greater by orders of magnitude in the work place as opposed to public bathrooms, isn't it inconsistent not to demand private spaces there as well?
Thoughts?

I'm now going to have a coffee and have some breakfast.😊

I tell children to beware of creepy men lurking on the internet and will take my own advice.

Ta ta!

And the earworm visuals 😉

Yeah. OP is definitely one of those. Enjoy your breakfast.

Most people aren't typically in various stages of undress at work. It's not really a relevant comparison.

I think the fact OP thinks this happens suggests he’s not been watching family friendly films. A lot.

I'm starting to see it as a wank term rather than yank (although both fit I suppose as they yank to wank).

I also wonder if they get "excited" when we give details of our bad experiences or reason why men should stay out of women's spaces. But like the poo trolls - best not to get into details iyswim.

OP - . The research indicates Trans women are more likely to be sexually abused in male prisons & bathrooms.
Provide that evidence. Then provide the evidence that women are safer in mixed spaces. So far the UK has research that mixed spaces are not safe for women and girls.

From your article:

By the middle of the century, scientists set their sights on reaffirming the ideology by undertaking research to prove that the female body was inherently weaker than the male body.

Armed with such “scientific” facts (now understood as merely bolstering political views against the emergent women’s rights movement), legislators and other policymakers began enacting laws aimed at protecting “weaker” women in the workplace.

I assume this is the crux of your argument about why separate spheres are bad? The fact that old-fashioned scientific thinking was used against women in the past does not negate the fact that humans are a sexually dimorphic species. Women are not dumber or less evolved than men, as previously believed, but we ARE physically weaker and smaller. That is ABSOLUTELY scientific fact and the same is true of many other large mammals. In fact, the only reason scientific thinking of the time had a basis for sexist theories was because of observable physical differences between the sexes. If women and men were the same height and had similar skull sizes, they couldn't have made that argument. Men are also more likely to commit sexual offences than women and the vast majority of men are attracted to women.

Pitting sexual assaults in mixed sex workplaces against sexual assaults in public restrooms is disingenuous because most public restrooms are single sex or a single stall. If women experience fewer sexual assaults in public restrooms, it will be BECAUSE THEY ARE SINGLE SEX. I fully expect men and boys are far more likely to be sexually assaulted in men's restrooms and changing rooms than they are at work, hence why women parenting alone in public often bring their young sons with them to the toilets or wait outside the men's for them but within earshot. It's an enclosed space where men partially undress, that may be quiet or deserted for fair stretches of time. Ten minutes is more than long enough to commit a sex attack.

Regarding the trans issue, every trans woman could be an angel sent from heaven, made from fairy dust and the loudest and most majestic of unicorn farts. Every one of them could be a good, law-abiding citizen with no malintent towards women at all. The fact remains that if you tell the general public that anyone can get into an enclosed women's only space just by wearing women's clothes and claiming they are a woman, then you will get male sex pests and predators dressing up as women and declaring that they are trans when they aren't. Good men don't want to get in, they have no motivation to and are happier to observe social norms and women's comfort. If I announced in a national newspaper that anyone who dressed like my partner and claimed they were my partner could have access to our joint savings account, what sort of person do you think is going to take me up on that?

That sentence is remarkable for the number on ambiguities it manages to cram into a small space:

OP - . The research [link please] indicates Trans women are more likely* *to be sexually abused in male prisons & bathrooms.
OP - . The research indicates Trans women are more likely [than whom?] to be sexually abused in male prisons & bathrooms.
OP - . The research indicates Trans women are more likely to be sexually abused [than what?] in male prisons & bathrooms.
OP - . The research indicates Trans women are more likely to be sexually abused in male prisons [than where?] & bathrooms.
OP - . The research indicates Trans women are more likely to be sexually abused in male prisons & bathrooms [than where?].

Five questions raised by a mere 16 words (17 if you break up transwomen as the OP does) is quite something.

The OP completely overlooks the key requirement of single sex provision in that it needs to be a proportionate means to achieving a legitimate aim. The proportionality element includes impact on productivity and organisational efficiency in the case of the workplace.

Within the workplace, single sex loos afford dignity, privacy and safety to females. Beyond the cost of providing different types of loos, this has little impact on productivity and efficiency.

Single sex work places are not being ask for and if they were, they would likely be rejected due to the impact on productivity and efficiency.

OP, your desire for males to be able to use female only provision seems to be impairing your capacity to see things objectively. There are significant design difference between loos and work spaces in response to the function they serve - this a there for all to see.

If I was attending a multi disciplinary meeting with you, or if we were sitting at the same table in the canteen, I wouldn’t care what sex you are nor what your gender identity is. If we were in the loos I still wouldn’t care what your gender identity is but I would care if you were male. This really should not be difficult to understand even if you find this upsetting

As a fellow Australian, I have rarely called it a ‘bathroom’. Maybe it is a north south thing or an east west thing??

I was raised by an actual Suffragette i don't need a man mansplaining feminism to me especially when hes misrepresenting what it stood for.
Perhaps you should spend your time lecturing men about not being predatory sleaseballs

What work situations specifically do you have in mind?

There are usually safeguarding protocols in medium to large work places that will have provisions for this. However, much of this involves making sure there are others around.

I think you are overcomplicating things.

I fully accept it is true that [trans women] - in square brackets because you can insert literally any other category of people into this space and the sentence would still be accurate - are more at risk of harm when surrounded by male people compared to when they are surrounded by female people.

This is because male people are more dangerous than female people.

It is the same reason why women are more at risk of harm in a space that has a trans woman in it than they are in a space which only has female people in it.

Because male people - including trans women - are more dangerous than female people.

If society believes that trans women are more deserving of protection from other male people than any other subcategory of vulnerable males, it needs to come up with a solution to that problem which does not involve trans women being in women's spaces. Because women's spaces are for women, and trans women are men.

Indeed.

Why are you arguing so very strongly for the male right to be able to give personal and intimate care to women and girls with profound and multiple physical, communication and cognitive disabilities?

The women and girls who cannot communicate about abuse that might occur when alone with a male?

The minority group who suffer the highest levels of sexual assault?

This is your “logic” mate.

There is strong societal support for single sex provision when it comes to loos, changing rooms, hospital wards, prisons, refuges etc. It is a clear as the noses on people’s faces as to why this is. It’s a done deal and the law isn’t going to change in this.

People quibbling about what really happens in these spaces to question whether being single sex is neccessary come across as failing to respect a perfectly legitimate boundary and seeking to delegitimise and invalidate what is perfectly reasonable.

”The research indicates Trans women are more likely to be sexually abused in male prisons & bathrooms.”

And the answer is to put vulnerable male people into prison arrangements where there is additional security provided to protect those male people. You house vulnerable male prisoners in sections where their safety needs are met.

Sex segregation is the highest priority when people in in situations of vulnerability. Then additional segregation is needed within that single sex space.

Safeguarding laws in the workplace do and should include being able to report sexual assault. If you’re working you’re likely to be able to communicate these, as long as procedures are effective.

if they’re not they need strengthening.

OP i suggest you start campaigning for work places to have more effective safeguarding practices for women to be able to move freely in the workplace and access the same opportunities as men.

I'm not the one overcomplicating things - suppose the OP had said:

'Men's loos are more dangerous than women's loos because they have men in them, and men are much more likely than women to commit violent acts.'

That would be a reasonable statement, and makes a strong case for all the decent men finding ways to make men's loos safer (the suggestion that the cubicles should be between the access door and the urinals was a good one).

'Men are much more likely than women to commit violent acts, therefore women should let men (including transwomen) into the women's loos'

Is a less convincing argument.

Also, the proposed solution doesn’t work because it doesn’t create services for women + [vulnerable subset of men], it just makes all services mixed sex because criteria for membership of the group is arbitrary.

If you have to make ridiculous false equivalencies to try and make your argument stand up then it’s a flimsy argument and you’re not going to convince anyone, same thing with trying to change the meaning of words.

Women don’t need to be separated from men or have a chaperone in the office, clearly a place of work is different to a toilet area with cubicles, locked or not.

I would also point out that men don’t want to share toilet areas with women, our local Pret has ‘unisex’ toilets which are two cubicles and a handwashing area, there’s usually a queue of able bodied people waiting for the accessible toilet rather than go in them, any time I’ve been in them, and only if I’m desperate, and a man comes in they look embarrassed and apologise for their presence or look horrified and leave. Also they stink, toilets used by men are minging.

Well, quite. If the concern was about safety, trans people would consider whether they felt more safe in a traditional cubicle in toilets for their own sex (triggers dysphoria and may expose trans women to risk of male violence but safer in the event of illness or other emergency) or in fully enclosed single occupant toilets with an emergency pull cord. If the latter, they should campaign for those to be provided as standard, in addition to traditional single sex toilets with cubicles.

But you're not going to be safe from men in women's toilets if the exemption that allows you to be in there also allows any other man to be in there provided he says he is a woman.

Oh, it's the successful sexual assault guy. I'm out.

Another thing that doesn't make any sense is why trans women are so desperate to share toilets with the same group of people they claim are threatening their very existence.

But then I guess it's just another example of men being afraid women will say mean things to them whereas women are afraid men will rape or kill them.

We were talking about this on here the other day and DID YOU KNOW that the chap from that band actually was Scottish.

As the poster said, 'I moved to a land down under' doesn't have quite the same ring to it. 😁