Women only activities/events

Is it ok to have playgroups that exclude 18 year olds. Is it OK for blue badge service to exclude those without a disability.
You would be appalled at what we used to do when people came to our Hiv/Aids service who were pretending to have the condition, we refused the service. Presumably that makes me far right or something.

Jackiest

If it OK to have women only groups and exclude men is it also OK to have whites only groups and exclude black people?

Presumably you are aghast at and vehemently against this:

blackwelshmusicawards.org.uk

if not, why not? It's rather exclusive.

TheSunRisesInTheEast

No. Gender is gender whatever colour you are 🙂.

Or sex if you prefer that term 🙂

'expressions'? Classes!

Jackiest

If it OK to have women only groups and exclude men is it also OK to have whites only groups and exclude black people?

Is it ok to have dog training expressions and exclude giraffes?

No. Gender is gender whatever colour you are 🙂.

Jackiest

If it OK to have women only groups and exclude men is it also OK to have whites only groups and exclude black people?

Straw man argument.
Non-sequitur.

If it OK to have women only groups and exclude men is it also OK to have whites only groups and exclude black people?

Galaxy

Yes I think what has been done to the mens shed movement is deeply unpleasant.

Yes: meeting those needs, where men can feel safe to open up to each other, admit vulnerability, develop an emotional language, give each other support in their own struggles, not to become rich and famous (as in your well heeled traditional exclusive) Mens clubs

but to learn how to feel its OK to admit to emotional pain and what had been dubbed "weakness" not manly" and so on.

If you start a book club you're excluding people that don't read books. Start a hill walking group and you exclude those not physically able to walk hills. Start a visual arts group and you discriminate against the blind or partially sighted. Not every group is for everybody. Why is it so wrong to want a group consisting purely of males or females? It's a long acknowledged fact that a great many men will not talk about emotional things when women are present. Perhaps their mental health doesn't matter?
I don't have a victim mentality, I just sometimes like the company of only women. The dynamics are totally different to a mixed sex group, even when there's a very wide age range. Why are some women so scared of being with only other women? Do you tell your Muslim women friends that they have a victim mentality because for religious obligation they don't attend mixed sex groups outwith their own family? Nobody is going to force anyone who prefers to always be in mixed sex groups to join one that is exclusively for one sex, it's called choice

TheSunRisesInTheEast Sat 28-Mar-26 13:36:26

Exactly this.

I thought that was the whole point of Men's Sheds and don't see the need for women to push to join, just as women too need safe spaces.

If that's the standards considered appropriate for women, wet my pants or use the mens then it doesn't really say much about our society. Thankfully those are not the options available.

Allsorts

Paddyanne, I can see plenty wrong with men using ladies toilets. Can not see many women (any) wanting to use the mens urinals. Ugh the thought of it but you carry on,

I've said it before and I'll repeat it again. Having been a member of various gyms and health clubs for years now. The usual configuration in such places is a locker room with maybe one or two personal cubicles, often with just a curtain across. Off that area will be the loos and then the showers. So once showered it's usual to emerge with just a towel around oneself into the locker room where women, girls and small boys dry off and get dressed. From my experience, there won't always be a cubicle available. Anyone who is of the opinion that it's ok to let anyone use such a facility other than girls and women must seriously be lacking in any sort of imagination as to the dangers that could present. Particularly at quiet times when one could find one's self the only person having a shower and getting dressed. Women should never have been put in positions of vulnerability and that also applies to public toilets as well.

Allsorts

Paddyanne, I can see plenty wrong with men using ladies toilets. Can not see many women (any) wanting to use the mens urinals. Ugh the thought of it but you carry on,

FYI, in UK all mens public toilets include a sit down lav in a cubicle.

I'd rather use the Mens than wet my pants in public.

Duvetdiva

I’m all for mixed groups and gatherings but I’m not really happy about men being part of Gransnet.com (sorry) but I think it limits female disclosures

If there are any grandfathers here who are unfamiliar with anything female , I'm very happy to enlighten them.

Yes I think what has been done to the mens shed movement is deeply unpleasant.

Paddyanne, I can see plenty wrong with men using ladies toilets. Can not see many women (any) wanting to use the mens urinals. Ugh the thought of it but you carry on,

I can see nothing wrong with men or women only groups. Nothing wrong with mixed groups either. Some people have to make a fuss and spoil things for others.

With regards to Men's Sheds, the organisation was started as a place for men to have a place to go to make things (carpentry, metalwork, art etc.) in a male only environment due to a lack of places to go to offload any worries, concerns, anxieties, bereavement, loneliness. Not all men go to the pub or sports venues for friendship and camaraderie, retirement means many men no longer have the company of workmates to chat to, have a laugh with, so Men's Sheds filled a need for lots of men. Men could talk freely, no doubt offloading about domestic life, wives, girlfriends, family life in general, happiness, sadness, general health, mental health, bereavement, loneliness. Enter women into that environment and the whole atmosphere changes.

Let the men have their 'men only space', there's enough publicity about men not talking about mental health and feelings, well Men's Sheds were a provision for this and then the women started turning up. Many men will clam up around women, thus defeating the object of having an outlet for men to spend a few hours in a men only environment. The sexes are not the same, physically, mentally or emotionally. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. There will always be exceptions, but on the whole I believe this to be true.

* Charley 68* my OH runs what started as a men’s shed style group for car enthusiasts .Three years down the line there are several women ,young woman who take their cars in to work on them.Including at least one transgender woman.
It works well and only one of the old boys wasn,t happy about women in his space.
I have only ever been in a single sex school,convent school.Never needed to bein a woman only space since then .Worked in a male dominated job ( not nowadays) and met my husband there when I was his boss .Iwas 20 to his almost 19.My hen night included one of my best friends who just happened to be male .
No he isn,t gay.
Never worried about men in women’s loos as I well remember women popping into the gents when the queue was too long
for the ladies.And just recently met a big hairy bloke coming out of the ladies in a pub…he apologised and explained why he couldn,t wait for a cubicle in the gents.
I sometimes think a lot of women have a victim mentality and yes I do know that men are the main cause of DV and rape BUT it’s most often men who are known to their victim .
I.ll await the onslaught!

I'm feeling discriminated against! 😲

But then again, do I want DH to come to my women's group?

No, and there are plenty of other groups we can join together.

As soon as you start segregating you cause problems and competition. Men only groups were no more for controlling women than women only groups are for controlling men. We are just looking at them from a different angle. You should never divide people into us and them it does not matter if it black and white, men and women or our race their race it is always wrong and leads to discrimination.

Elegran

Gransnet will always be predominantly female, until and unless many men stop seeing "women's talk" as 99% cosy domestic or gossipy chitchat, but that is not a reason to ban all men from it.

My tongue-in-cheek final paragraph was clearly taken as a mission statement by some!

Elegran, its because I was sexually assulted by a man I trusted in a very "safe" space last October, and the effect on me has devastated me at times, particularly because some - yes, women as well as men - did not believe me until it went to the police and there was a confession.

I also came out of a co-ercive marriage in 2022 after 11 years: however previously

However, I'd been in a first long marriage with a man who is a feminist and lovely (break up was amicable and for good reasons, and we still see each other, and have a son who of course really respects women as true equals in every way, and bringing up their children as one might wish for)

so of course, I have seen both sides of the coin:

however, your post triggered a serious response, as the assault in particular was violent and devastating to me so...I know how many women also are in situations where it is not "tongue in cheek" for us.

Well no. There are literally thousands of places where men and women talk on the Internet, on those sites, men and women can share their perspectives on Iran or the price of fish. MN in particular was relatively unique because it was predominantly women. In my view that was/is it's strength.

Hamster58 - I think it's important to explore why women did rail against 'men only' clubs decades ago because that's the key. We instinctively knew then that men only domains effectively served to bolster the belief that women could be controlled by being excluded from discussion which ultimately had some bearing on their lives. The development of 'women only' groups came from a different stable, one of mutual support and not one of domination of the other sex. I am totally against men's clubs that make decisions about women's futures but equally for single sex groups that provide support of an appropriate nature and there's nothing hypocritical about what women have done in creating social spaces where they can feel safe and resourced.