GC: Are men entitled to male-only spaces?

submitted by womanual from (self.GCdebatesQT)

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[–]slushpilot 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (16 children)

Yes, absolutely. You can't endorse spaces for one without the other.

Now, there are reasonable limits, and I think it depends on what the interest of the group is, and whether there is enough access available to both sexes independently. For example, if you're talking about a very niche hobby—like let's say there's a men's only model helicopter flying club—an obviously spurious thing, and so niche that there's not enough people to independently form an equivalent women's club, then I would question that.

[–]loveSloaneDebate King 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

For example, if you're talking about a very niche hobby—like let's say there's a men's only model helicopter flying club—an obviously spurious thing, and so niche that there's not enough people to independently form an equivalent women's club, then I would question that.

I disagree. If there are coed helicopter flying clubs that women can access I don’t think it’s unfair for there to be a men’s only club. All you need is two or three women to form a women’s only club. If there just isn’t one that shouldn’t mean men who want their own club can’t have it. Those types of things (niche hobbies or clubs for niche hobbies) aren’t really rights, for us to say men can’t make their own niche clubs if women don’t have an equivalent.

[–]slushpilot 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

If there are coed helicopter flying clubs that women can access

That's exactly what I am saying though. The if means something. What if there aren't any, and the only one in your area says "men only"?

[–]loveSloaneDebate King 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Honestly? Then form a woman’s only/coed club.

It’s a club. It’s not a necessity. And you only need a few people to make the group. It’s as simple as finding other people (of either sex or your own) who like flying helicopters (or whatever the club is for) and want to do it with you.

If women make a club for just women, do transwomen/any men get to join if there isn’t a coed one or one for only men?

GC would say no, (at least most of us). So I’m keeping that same energy.

Just like I ask TW why they want to access spaces where they aren’t welcome/wanted- why would a woman force her way into a men’s only club?

Even if there is no coed/female only- it’s just a club, not the actual ability to learn and practice and fly- oh well, sucks you can’t join the boys club but you can still enjoy your hobby and could still enjoy that same hobby with friends if you brought them along (in other words- made your own club).

If you make a club, you get to decide who is in it. If you want to be in a club and there isn’t one that works for you- make one. Especially if it’s something that’s just for a hobby.

[–]loveSloaneDebate King 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

We tell TW all the time to advocate for themselves and their own spaces instead of invading female spaces.

It’s a bit hypocritical to make a fuss over a luxury club when GC literally tells QT to respect sex based spaces even if it puts them in potential danger or makes their lives a bit more difficult to navigate. We tell them they need to advocate for themselves instead of disrupting what someone else already established for themselves. (And I think GC is right to tell them this)

So unless you advocate for allowing people to access spaces not meant for them if there isn’t a space that is intended for them- this is an odd take. Especially over something as superficial and insignificant as a club for a hobby.

I think it’s important to respect the boundaries put up by others, if I disregard or object to their boundaries I open myself up to mine being objected to and disregarded as well.

The men’s club wouldn’t prevent women from flying, wouldn’t even prevent women from flying with other women or with a group of men and women. It only prevents a woman from being surrounded by (and flying with or talking about flying with) men who didn’t want her there.

[–]slushpilot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I picked a ridiculous hobby like model helicopters as a stand-in for something that you're not likely to find very many people interested in: not enough for it to make sense to form 2 separate and exclusive clubs.

[–]loveSloaneDebate King 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It doesn’t matter what the example is- it’s still a club. Anyone can form their own club. You can substitute whatever less ridiculous hobby, what I said would still be my response.

Wanting a specific demographic and making a group for that demographic is enough reason to form however many groups as anyone wants to form. Whether or not the public approves or denounces the existence of the group is a different thing- the specific group can still exist, the people who feel some type of way can boycott (which wouldn’t matter), protest (likely wouldn’t matter), get over it, or form a club that includes them. Again, why would a woman want to force her way into a men’s club when she can invite people to her own club? There wouldn’t have been an all men’s club until some man or men made it. She can make a club herself. Again again- we tell transwomen to make their own and advocate for their own, why can’t a woman make her own club?

[–]Omina_SentenziosaSarcastic Ovalord 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You find other women who like the same thing and you make a women-only club.

[–]FlippyKingSadly this sub welcomes rape apologists and victim blaming. Bye! 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's like you missed the point of the Groucho Marx bit about not wanting to be a member of any club that would have him as a member. Why be a member of a club that doesn't want you as a member? How well with that go? Women's only knitting clubs have famously become toxic to women who take the "women's only" part seriously. This seems to be what happens when what you're saying is taken seriously.

[–]womanual[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

You can't endorse spaces for one without the other.

I disagree because I think privileged groups don't need their own spaces. For the same reason I think it's OK for black people to reclaim the n-word but it's racist for white people to use that word. I also think it's OK for POC to have their own spaces but not white people. Dylann Storm Roof shot an entire black church after they let him pray for an hour. In 2015, white supremacist Gregory Bush shot 2 black elders at a Kroger's in Louisville, Kentucky. Minutes before moving to Kroger's, he tried to enter a black church but was denied. That church had safety reasons to keep white people out. If a white church had a policy of "no POC allowed" it would absolutely be racist, because white people stole this land from my people and it's white people who have formally created and enforced racist systems throughout history and still do. So you can endorse spaces for one without the other. I endorse spaces for POC but not white people. I endorse spaces for women but not men. I endorse spaces for gays but not straights.

[–]FlippyKingSadly this sub welcomes rape apologists and victim blaming. Bye! 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I think words like the "n" word are part of an issue that is not analogous to this, though some of the same underlying principles around group solidarity or boundaries of decency or boundaries of groups seem applicable to both this issue and that issue.

I think part of the reason people form groups that recognize each other as members should, when the need arises, meet in isolation from people who are not members of that group is so they can communicate and correct each other in ways that they understand among each other and they will be judges by their peers. You can call that racist or racism, fine but it goes both ways. That you can see the benefit, or perhaps only acknowledge some of the benefit, for one but not grant it for others you declare oppressors is on you. Luckily people can meet without your permission, just as people can meet without anyone else's permission-- or should be able to anyway. Attacks on freedom of assembly are not new, but are never right.

Do you endorse spaces for women but not transwomen? Oh, maybe you do not recognize how oppressed they are by you, the same way I do not see how the very real oppression caused by others was caused by generally poor and working class white or straight people just trying to live their lives under the same systems of oppression everyone else has tried to lived under, where the most common tactic is to divide us and conquer us along lines they and not us define. My blindness to my culpability in others oppression, something I've been assured of by others on occassion, does not give me the right to veto that group meeting without me. Your potential blindness to what another group needs or to their sense of oppression does not give you the right to veto their ability to meet in separate from outsiders.

Do you think transwomen should be allowed to meet among themselves without others? It does not matter if you, or I, would want attend such a meeting. If they can not meet along among themselves, they they would have to be allowed to meet among what ever group you or I would recognize they are not a legitimate part of. Else, they just would not be allowed to go to meetings but that violates my sense of freedom of assembly.

Maybe I take issue with the notion of a group being allowed to based only upon their shared sense of oppression. I have no idea what the Knights of Columbus are or what they do, but I can't see why they shouldn't be allowed to meet even if their exclusion of non-Knights of Columbus seems arbitrary. If I'm misreading your reasoning, I apologize.

[–]slushpilot 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

This question was about men & women, primarily.

[–]womanual[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

The answer to the question is women are an oppressed group while men aren't. That's why men don't need spaces just for men.

[–]FlippyKingSadly this sub welcomes rape apologists and victim blaming. Bye! 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Is a sense of shared oppression is the only legitimate reason a group might need to meet?

[–]womanual[S] 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

It's the only legitimate reason why a group can exclude certain demographics.

[–]FlippyKingSadly this sub welcomes rape apologists and victim blaming. Bye! 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Well there you go. I think that's a real lack of imagination. Also though, you are changing something around. I'm asking about legitimate reasons a group might need to meet. The exclusion implicit in my question is based on membership in the group in question. If non-membership counts as exclusion, then so be it.

But, are you saying a group can not meet unless it is a group organized around a shared oppression? How oppressed can that group be if they can prevent other groups from meeting among themselves? Your view seems impossible, and even irrational upon scrutiny.

[–]FlippyKingSadly this sub welcomes rape apologists and victim blaming. Bye! 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Also above you make this statement, which I think really goes to the heart of your position on this:

I think privileged groups don't need their own spaces.

I realize you say 'think' and not know, but how can you know that, or how can your thoughts on it be authoritative such that because you think it they should not be able to meet among themselves. It is one think to think it, but another then to take that though uncritically and just create a blanket opinion about who can not meet among themselves.

And, I'm not even going to waste time on your assumption about your universalizing the concept of privileged. I wish you success in stopping the Bilderbergers and the G7-9-15-etc from meeting, barring the the CFR from getting together and all the rest, but how do you intend do that? Or is it just straight white men that can't meet? It seems like you're arguing for tokenism or representation, if it's not just virtue signalling or sour grapes.