science

Men don't need men-only spaces.

The easiest way to identify gender bigotry is to flip the genders in contention. If there is identical interpretations, there is no bigotry in play. If there is a massive difference in how they are each interpreted, there is a massive amount of gender bigotry in play.

“Women don’t need women-only spaces.”

That sounds totally different, doesn’t it? Almost… threatening.

Now apply this to all the women-only spaces out there, like women-only gyms. Why should women-only gyms get to exist while men-only gyms get sued out of existence? Gender bigotry.

This cascades down through the whole of society - DV shelters, shelters for single parents, initiatives of all kinds for the vulnerable and precarious, which for nearly all of them focus far more heavily, or even exclusively, on women even when they are in the extreme minority.

So let’s strive for true equality - equal opportunities, services, and support for all. And if women have their own spaces, why not men? After all, that is what “equality” means.

Except that seems to generate unfathomable rage from the female supremacists when it actually gets suggested, who do everything in their power to shame such ideas of true equality into oblivion.

I have to say, I personally have been actively seeking male-only spaces for the past year. This has nothing to do with disliking women. I like women a lot and have a lot of female friends I care deeply about. The reason comes from my end - I have things that are difficult for me to talk about that I would like to discuss in a supportive environment with other people who understand and accept my lived experience. While I can and do open up to my female friends about some things, for other things I am simply more comfortable talking to other guys - where "more comfortable" means "I might talk about it *at all."

Unfortunately, most male-only spaces put up significant barriers to entry, because otherwise they become magnets for right wing lunatics or the chronically depressed.