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.

TheSunRisesInTheEast

No. Gender is gender whatever colour you are 🙂.

Can you explain how you are using the term ‘gender’ in that sentence, please?

Allira

TheSunRisesInTheEast

No. Gender is gender whatever colour you are 🙂.

Or sex if you prefer that term 🙂

I do and I refuse to use the term 'gender' now. It used to mean the same as sex and presumably still does when pregnant couples do a 'gender reveal' of their unborn baby. But now too often it's used for socially endorsed stereotype behaviours etc associated with one sex or the other. The whole basis of transgender ideology.
Sex is so much less ambiguous, with the two immutable ones determined at conception.

It's not only a non- sequitur but taking what is a really relevant and interesting discussion. and attempting to ruin it by taking it into completely different territory.

I suggest best to scroll on by and resume the original discussion, which is of genuine interest - the values and snags of having women or men only groups.

My experiences have led me to resume what I felt in the 1970's - which is that us feminists encouraged the men we knew to have just that kind of group - where, at a time when "men were supposed to be men", they could question those values and the way girls and boys were brought up.

What was the point in strengthening ourselves as women, if we didnt make a difference for all?

I used "gender" simply because we're talking about men and women, nothing more complicated than that. Gender means sex, male or female, I choose to say gender instead of sex, simple as that 🤷.

I don't know if you saw the musicals on BBC1 tonight, but there was a men's choir on there, set up by a man for men to get together and talk about their lives, problems, feelings, like the Men's Shed but singing. It was moving to hear what it means to the men, proof that it's needed and worthwhile.

Women have had places to meet, chat and support one another for years, I don't have a problem with men having the same facility.

Rosie51

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

Well said Rosie51.

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?

... and women might want to discuss things like pregnancy/childbirth/the menopause, or the problems women sometimes experience because of one of these milestones (or all of them occasionally ). I'm sure men can be sympathetic and understanding about these issues; my now late OH was very sweet when I was having meltdowns through the menopause and if shopping alone would often look for products in Boots that he thought might be helpful or offer a drive in the countryside, but I doubt many women would want him sitting-in on conversations about it, and I never wanted him to be part of my all-women gatherings, this would have inhibited them - and me.

As you say men in women's groups and vice versa change the dynamics and I cannot see anything discriminatory in this, in wanting certain groups to be single sex. There is a difference between men and women, their life experiences are not always the same, nor are their interests / passions / problems and, if these do meet, and the interest/matter/whatever is one that's shared by both sexes then they will just organically get together! It's kind of instinctive.

And I'm really not sure where the 'victim mentality' crept into this discussion, or why! But if we are talking about this, I would ascribe it more fitting to the 'men from the manosphere' who appear to feel eternally wronged and put the blame entirely and squarely on women for this.

TheSunRisesInTheEast

I used "gender" simply because we're talking about men and women, nothing more complicated than that. Gender means sex, male or female, I choose to say gender instead of sex, simple as that 🤷.

I understand what you're saying, but for some gender doesn't mean sex, it is something that you can 'identify' into. So you can have male sex people that identify as 'woman gender' and that's the problem with the ambiguity.

Wyllow if your barb was directed at me I am not attempting to ruin anything and I don't appreciate your nastiness. If the words 'men' and 'women' don't have fixed definitions, based on immutable sex, then the whole discussion is worthless. What is a womens' group and why would it be necessary?

Jackiest

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.

Men only groups were no more for controlling women than women only groups are for controlling men.

The once-exclusive "men-only" clubs for various politicians, aristo's and those in positions of power around St James' and Pall-Mall were very much about control - these were spaces where men in positions of power discussed behind closed doors 'affairs of state'! Excluding women meant that they had no influence at all in these matters of state that could and did affect their lives.

Such clubs are entirely different from the social groups that we are talking about.

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?

Rosie

It was this that I felt was taking us into thread drift which was a great pity and what I felt spoiled a really valuable discussion about women and men only situations,

which we have got back onto anyway, I see no attack on you.

Nor intended.

Wyllow given your post was immediately below mine and didn't quote any other I don't think it was unreasonable to assume it was mine you were attacking. The one you now quote was 10 posts above mine!!! In future to avoid confusion it might be best to quote the post you're replying to.

Yes, no problem, for clarity's sake.

TheSunRisesInTheEast

I used "gender" simply because we're talking about men and women, nothing more complicated than that. Gender means sex, male or female, I choose to say gender instead of sex, simple as that 🤷.

Gender does not mean sex. So-called ‘gender’ is about the norms and behaviours assumed to fit members of each sex. Pink for a girl, sugar and spice, big boys don’t cry etc. The clothes we wear, the way we talk, the roles we take in society and much more are about gender. Sex is biological and immutable.

None of that is a matter of opinion, it is in every cell in our bodies.

Changing the language so that ‘woman’ means ‘someone who says they are a woman’ and ‘gender’ means the same as sex reduces the possibilities for discussion, and takes away the rights that women fought for for so long.

Words matter. They are not about semantics but are terms for concepts, and without the words we lose the ability to understand the concepts they represent.

"The once-exclusive "men-only" clubs for various politicians, aristo's and those in positions of power around St James' and Pall-Mall were very much about control - these were spaces where men in positions of power discussed behind closed doors 'affairs of state'! Excluding women meant that they had no influence at all in these matters of state that could and did affect their lives.

Such clubs are entirely different from the social groups that we are talking about."

There is no reason why men or women cant have informal single sex or gender groupings, if you have a formal structure then it is regulated and does include "social" activities. If you allow women to have single sex sports clubs, craft group or anything else, it's regulated, to change that would mean any other gender could do it as well, it may well be welcomed by men to exclude others.

Many organizations run women only sessions, or women only holidays, by the same standard could offer men only activities if there was a demand

Doodledog, I'm old school and gender does mean male or female, sex as you call it.

It's written in black and white in my Collins Gem English Dictionary.

If a man wants to call himself a woman, or a woman wants to call herself a man, that's up to them, but as far as I'm concerned their gender is what they're born as. Such people were called gender benders. They don't bother me, live and let live, I say, but my preference of using the word gender instead of sex shouldn't get you in such a tizzy, I obviously don't look into things as deeply as you do 🤷.

The problem Doodledog is that until very recently gender was used as a 'nicer' word alternative to sex. It still is used in 'gender reveal' parties for unborn babies, the parents are revealing the sex of their unborn child. I can remember when official forms asked for your gender when they meant sex. If gender now has to mean stereotypes associated with a particular sex then that is when the whole 'gender identity' thing takes over. I don't have a gender identity, I have a sex. In some ways I conform to the stereotype expectations for my sex, in lots of other ways I don't. I wish we could either dump the word gender altogether or get back to when it was an alternative word for sex.

I am not in a tizzy, TheSunRisesInTheEast.

'Gender reveal' is a nonsense. As far as I can tell an unborn child has no 'gender'. They may be male or female, but how they conform to societal expectations of behaviour is yet to be determined.

The fact that people misuse terms (or use them as euphemisms) does not alter the meaning of the words. Rosie, I agree with you about having a sex and not a 'gender', as like you say, most people conform to some gender expectations and not others, and we all belong to one of two sexes.

Until legislation changes any formal organization has to comply with the discrimination laws, including the gender variations.

Any of us as private individuals can make our own choices who we socialize with, but we can't form a group that discriminates against others.

Thank you, Rosie51, I see gender as a nicer word to sex and I will continue to use it.

Crikey it only came up because someone threw the race card into the conversation, which had nothing at all to do with males or females. I wish I hadn't answered them now 🙄.

Thrown the race card? Nice word for sex? Is this 1950?

Obviously you are at liberty to use whichever words you like, but it won't alter the reality. 'Gender is gender' does not mean 'sex is sex', although to be fair, neither phrase makes a lot of sense.

We absolutely can form groups that exclude people of either sex, where necessary, that provision is covered in the equality act.

David49

Until legislation changes any formal organization has to comply with the discrimination laws, including the gender variations.

Any of us as private individuals can make our own choices who we socialize with, but we can't form a group that discriminates against others.

I thought there was no blanket rule that all organisations must admit both sexes? If they meet the legal justification then single-sex organisations are allowed.

If an organisation is set up to, for example, address issues related to a particular sex and restricting membership of the other sex is considered a proportionate way to achieve that aim, then that group meets the legal justification and can be formed.

Yes you are right dickens, it is why we can have female only refuges, advertise for a male carer for a man with disabilities, etc.

Galaxy

We absolutely can form groups that exclude people of either sex, where necessary, that provision is covered in the equality act.

... well exactly - that's how I understood the Equality Act, too.