Australia’s Mona asked a court to reverse its ruling that allowed men inside a women’s only space.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/oHT6U
Reverse misogyny? misandry is the word your looking for author.
There shouldn’t be such thing as gender x only spaces. Or race, or sexuality. The women aren’t wrong about their points, but that doesn’t make it an acceptable or thankfully, legal thing to do. I’m sure the guy who sued them did it for all the wrong reasons though. Both sides seem a bit slimy.
I’m all for segregation spaces as long as essential spaces are open to all such as hospitals, parks etc. There are women only gyms where I am and I used to go to them because I felt safer and more comfortable.
Next we can half separate but equal water fountains for coloreds and whites.
This is a slippery slope to things you wouldn’t want to be excluded from, if this appeal wins and creates precident to make much worse places. Thinking this is a feminist battle is narrow minded, selfish, and will absolutely backfire.
But the idea is that everyone can open their own and run it by the rules they want. If you or a group don’t like how one thing is run, there is freedom to open up the same thing but make it open for all. This museum is a private one, rather than run by the government, and therefore they can do what they like. The government ones should be open to all because they are elected by the public.
I’m not at all in favour of forcing everyone to comply to uniformity for the sake of inclusivity but I’m all for ensuring that there are spaces available that are inclusive and that there’s freedom to operate how you like, provided that it doesn’t hurt anyone.
Antidiscrimination law apply everywhere, regardless whether it’s government or public or private. Otherwise America would still have Jim Crow. The laws that stop that stop this too, for the same reason. Discrimination is wrong, full stop. I don’t give a fuck if women want their own spaces, be my guest, but barring people you don’t want and then crying about it is moronic.
I’ve been to lesbian bars with my sister and even though my sister is gay, I got glared at, got scoffs, and sighs. I could tell I wasn’t wanted. It kinda pissed me off, but whatever, I was there to drink with my sister and have fun. Imagine if that was a women only bar and my sister couldn’t bring me. Then imagine all the other lesbian bars my sister wanted to bring me too (because she liked them!) were the same. You get my point. I don’t want to live in that world. Some people do and I say, fuck those nearsighted fools.
Right. I see it similar to flavours. What if regulation stipulated that you needed to have food that everyone could eat? Nothing spicy. Must have meat options at veg restaurants etc. just so that no one would be discriminated against when they went out to eat. You’d miss out on different cultures, opportunities for innovation etc. Variety would die.
So, for context, I’m from Australia and familiar with the exact museum in this article. This museum is known for putting forward very provocative art. For example, there is a wall of plaster mould vaginas and they have a soap in the shape of a vagina called ‘Cunt on a rope’. Last time I was there, they had violent and sexual imagery (with warnings outside the entry). This exhibit is par for the course for MONA. The owner is rich enough to drag the court case to the highest level but the intent has been achieved. It got people talking.
So what you’re saying is I can open up a place, put a sign in front with ‘Irish need not apply’ and water fountain inside that says ‘colored only’, and that should be legal according to you?
Only if I’m allowed to open up a space next to you with a water fountain outside and allow everyone in.
In this context, your business plan would severely limit your customer base and therefore end up ruining your own finances than anything else, while my business plan will definitely get more customers.
You plan would only end up working if the society you’re living in is more racist than not, which is not the case in the real world. There’s no need to regulate everything when moral code can do the job just fine.
That’s a pretty scary and naïve world view. Luckily you’re not in charge of making the laws (I presume).
Or what will happen is all private businesses in communities high in inherent prejudice will exclude certain out groups and pressure any businesses that don’t to either conform or they’ll be boycotted, harassed, and/or vandalized until they go under.
So there shouldn’t be girls’ locker rooms either?
Why do we need girls locker rooms when we’ve had the technology for mixed gender locker rooms for generations? We call them doors and use them even in single gender bathrooms.
Certainly it’s inappropriate for sexual predators to be able to leer at girls or women, but there I also no need to have a lack of privacy from those of the same gender, if that’s what people wish.
Apparently you’ve never been in a locker room before.
Modern locker rooms can be built with individual stalls so I understand the point being made. Personally though, it’s less efficient to have a locker room with multiple single-serve rooms. Extra material, extra cost, decreased functional area, additional readying time. If you use a locker room frequently you know how invaluable all those things are.
These are the same excuses given for the enshittification of American bathroom stalls.
Fuck the companies - give the humans the privacy they like. Many locker rooms I’ve been in already have stalls, too - the shower stalls.
So my work did something like this when they moved buildings. Our old locker room was a long rectangular room with lockers on one side, a bench on the other. No privacy once you were in that space.
New one is mixed usage private change rooms and showers. It’s a huge, huge, huge downgrade on the space. So, anecdotally, not on board. The old one still had bathroom stalls and private bathrooms if you needed it. I don’t understand the push to make it all uniform when that’s not the best use for the majority of the users. I’m not sorry about this opinion.
Why do you think that space is a huge downgrade though?
I didn’t read into this particular issue, but I know the museum in question, have been there a couple times, so some context:
- it was founded by some eccentric multi millionaire, who basically just does whatever he wants. The museum was originally free for everyone, until eventually he realised he was draining money really fast, so now it’s only free for locals.
- the museum changes it’s “theme” somewhat frequently. One time I was there the whole place looked like a grocery store, and the stairs to the actual museum was like hidden away in part of the store.
- the museum seems to thrive on getting strong reactions from people. Much of the art inside is quite shocking or provocative. They have an app where you can rate how much you like each artwork, and apparently they actively remove artworks which are too universally liked.
So it doesn’t surprise me at all that the museum is trying to be women only, but I really doubt it will be permanent, and I suspect that the strong public reactions is exactly the point.
I kind of suspected this. Usually forseeble controversy like this is a ploy, especially with art and art spaces.
You know who actually want women-only spaces?
Women.
Please share your mental gymnastics for how a rape survivor is supposed to feel safe in your space.
Sincerely, a rape survivor
Museums are usually pretty safe spaces. Sorry you went through that and that trauma is is with you.
I’m a man, and also a victim of sexual assault from a man.
This isn’t the way.
What about a space for rape victims, male or female? Spaces for survivors of things, people dealing with things, etc. are fine, and if those things only touch women, it’ll naturally only be women, or men who are (let’s argue good faith, here) trying to support someone else. Rape isn’t a female only problem, and so segregating it artificially may feel like a good idea at first glance, but creates other issues.
What about a space for black cop abuse survivors? I’d think that’s pretty inappropriate. It’ll already be mostly black, for sure, and a lot of that perspective will come through, but it’s not a black only issue.
Men and women are not the same. Rape is experienced differently for men and women. I’m not saying it’s worse for one than the other, but it literally involves that person’s genitals and is an intensely personal and gender specific thing.
The fact that you would lump male and female rape survivors together says a lot about how little experience you actually have with the subject.
There’s nothing wrong with having male-only rape survivor groups, especially if someone going through that trauma feels threatened by the other gender.
I think the intent behind a safe space is that it is separated from potential triggers. So people who were abused by a man may wish to be in a space with no men, since the sight of men might bring up past trauma. Same for people abused by women. Putting men and women together, even though they have all experienced abuse, may still be exposing them all to the same triggers they want to avoid.
Of course all these people have the same right to having safe spaces, but those spaces don’t have to be in the same place.
But of course none of that really makes sense in a museum specialising on controversy
So we need a space for women abused by men, women abused by women, men abused by men, men abused by women, and people abused by mascots.
How about if people who want to create safe spaces just create the safe spaces they want to create, and we try to respect their need instead of making sure they’ve covered every corner case an uninvolved third party can imagine?
I’m pretty sure that if there is a large enough community of people abused by mascots in a given locality, someone will create a safe space for those people. The presence of a “safe space for female rape survivors” doesn’t preclude someone who wants to from creating that, nor a safe space for male rape survivors.
The problem I see is bigots using that as cover for their bigotry. “Sorry, this golf club is a safe space for people triggered by black people and women.”
The government would have to decide that the discrimination we like is ok, but the discrimination we don’t like isn’t. Which has incredible potential for abuse when the wrong people end up in charge.
Here’s my problem with that (reasonable) viewpoint.
I think there is a fairly reasonable distinction that could be made between those two scenarios such that it should not be difficult to write the related laws in a way that handles both circumstances appropriately. You can phrase it as “the discrimination we like vs the discrimination we don’t like” but I think that’s overly reductive.
No one using this example (and there are a few) finds it hard to see the difference between a safe space for women and a club for bigots. If we can perceive that distinction, we can describe it with words, and we can legislate accordingly.
Otherwise, we’re deciding not to let people who need them have safe spaces because assholes might take advantage of our permissiveness. I’m not OK with that.
Maybe that makes sense for a party in someone’s home or whatever, but not in a museum.
No one goes to a museum to feel safe, because it is you know, a museum and not a safe house or something. If someone is so incredibly scared of the other half of humanity so they can’t go to a museum where they are allowed, they probably should go to therapy or stay at home instead of a museum.
I was just about to to write something exactly like this.
Being afraid of 49% of the planet so hard that going outside is impossible, what the fuck is going to a museum going to be like? Do they escort you from your car into the side entrance? And then what? Enjoy a museum or is it group therapy in there? To what end.
Being catatonically afraid is not the world’s problem (ie fighting a legal case).
Yeah, I understand the intent. And it is a good intent, one of those “seemingly good ideas” I mentioned. There are still HUGE problems with it, particularly depending on how broad and public the group is.
I can agree to a need for a safe place in order to get past trauma. The issue is one of equal access and quality, I think. Specifically for something like sexual assault, I can easily imagine there being a lot of instances where there are only women-only groups available. In a way, situations like this, where we need a safe space for one group, can deprive the other group of safe spaces.
If we want to keep segregated spaces for things like this, fine, but there has to be some equality of access. If not with your specific group, then having a network with other groups, for instance. This is a huge, complicated topic with a lot of possibilities and nuance, and is a bit past the point of this post. The purpose of my previous comment was to refute the obvious strawman of the last commenter, equating an art installation to safe spaces for sexual assault survivors.
If we want to keep segregated spaces for things like this, fine, but there has to be some equality of access. If not with your specific group, then having a network with other groups, for instance. This is a huge, complicated topic with a lot of possibilities and nuance, and is a bit past the point of this post.
Why? Let’s pretend I’ve got fuck you money, and I’ve had some close personal experiences with family members or friends suffering through sexual abuse or rape. All those friends are women.
If I create a shelter for women who need to be safe from sexual abuse and predators and away from all likely triggers while they recover (or, say, a crazy museum for the same purpose) - what exactly obligates me to any of that? I’m taking my money and building a women’s shelter, because that’s the group I’ve got a personal connection with, and the group I want to help. Elon Musk can build a men’s shelter if he wants.
I’m not asking about laws, I’m asking about ethics. Why am I obligated to help EVERY group because I’ve chosen to help ONE group?
No pretend you have fuck you money and you are racist. Is it still OK to make a shelter for white people?
Its a complicated issue. In this case, the point of the piece is to highlight segregation. Even with laws protecting women, they are more likely to sufferviomebce or exclusion.
Man I hate to say it but cutting off 50% of the population due to trauma is a tauma response and solely that.
Its horrible you ever had to go through that and not even knowing you personally if I had a time machine to help I would; but that was one bad person, not a bad populace.
On the other side of that, you can’t force something just because you’ve identified it as a trauma response. Deciding that women shouldn’t feel threatened by men (or the other way around) for them and taking away spaces they feel safe isn’t constructive, it’s cruel.
Never did I say we should actively punish people for their trauma, I just simply mean we shouldn’t punish others for it either.
And a museum centred around controversy sounds like the last place for healthy healing
Nah, best to blame men forever and call it.
Whew, if the bear meme didn’t bring out the usual crowd of assholes, this sure did.
MONA is famous here for doing all sorts of controversial shit. This one time they sacrificed and butchered a cow live on stage. A women’s only space is tame and on brand. Everyone’s been baited
It’s honestly shocking how many people are missing the point.
They just need to read the article and it basically spells it out. The whole thing is meant to be shocking in order to draw attention to the stupid laws and get them fixed.
It’s right there, both the motive and the solution.
At least with the bear it was less well documented and kinda took some background knowledge and extra thought to understand. But this one is just RIGHT THERE spelled out in the article 🤷
Yup. Thousands of years of female exclusion - and it still continues in circles to this day, but one museum and now they’re crying about basically re-excluding women from everything as a “thought exercise.”
What about trans women? Will they be pushed out?
Yeah this is a reason I think this is dumb. Who decides what a woman is here? Australia doesn’t even have bathroom laws discriminating against trans people as far as I know. How do they enforce this, by just telling people who they think look too much like a man to leave? By asking for their ID and only allowing in people who legally changed their gender?
Women’s safe spaces are important. This is not how to do it.
Is this the intent of the artist? Are they making a statement about gender identity? Was the baseless discrimination the art all along? This specific article doesn’t make it clear to me, but maybe I missed something.
Those are excluded and you know it. Don’t be a pain in the ass.
Men about “gentlemens’ clubs” and other shit:
I used to work at a strip club. Every body is more than welcome.
Lesbians frequently came in, but also straight girls and I couldn’t tell you why.
So shut it.EDIT: IN USA, “GENTLEMAN’S CLUB” = STRIP CLUB. I’m keeping this post for posterity. Miscommunication!
What? I’m talking about actual men’s clubs where women weren’t allowed or wanted, until they were because you couldn’t have exclusionary rules like that
Hmmm. In America, “gentleman’s clubs” is what people call strip clubs. I apologize for the aggressive language, I misunderstood.
No worries, a poor choice of term from my part
Was just saying how I wish there were women only gyms because I don’t feel comfortable in coed gyms. Men are fucking creeps and do not respect personal space in my gym going experience. The reason there are no women only gyms in California is because men’s rights groups sued them for discrimination. So basically there aren’t any safe places to go to the gym for people like me.
edit: good to see the lack of reciprocity or willingness to look at this issue for what it actually is from certain instances.
Because that totally won’t immediately be abused for transphobia. Like, I get the complaint, but think through the implications for five seconds
There just flat out is no solution to gender seperate spaces.
Allow only biological women/men? Transphobic, issues for some intersex people, and you now have transpeople that are clearly not the gender their birth sex suggests in the “”“right”“” bathroom, so even for transphobes this doesn’t work.
Have someone stand in front and judge if people are feminine/masculine enough? Absolutely not holy fuck
Allow people based on gender identity? Any bad actor can just pretend. Absolutely the easiest option though, and imo the best one if we have to seperate them. Thankfully also the one usually implemented.
Allow people based on the gender on their ID? Still sucks for trans people as getting that changed isn’t necessarily easy, plus assuming we don’t havr someone check everyone at the entrance, trans people would be more likely to have someone complain and have to justify themselves. If we make it as easy as it probably should be, bad actors can abuse it just the same.
Thinking about how to make women feel safer in for example gyms seems like a better long term solution for absolutely everyone, but also doesn’t feel like it’s talked about a lot.
Even contemplating that “pretending a gender identity” is a backdoor for bad actors is preposterous though. No such evidence from all countries that have self-identification laws. On the contrary abusers and rapists are prevalent in all walks of life without even going through the fuss of “pretending to be trans”. Scores of trans people use bathrooms all the same because they are cis-passing. Majority of women feeling ok with trans women using the bathroom. Cis people with non-conforming appearance getting targeted, prominently lesbians. So just the fact that this makes the list is unacceptable and an outcome of toxic evangelical propaganda on the subject. Bathroom usage by gender identity is enabling exactly zero predators. So please stop bringing it up.
Thinking about how to make women feel safer in for example gyms seems like a better long term solution for absolutely everyone, but also doesn’t feel like it’s talked about a lot.
That’s because it ends up being the bear meme discussion in microcosm. (At least every time I’ve seen it come up.)
Context - cisgendered man here, FWIW.
Every time I’ve seen any discussion of helping women to feel safer in any context, that discussion is full of men who are offended that women even feel the need to be safer, because they tend not to believe that sexual harassment is as common for women as every woman in my life has repeatedly told me it is. So the conversation becomes about the women being “oversensitive” (or similar euphamism/synonym), not about making the discussed environment safer.
I can’t fathom why I’d give a shit about not being able to go work out a particular gym because women wanted a place to feel safe, unless it was literally the only gym within 50 miles. (And I’m doubtful that’s a common scenario.)
Bigots be like:
Women feel unsafe in presence of men? “Outrageous! NOtaLLmEn”
Trans women want to use the bathroom? “They will rape them because they are biologically men.” OR “A male rapist will pretend to be trans to rape them”.
You can’t beat that logic. That’s why the nazis like it. Next step is “black men”.
how to make women feel safer in for example gyms
The real problem is that gyms don’t pay enough to hire enough good employees. Most people who work at a gym are there because they have free access to the gym. Gym owners are cheap, mainly because gym-goers are cheap.
Have you ever been to a bank and felt unsafe? That’s much rarer because banks have spent a lot of time and money on making you feel safe. Any customers are under constant surveillance and usually on their best behavior.
The real problem is that gyms don’t pay enough to hire enough good employees. Most people who work at a gym are there because they have free access to the gym. Gym owners are cheap, mainly because gym-goers are cheap.
I can’t solve that problem. But me and a few like minded people might be able to pool our resources and open a gym for women only, where they can feel safe.
So misandry is A-OK as long as it doesn’t touch trans?
Women-only spaces aren’t misandry
…and yet, how do you think it would be described if I opened a business that refused to accept women as customers?
One is being exercised as a demonstration and if there were places for women, like gyms it would be out of a feeling for a need for safety. The other was used to implement and maintain a foundationally masculine and abusive structure of power.
In short, they should be allowed to discriminate against men and not the reverse because men are an acceptable target?
Thank you. The reaction to this is vile. Thousands of years of bullshit for being a woman, one art exhibit, and now the dudes are screaming about re-restricting public space to women as if they came up with a thought provoking exercise.
Nope. I’m not supporting the feminist victim narrative here.
I’m just making a simple statement about what exclusive spaces do and do not mean. It’s not hateful to men to have women-only spaces.
Plenty of misandry exists in our culture, mostly fed by that victim narrative you’re espousing. But the simple act of making a woman’s club isn’t an example of misandry.
Your comfort isn’t protected by law because it’s far too subjective. Discrimination laws are based on tangible, objective truths. It sucks that you don’t like going to the gym but the law leaves you in the lurch. You have to navigate those problems yourself because being a creep isn’t a crime. If that sounds callous, I don’t mean it to be, but if there were laws dictating social behavior and discriminatory spaces, this world would be a worse place than you can imagine.
The reason there are no women only gyms in California is because men’s rights groups sued them for discrimination.
California has one of the strongest anti-discrimination laws in the country, the Unruh Civil Rights Act: “All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, or sexual orientation are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.”
It turns out that yes, male is a sex and that means that no, you cannot discriminate against them as a business in California. The same men’s rights group put an end to differential pricing based on sex at bars (aka ladies’ night). You would likely be screaming about the sexism from the top of your lungs if a business refused to take women as customers, or charged women more for the same thing, or any of that sort of thing.
The group in question (NCFM) is better known for challenging Selective Service, and their VP and lawyer in charge of that case being murdered (the killer would then cross the country and shoot two more men [killing one and wounding the other] in a “misogynistic attack” against a federal judge [the two men were her husband and son] before killing himself). The judge in question presided over a different Selective Service related case that the killer had been a lawyer on.
Hypothetically, a gym could probably get away with women-only hours if they either also had a matching number of men-only hours or charged men a discounted rate adjusted for the fact they’re paying for less gym access.
|You would likely be screaming about the sexism from the top of your lungs if a business refused to take women as customers|
When has anything women had to say mattered to structures of power, though? Kind of the whole point to any of this.
brb gonna change my private school’s status to a urinal because I believe that women’s place is at home and therefore they shouldn’t get any education. For a good a good measure, I’ll do the same to the office building, the driving school, and the airline I own.
