[a sign reads FEMINIST CONFERENCE next to a closed door, a blue character shrugs and says…]
I don’t care
[next to the same door, the sign now says RESTRICTED FEMINIST CONFERENCE WOMEN ONLY, there are now four blue characters desperately banging on the door, one is reduced to tears on the floor, they are shouting]
DISCRIMINATION
SO UNFAIR!!!
LET US IINN!!
MISANDRY
Because excluding diverse identities from a conference has that terfy taste. And including them has the “woman and people I believe to actually be woman” taste.
Just hang a pride flag. Those terfy people will stay away on their own or be clear recognizable.
Just hang a pride flag. Those terfy people will stay away
If only.
More often you get a line of “Debate Me” Bros trying to churn influence standing outside the front door hoping to bait a conflict
while I do get the ick from restrictive language like that, my main problem with the second sign would be that I’m 98% sure that it’s indicative that the “feminists” are actually terfs and by “women only” they mean “no <t-slur>s”
and by “women only” they mean “no <t-slur>s”
Why would TERFs not allow TERFs? That makes no sense!?
Look up what the E in TERF stands for.
I have no idea what any of those letters stand for lol
I’m assuming this is a joke that went over people’s heads
I’m all for everyone having spaces for who and what they identify with.
Makes you wonder why would someone make the sign below
If you want a space to talk, that’s cool. If you are publishing works, sorry, that should be under through review from every angle, regardless of gender, class, nationality, or any other form of segmentation.
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Both men and women do it.
that’s because people, in general, are scumbags.
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No! People are dictated predominantly by situational factors, common scumbagginess is a trait that minimally dictates behaviour in most situations. Of course you’d know about the fundamental attribution error, if you weren’t such a scumbag.
I never claimed I wasn’t a scumbag, scumbag.
I’m not a scumbag, I am too poor to misbehave properly. I can’t even afford cocaine!
everyone can afford cocaine if you’re violent enough.
Sounds like scumbag talk!
That is true.
Becky spilled the beans, they always keep the best snacks for the women only meetings. Equal desserts for all days! Fruit tarts for all!
Unironically, that’s one of the biggest upsides of being invited to non-mixed decoloniality events (for academic reasons), they tend to bring the best food and love to share it 😀
The Muisca (Andean/Colombian natives) are a culture worth researching if you want to get so well fed that you can’t walk back home
I’ve heard that Colombians generally under-season and over-meat, but they’re terrifically friendly. Does that describe your experiences?
They season just fine, but yes, they do eat a lot of meat, which is not my style.
This is gonna be good.
Had to double check that isn’t the women’s community where we’ve all accidentally posted.
Real-space example: a women’s-only art installation/lounge. It was only a matter of time before it went to court. I think at one point they (perhaps jokingly) proposed converting it to a bathroom to allow legal discrimination. (and that still wouldn’t be the smelliest exhibition in Mona)
Here we are; a controversial take on something almost accurate. The context is there for the feminist - women only organisations as safe spaces for women to talk about the issues the patriarchy inflicts upon them.
However, the implication goes beyond the context - “man bad, no want woman safe space” is heavily implied; it’s there but just deniable enough to ragebait, allowing a feminist talking point reply. An excellent trolling strategy, though possibly a self defeating one.
The trouble is, this tactic tends to alienate rather than convert. As a historical example; Megalia’s use of this tactic created pushback from the very group it sought to defeat. Is this a measure of success, or is it an indication of self defeating anger? Tricky call.
I’m not surprised by the comments who reject the idea in total. But the I am surprised by the comments that try and fail to think charitably about this. They end up both sides-ing it.
Edit: I figure I ought to do a little you’re cute explain to the possibly very curious and good faith commentator.
- Women often mask or change the demeanor when men are present. This will restrict what they share and how they share it.
- Men often dominate the discourse both in time and style. This is related to number one.
- Women who have been traumatized by men will be on guard with men present. They will never be able to tell if you are safe or not in a public discourse situation.
- Men and women in the modern American context have different ways of relating to each other. When these conferences happen they sometimes are investigating new theories and new tactics. Male input can undermined free sharing.
My main problem with this kind of thinking is the way it mirrors racial segregation. ‘I just don’t feel safe with those people around,’ is an all too common sentiment among racists. The key has to be to find ways to make people feel safe and humanised among those who are different in everyday life, because simply creating isolated bunkers of ‘safety’ that exclude others based on unchosen characteristics of their body is not a recipe for a cohesive, cooperative society.
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If your issue is that it rhymes, then I think you’re missing how the powerful use this to oppress and exploit people. When minorities do it, it is done to regain power and dignity from being oppressed and exploited.
Uhh, are you trying to imply that discrimination isn’t bad as long as it serves your dignity? That would legitimise its use by the powerful. They could just claim to be preserving their dignity from the damage it would take in associating with minorities. Or is it that it’s fine as long as you aren’t ‘powerful?’ That’s an easily gamed relitivism. People will justify antisemitism with how many Jewish people are in positions of wealth/power. I mean, more than they already try to. I’m guessing that’s not something you’d prefer.
Being able to tell the difference between people who have historically been exploited and oppressed and those powerful people feigning it is an easy task. Rascists do it. White supremicists do it. It is no reason to abandon the tools of restoration for the oppressed. It’s not the only one, but it is one.
Again, if you are suggesting it is legitimate for one, it becomes transitively legitimate for the other, regardless of whether you think it should. If you are saying it is a legitimate tactic, everyone can use it, even the people you don’t like, and you are just diving into a multigenerational, essentialist, retributive justice death spiral.
Change comes from the oppressed organizing in their own spaces and not by holding the moral high ground.
The powerful will do whatever they need regardless of the moral high ground or not. They haven been using exclusion for centuries to maintain their position. They don’t need my ‘permission’ or a ‘logical precedent’ to gatekeep. They have the systemic power to do it regardless.
They manufacture legitimacy for themselves using ‘tradition,’ ‘efficiency,’ or ‘safety’ to mask their gatekeeping. They don’t borrow legitimacy from the marginalized. Throughout history, the dominant group has never waited for a logical ‘green light’ from the oppressed to justify exclusion. And they won’t give up power because we have the moral high ground.
If we ‘disarm’ and stop creating restorative spaces, we lose a vital tool for survival, while the powerful lose absolutely nothing. Abandoning a functional tool for restoration (like a support group or a focused conference) because a bad actor might mislabel their own dominance as ‘restoration.’ That’s like saying we shouldn’t use a scalpel to save a life because a murderer might use one to take one. The intent and the material outcome are what define the action, not the fact that a blade was used.
They will continue to exclude because they can, with or without a consistent moral philosophy. You are prioritizing the ‘purity’ of a logical rule over the material survival of a group.
Can you name a single historical instance where a dominant group stopped a practice of exclusion because they realized they no longer had the ‘transitive legitimacy’ to continue it?
I just want to say it is so refreshing to finally see a comment from someone who genuinely understands power and oppression finally shine through in a thread that has been so muddled and confused it’s been maddening to read.
their own spaces
You’re making the same conflation as several other people here. A private space can exclude through non-invitation without specific/class exclusion. A conference is not a private space. It is public. By rendering the space public, it creates an equality of people as possible attendants as members of the public. By excluding a generalized group, it discriminates through stereotype, which brings things to the meat of your point.
If you take the whole matter into amorality, there is nothing wrong with ANYTHING the powerful do, and render any argument about dignity of the oppressed meaningless. You have no place left to stand and you lose. If you argue the powerful are somehow different from other people, you establish a belief in inherent inequality. You have no place from which to claim injustice, and you lose. If you fight against the powerful without some semblance of reason, you cannot form a cohesive collective, so you will have no power with which to fight them, and you will lose.Can you name a single historical instance where a dominant group stopped a practice of exclusion because they realized they no longer had the ‘transitive legitimacy’ to continue it?
Feminism. If each generation of feminists had never made claims to human dignity, there would be no liberation or justice. If they had only focused on stripping the dignity of powerful men, they never would have gotten the support of the rest of their society. Action disrupts the old system but the moral argument is what transforms society into something new. The ‘dominant group’ isn’t the 1% crowd. It’s the 90% who they trick into supporting them. The ‘powerful’ shit themselves at the idea of seeing the majority turned against them. If early feminists hadn’t convinced the people around them of the capability and equality of women, it wouldn’t have mattered how hard they tried, they would just have been ignored by the majority and snuffed out by the powerful minority. If they hadn’t fought to establish a moral norm of equality, all their screams would have been noise fading into the void. Acting like you actually believe in your principles isn’t ‘disarming’ yourself. It’s letting the enemy take your rifle so you can take the fort. It’s planting the tree so your children can sit in its shade. It’s how you get justice rather than get yours.
Sure that’s a fair point but I think it’s important to point out people also self segregate along all sorts of lines, including racially. It’s one thing if the state is enforcing segregation or if a group of people with something in common want to hang out with each other at the exclusion of people who don’t have that thing in common. Segregation and self segregation aren’t the same things.
Hol up.
Segregation and self-segregation are indeed different, but the difference is in where the choice occurs, not in whether the body doing it is a legally recognised government. You gave two examples of one and called one of them the other. Self-segregation is where individual choices add up to an effective separation. Choosing to deny access to a public event to a particular group, even without state power, is still segregation, enforced by the host as a local seat of power.
Tbf if I’m invited to a whites only party to discuss “white interests” like idk Ultimate Frisbee and Mayonnaise or whatever “white interests” would be, I’m probably not going even if it is “self segregation” so it’s “better” than if the government did it. I mean you’re not wrong, letting the people choose to be racist instead of enforcing it through law is “better” I guess but imo we should strive for more. I don’t think we can actually fix society’s ills until society can sit in a room together and talk, y’know? Idk I guess I just like diversity more than sameness.
- Men do the same.
2 & 3) We should birth fewer boys. It sounds like everyone would be happier.
- I hate American “passive gendered segregation” culture and want to destroy it. Also, new theories and tactics to achieve what?
Men believe that women “dominate conversation” whenever women take more than about 30% of the speaking time.
Do the following:
- Have men and women meet in a group and have a conversation on nearly any topics.
- Record the conversation.
- After the conversation, have participants fill out surveys on how much time the men and women spent talking.
- Review the tapes with a stopwatch and record the actual time spent talking by men and women.
Scientists have done this. What they find is that men will be utterly convinced that the women are dominating the speaking and conversation time, even if 2/3rds of the time is actually given over to men speaking.
Men do this without even realizing it. You probably do this without even realizing it.
If you really want techniques on how to end “passive gendered segregation,” then you need to adjust the character of cis men so they don’t feel that they’re being discriminated against at the exact same time they’re actually dominating things. Masculinity as practiced is performative and fragile.
Men do the same.
Never said they didn’t.
2 & 3) We should birth fewer boys. It sounds like everyone would be happier.
I don’t know if you lack the ability to understand that these four points were made in the context of why women might want a meeting without men or something else. Either way, I’m don’t think you belong in this conversation.
I hate American “passive gendered segregation” culture and want to destroy it.
Okay.
Also, new theories and tactics to achieve what?
The goals of feminism.
Never said they didn’t.
I suppose my point is that exclusion of any group or category of person effects what is said. So it doesn’t really matter. Its not a good enough reason.
Making a group explicitly exclusionary implies a perspective that the excluded group is an out-group, and thus an adversary.
Men who formed explicitly exclusionary male only spaces, boy’s clubs, etc. in the past almost certainly feel some level of disdain for women. And men who enforce soft exclusion, like guys who do litmus tests to see if a woman is earnestly interested in whatever the club is about, aggressively disgust me.
This is not a feeling I apply with gendered prejudice.
I don’t know if you lack the ability to understand that these four points were made in the context of why women might want a meeting without men or something else.
I wasn’t being a smart ass. (well, mostly) I’m a soft anti-natalist, my suggestion was a half joking gendered version of what I actually believe. I think that, if you have given information on what a person’s life is going to be like you should be honest in your assessment if they’ll live a life worth living and make the world a better place by being in it. I just have a much higher bar to clear than most people.
My view is that, if society is to give birth to 100 people, if there is a chance 1 of them will live a life so miserable that they are driven to suicide, regardless of reason, you should probably birth none of them. Guess what the global percentage of people who die of suicide is?
Either way, I’m don’t think you belong in this conversation.
Its a good thing you don’t get to make that decision then, asshole.
The goals of feminism.
There are many kinds of feminists and forms of feminism. I assume you don’t care to elaborate on specifics because you think you’d show me I’m right to view exclusionary spaces with some level of suspicion and disdain.
you think you’d show me I’m right to view exclusionary spaces with some level of suspicion and disdain.
I didn’t address this directly because you didn’t do the work to show you were actually interested in the conversation. That’s why didn’t have the right to be there. This response is more serious and worth giving you my attention and energy. Had you provided the context and thinking you provided in this response in the first response, I would have considered answering especially if you were able to support it’s relevancy.
I won’t be addressing the anti-natalist because I don’t see how it’s connected and it seems like it’s emotionally charged for you. Emotionally charged politics are important, but only if they are connected to the topic and if I judge that I have any relevant position to make any intervention. So I won’t be sounding off on that.
That leaves the first point where you started in your first comment “Men do the same.” and gave your thinking in this last comment. On the face of it, an out group is not an adversary. If I attend a cancer survivor’s group and people who never had cancer show up, it changes things. People who never had cancer are not my adversaries. My goal isn’t to fight those people. I want to connect with others through a shared experience.
Men’s only groups in the past was often a place where real decisions for power and profit were made. This is radically different from a the support some women may get in a women’s conference or the strategy and tactics developed from shared seed experiences for the political project of over throwing patriarchy.
I don’t normally post on weekends but I left my lunch in the office fridge and your response has been a grain of sand in my brain. Figured I’d finish up writing my response.
I didn’t address this directly because you didn’t do the work to show you were actually interested in the conversation. That’s why didn’t have the right to be there. This response is more serious and worth giving you my attention and energy. Had you provided the context and thinking you provided in this response in the first response, I would have considered answering especially if you were able to support it’s relevancy.
It wasn’t clear how I could have responded to pull out the counter arguments I wanted to get to. I want to skip to the core of the discussion because if I used up time on initial 101 arguments, statistically the person I’m responding too gets bored, suspicious, or tired of the argument overall. Also, being flatly and snarkily blunt about a specific thing without additional details gives a chance for someone to reveal what they actually think in anger without tactical obfuscation of their actual beliefs, wasting time.
Its doesn’t work often but it has every once in a while. The alternative almost always seems like I get the same old same old boilerplate.
I won’t be addressing the anti-natalist because I don’t see how it’s connected and it seems like it’s emotionally charged for you. Emotionally charged politics are important, but only if they are connected to the topic and if I judge that I have any relevant position to make any intervention. So I won’t be sounding off on that.
Its emotional to be natalist as well. Its connected to the discussion at a fundamental level, to be natalist means you value certain things as an axiom that lead to a certain derrived perspectives, one that I think is arguably similar to yours. Which is why I brought it up.
I stated it more to identify if this is a fundamental difference in our views. Something irreconcilable. Its a lonely feeling to have it confirmed. Very few have a conscious belief on the matter, pro or con. And default absent minded to natalist perspectives largely due to religion and cultural inertia.
On the face of it, an out group is not an adversary. If I attend a cancer survivor’s group and people who never had cancer show up, it changes things. People who never had cancer are not my adversaries. My goal isn’t to fight those people. I want to connect with others through a shared experience.
Segregation foments adversarial attitudes. Even with trivial or made up differences. It widens the empathy gap, creates perceived out-group homogeneity, and a sense of moral superiority. Group polarization absolutely can and probably will manifest in your suggested cancer survivor group, especially with an explicit ban on people joining who are not survivors of the disease. The goal is irrelevant, the result is what matters.
Men’s only groups in the past was often a place where real decisions for power and profit were made.
Statistically very true. Not a hard rule though, and to say there is no power in a woman’s only group that couldn’t further disenfranchise a dis-empowered non-woman would be disingenuous.
This is radically different from a the support some women may get in a women’s conference or the strategy and tactics developed from shared seed experiences for the political project of over throwing patriarchy.
“Over throwing patriarchy” is a vague goal at best though. What does that actually entail? Much like the rapture, the inevitable communist revolution, or judgement day this is just an in-group meta narrative, not really a goal at all.
I’m going to skip the meta-conversation and tactic you used. I don’t think they clarify or further the discussion about why women would want a conference without men.
Regarding natalism, I skipped it not because it was emotional, but it was tangential and unclear in how it was related to the specific topic. Again, I have nothing against emotions playing into one’s politics.
Segregation foments adversarial attitudes. Even with trivial or made up differences. It widens the empathy gap, creates perceived out-group homogeneity, and a sense of moral superiority.
This is only true if you fail to understand the internal needs of the segregated group. In this case, it is to regain power in themselves and through connection to others who get it. This subverts any empathy gap that could happen. When a cancer survivor group meets, I don’t ever know what it was like having had cancer. But I can provide an empathetic space to understand that:
- I don’t get it
- It serves some of them in healing
If the only result you care about is how it effects out-groups, then you misunderstand how healing and political movements are created at the earliest stages. How do you think political movements are formed if not in small groups meeting privately?
Not a hard rule though, and to say there is no power in a woman’s only group that couldn’t further disenfranchise a dis-empowered non-woman would be disingenuous.
Women are historically oppressed minorities. Patriarchal systems caused their oppression. Who are the dis-empowered non-woman that are being disenfranchised?
“Over throwing patriarchy” is a vague goal at best though. What does that actually entail?
Much of this particulars are covered in the long history of feminism. Recounting it all would take several books. Staying with in the confines of one or strain will help guide the discussion. What feminist literature have you read? Who are your guiding lights in the movement? That will dissipate the vagueness. There may not be one single definition, but the contours for disagreement move from a blob to specific corners of concern. I’m asking for these because if you view these goals as ‘religious,’ it suggests you are unfamiliar with the specific, material policy work and labor history that defines the movement. There is nothing inherently wrong with not being familiar with the field in specificity.
So in sum, I’d like to hear:
- How do you think political movements are formed if not in small groups meeting privately?
- Who are the dis-empowered non-woman that are being disenfranchised?
- What feminist literature have you read? Who are your guiding lights in the movement?
This [harmful in-group vs out-group effects] is only true if you fail to understand the internal needs of the segregated group.
No, its a documented and highly scientifically backed effect.
If the only result you care about is how it effects out-groups, then you misunderstand how healing and political movements are created at the earliest stages.
Its not the only effect that I care about but I do care about it.
How do you think political movements are formed if not in small groups meeting privately?
Political movements are value neutral, or at least subjectively perceived as good or bad depending on who you ask about which movement.
If you want to say that the harmful in-group & out-group effects are a worthwhile sacrifice to achieve other ends, that’s one claim I could see as understandable but I would want to know the specifics of what the actual end goal(s) is/are before I’d support it. Further, the main way a political movement actually grows and achieves positive things is to broaden their support typically. If they lean into leveraging power they might have over a majority they’re using might makes right logic. I can certainly see the utility of that if you view the majority as stupid or evil and I’ll even admit these days its hard not to feel that way given the state of my country. At that point though I don’t even see the point other than cynical power games.
Who are the dis-empowered non-woman that are being disenfranchised?
NB’s & men who fall into disenfranchised categories like bipoc, lgbt, homeless/impoverished/working class, and probably most relevant to gender issues is the neurodiverse male population. Not to mention that creating an exclusively women space can attract TERFs, where they can spread their bullshit more efficiently by leaning into the in-group & out-group effects.
Women’s issues is gender issues. Gender is like any social construct, its defined by relationships and collective beliefs.
What feminist literature have you read? Who are your guiding lights in the movement?
My feminism? I was critiquing the feminism you are defending that would justify an exclusionary in-group. I’m suspicious of why you’d want to ask.
If you must know, I tend to agree with Xenofeminism. Its the form of feminism that embraces rationalism, any consistent Xenofeminist would agree with me here.
There’s actually mens that are feminist. Why would they be excluded from the conference?
Also, conferences are a great way to recruit new participants so that’s also stupid
The point was that most men aren’t interested in being there unless they’re told they’re excluded.
Feminism welcomes all. But some times there need to be safe spaces for women, and women’s groups are there for that. So the comic is just a joke, not a provocation.
There are local men’s groups around where I live, they’re safe spaces for men who want to talk about relationships , fatherhood, anger issues or how to be more confident in their masculinity etc. Women are (usually) excluded. Many of these men are feminists, I would guess.
You are correct, there are men who are feminists, but this comic isn’t about them. Men who are feminists would not say “I don’t care” at an open women’s conference, they would join in and allow women to have their space at the closed conference. Both the open and closed conferences have valid reasons for existing. Not all conferences are about recruitment.
This comic points out the hypocrisy of men who say they don’t care about feminism until they are excluded from women’s spaces, then they complain about not being allowed into any space they want. Sometimes women like to have our own spaces to speak about our feelings and experiences with other women and that’s ok.
I think men should have their own spaces like that too. A place for men to talk about their feelings and positive aspects of masculinity without it devolving into the toxic masculinity we see from a lot of influencers who focus on dominating women and body dysmorphia. A place where men can build positive friendships and community, a place to support other men.
Why would they be excluded from the conference?
To create a safe space for women.
Why would a space exclusive for feminists ever not be a safe space for women?
A space can be safe for cisgender, white feminists without being a safe space for trans women, women of color, working class women, disabled women, etc. Intersectionality is a big part of what makes ‘general’ spaces for women actually only safe or accessible for women who fit a narrow ideal of Western womanhood.
Like, ideally a feminist space would account for this, but ask a black feminist if they’re safe and welcome in every feminist space and they will probably tell you no, because many spaces center the concerns of cisgender, white, otherwise privileged women.
Seems a bit sexist
All non-women that could attend that conference safely respect their choice and don’t want to. Thus the sign is valid.
The fact this doesn’t hold when “feminism” is gender-reversed comes from patriarchy. Treating men better than our patriarchical society treats them without treating women worse is a feminist position.
And indeed, feminist men-only groups are just as respected by feminists as feminist women-only groups.
The exclusion is still solely based on sex. I’m not even saying that’s wrong in all situations
It isn’t. My sex is XY, but I would be allowed entry because I’m a (trans) woman. More importantly, it’s about the shared experience of being treated as a woman or being at risk of being treated as a woman in patriarchal society.
That said, the social status of someone who is known to have XX chromosomes or who is at risk of people learning they have XX chromosomes would also have a lot of overlap with women, so it would make sense in many cases to categorically allow everyone with XX chromosomes even if they are (cis) men.
(I don’t think cis men with XX chromosomes are medically possible, but you can have cis women with XY chromosomes because testosterone insensitivity isn’t lethal).
So these days, most of the time you would have more queer-inclusive categories like FLINTA, explicitly including everyone who has experience with patriarchy as “the woman”. Different exclusions make sense in different situations; sometimes it makes sense to exclude trans men, sometimes it makes sense to exclude people who don’t menstruate. Sometimes organisations are wrong/immoral about who they exclude, like TERFs. But a feminist meeting without men is going to be able to touch on a lot of topics they otherwise couldn’t safely and go a lot deeper than when having to explain things to men.
(There’s also the “sexism = prejudice + power” thing, which I don’t really vibe with as a rebuttal because it neglects the power of local institutions that may run askew from larger society; if you can host a conference, you have enough power for your prejudice to be sexist).
(I don’t think cis men with XX chromosomes are medically possible, but you can have cis women with XY chromosomes because testosterone insensitivity isn’t lethal).
So is it more a gender than sex exclusion? My native language doesn’t (afaik) separate the two so it can be hard for me to remember to make the distinction.
I am not shocked that we’re still having this “discussion” in 2026
It’s like the discussion about if you can be racist toward white people. It’s endless drama
It’s not. You’re boring and stupid. Go read a book.
You’re saying it’s not endless drama while participating in the drama
Hohojoho you’ve got me now
You can’t shit your pants then blame other people for participating in it because they called you out for it.
It’s like the discussion about if you can be racist toward white people.
Depends on whether you’re using the common definition, or intersectional feminist jargon. That is literally the distinction.
Common definitions:
prejudice, discrimination, or hostility directed at people because of their race or ethnicity.
Intersectional feminist jargon:
Racism is racial oppression embedded in social structures and power relations, often operating together with patriarchy and other systems of domination.
PS: Race isn’t real. Not even a social construct: it’s straight up an arbitrary line drawn by a bunch of ignorant assholes, for the sake of being assholes. Ethnicities are real though.
Women choosing who they want to spend their time with is sexist?
Is that based on solely the sex of the person?
Yes. Because sex discrimination and sexism are not the same thing. And not all forms of discrimination are wrong. We just use “discrimination is wrong” as a useful first-pass mental hack. But every non-discrimination law is written with certain reasonable exceptions built into it. It is sex discrimination, but not sexism, to refuse to hire cis men as wet nurses. It is disability discrimination, but not illegal discrimination, to refuse to hire someone in a wheelchair to be a circus acrobat.
This is sex discrimination, but it is neither illegal or sexism. It’s not saying that men are inherently inferior to women. It’s saying that there is a bona fide reason to make this space woman-only, based on the lived experience of men vs women.
Wikipedia just redirects sex discrimination to sexism
Yes. I think this comic just does a bad job of portraying this. The second sign is unnecessarily agressive and a conference doesnt make much of an immediate connection to a safe space.
Oh yeah fair enough. I was more focused on OP’s bad argument that I forgot about this. My bad
I totally understand what is being said here. But the reality is that more than just penis havers can be bigots and more than just vagina havers need a safe space. Painting people with a wide brush is always going to upset some of the people being painted, especially those who don’t feel they should be included in said group. Reality is rarely inclusive of only two options.
Sure, these two comic panels aren’t very nuanced, and everyone deserves a safe space. But imo that is irrelevant to this issue, because they should create their own safe space then, not insist on intruding in someone else’s safe space. Like, why even?
‘Why don’t they just form their own safe space?’ has the same ring to it as ‘I’m not a white supremacist. I’m a racial separatist. Those <epithet>s can just go somewhere else. I just don’t feel safe with those things around.’ Discrimination based on an immutable, unchosen characteristic like sex isn’t somehow more acceptable or reasonable than on skin color.
That comparison in this context is honestly a bad look.
You’re comparing men, who have historically been the oppressors in pretty much every oppression scenario, to the groups of people they have historically oppressed. (POC, women, any marginalized group really.) That is a very important distinction because the power dynamics are reversed.
People wanting a single safe space away from a group of people who have victimized them in the past (and more often than not continue to victimize them) is not the same as a group of people who hold most of the power excluding a less powerful group from everyday activities because they deem them inferior.
And it’s not exactly a slippery slope towards the oppression of men either, just look at the current state of the world and try to figure out which way that slope is slipping. Women are fucking tired, man.
There is an important distinction here. You, I presume, have a ‘safe space’ of your own, your home, or even just your room if you share. That is your personal space. It makes sense that only those you trust should come in. However, when you put up a sign, it changes a space. A sign, such as one announcing a conference or symposium, even with a barrier like ticketed/preregistered entry, says it is a public event. Not a ‘safe space,’ but a space specifically for encountering and engaging with others, the public. The public is a group that is supposed to include everyone. Excluding people from that group effectively designates them as unpeople. If it were to be invite only, a private space, there would be no argument if, say, the invitees were all women, but the transition to a public event, combined with the discrimination based on unchosen characteristics creates the offense of sexist discrimination. It is one thing to demand relevance (e.g. no entering a feminist conference to shout about misandry) but it is another to treat everyone who, through no choice of their own, happens to be some type of person as an unperson. It’s prejudicial bigotry.
I didn’t know that I am an oppressor lol
We are all oppressed by the patriarchy, every older man I know born from 60s - 90s believes being emotional is weakness, don’t cry, don’t act like a woman. You’re basically not allowed to be you, and most remain extremely stunted their whole life. Discriminating based on sex is also hurting the men who didn’t want any part of this to begin with. Women have more danger and more men ruining things for them in general, so I don’t agree with them saying a safe space shouldn’t be restricted, but I just don’t think it’s so black and white.
This is one of the major reasons (among many others both real and manufactured) that the current right wing won over so many voters. And once they were won over it just takes another election cycle of propaganda to entrench them.
It doesn’t matter the various reasons someone will argue that race/sex/whateverelse ism is okay when it’s done against (white/men/straight/christian) because historically they are the oppressors. There is either true equality or there is nuance on equality and you really cannot have it both ways yourself without falling into the mirror image of the hypocrisy you are arguing against.
You could take almost the exact same logical argument that people use for women only shelters and use it for white only shelters, yet if said without any shred of irony one is easily classified as a form of prejudice and the other is not (by a portion of the population).
It’s tiring still pointing this out to people a decade later as they are at the same time doing the “how did we get here??” Song and dance about the current fascism.
Is it not more about dicussing their problem, in a space they created for it? Black Lifes Matter is a good example of this. Black people want to discuss their issues, and suddenly all lives matter and what about this and that group?
This is not saying that other problem does not exists or are any less real or problematic, but instead they someone should be able to talk about their perceived problem without being forced to include someone else’s problem. Those people with those other problems are just as welcome to have their own discussions.
Not quite. Black Lives Matter wasn’t excluding any supporters based on skin color, last I checked. There might have been a small subset who had some twisted racial theories but, for the most part, it was just people looking to fight racism in the police and happy to accept attendants of any color as long as they were aligned with that main goal. While it would be reasonable to not allow people who wanted to come into a meeting and either digress by focusing on the climate effects of police cruisers, or disrupt by trying to refocus the group around how the police treat some other ethnic group, if BLM had said ‘no whites allowed,’ I think it would have been far less effective, far more divisive, and ultimately promoted racism.
That’s why it seems counterproductive to exclude men. From an idealist view, if you believe being a man has some effect that means you can’t have something relevant to add to a conversation, or perhaps more importantly, can’t learn from hearing the words of others, that’s already sex essentialism, the thing feminists have been fighting for longer than feminist has been a word. And from a pragmatic view, the ones who MOST need to learn about the problems of sexism are the men who are so often blind to it as the beneficiaries of it. If you kick out the mysogynists, you have no mysogynists. If you kick out the men, you leave the men who could be allies standing outside with the mysogynists, who will be only too happy to tell them all about how men and women ‘should’ be.
In above comic it’s not the whole movement of feminism being closed to men, it’s only one conference.
And let’s be honest, the men that get upset by a women only conference are exactly the men you didn’t want there in the first place to talk about feminism.
This kind of signs create the picture of men associated with something bad. Next time try to pick words for such signs with more respect
What do you think the Gentleman’s Clubs, and Men only gyms were? Those were sued into non-existence. Women are the only people that are legally allowed to have a safe space because of feminists
Someone says dumb shit about women, i come for them. Someone says dumb shit about white people i don’t care. I certainly don’t start wailing and posting paragraphs about how oppressed i am.
Power dynamics . Learn them.
Power dynamics . Learn them.
Never! I will only engage with discrimination at a superficial and naive level, falling for every concern troll post like I was born yesterday
Power dynamics may affect the scale and context of harm, but they do not make group-based contempt morally sound. If you object to demeaning people for belonging to a group, that standard must be general. Otherwise, you are not opposing prejudice, but are rationing sympathy instead.
Uhhh why not lol? Some group being majority in power doesn’t mean everyone in that group is in power, and even if they are there’s no reason to divide people. I’m allied against billionaires because they are actively working to make my life worse, I’m not allied against my neighbor just because he’s white and has more money than I do.
You rail against billionaires because they’re untouchable to you.
POC rail against the white hegemony because it’s untouchable to them.
Where did this come from exactly, seems kinda unrelated
They understood being allied against billionaires but didnt understand “being allied against an entire group”
So i simplified it for them
Not me: I don’t understand what is being said here, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. What is this comic trying to say? I really can’t figure out a cohesive statement.
I really can’t figure out a cohesive statement.
“Fragile men are fragile” seems to be the statement.
Yeah, I can’t see anything else either.
