Women only venue

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, jumbomcnutt said:

Glastonbury have confirmed that there is also a men's only area this year, they marked the areas on the map as "Urinals" - I'm performing there each day. 

are you taking the piss...?

 

 

 

[jumbomcnutt]

Just now, eFestivals said:

are you taking the piss...?

 

 

 

Slash performed there in 2010. 

[scaryclaireyfairy]

I've been pondering and the only 'women only' space I've ever been in personally would be toilets or changing rooms.  And those ridiculous wee spaces bring great banter.  I can't think of being in a bar or anywhere where there's only women, even by happenstance.  I've often gone into pubs with my mate on a weeknight to be met by a wall of staring blokes though.  Even just for the novelty factor, this will be worth a wander in to me.

[Waapster]

Women's refuges are sexist? WTF??

are you always so literal that you destroy your ability to set a context for your words?

[CaledonianGonzo]

33 minutes ago, jonodillieono said:

Single sex schools are sexist and women's refugee centres are sexist by definition yes. 

So presumably you have the same problem with women's refuges as you do with this venue.

[Waapster]

Single sex hospital wards... Toilets...changing rooms... appalling...

[marcoolio]

2 hours ago, jonodillieono said:

How do you join the dots from the topic of a women's only area at Glastonbury, to doubting the integrity of allegations by sexual assault victims? It's quite a leap..

Same way you just joined the dots from me saying a women's only area at Glastonbury is sexist leads to me doubting the integrity of sexual assault victims, quite the leap indeed... 

Maybe you just weren't paying attention to the conversation when you jumped in, but this sequence of comments below sure makes it seem like you consider victim-blaming a natural response to anything that can be construed as "fighting sexism with sexism".

6 hours ago, RichardWaller said:

Wow, this escalated. From a women only venue at Glastonbury to Operation Yew Tree victim blaming in a dozen pages... I know Glastonbury and its clientelle are a diverse bunch, but wow...

 

6 hours ago, giantkatestacks said:

It sadly always happens around women's issues on the internet. There must be some sort of siren that goes off somewhere.

 

5 hours ago, jonodillieono said:

I think it's because quite a lot of people think that fighting sexism with more sexism is a silly idea

 

[wilko8]

2 hours ago, Funkyfairy! said:

Women earn less in most if not all sporting events, and there are still men that support that  - wasn;t there a newspaper article last year with one of the tennis players supporting the gap in pay. We shouldn;t consider ourselves inferior to anyone, yet everywhere around women we are deemed as lesser mortals for pay, board positions etc... the figures speak for themselves

 

The winner of the men's title at Wimbledon last year played 247 games over 24 sets on the way to winning the title.

The winner of the ladies' title played 147 games over 16 sets.

They both got paid £1.88m for winning.

So that works out at £7,611 a game, or £78,333 a set for the men's winner.

And £12,789 a game, or £117,500 a set for the ladies' winner.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Jesus Christ

[Winslow Leach]

32 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Jesus Christ

Was a man. Coincidence?

[RichardWaller]

3 hours ago, Tigerdragon said:

I guess the newest idea is that we stop constructing 'male' and 'female' against each other as opposites - see trends such as non-gender play, the 'because I'm a girl' advertising campaign, genderless parenting, unisex/unmarked bathrooms etc etc etc.

It would go a long way if male identity was less to do with not being 'female' and female identity not being 'male', and we should be suspicious of anything that tries to suggest the two are defined, biological categories. Challenges like this might create a lot more common ground and shared experience.

That's the cure - alleviating friction between differences that are taken for granted but which, perhaps, don't really or 'naturally' exist.
 

I've noticed a bit more of that. I've been in plenty of unisex toilets in bars/clubs.. Yeah, that makes sense. The "Men are from Mars, women are from Venus" stuff.. obviously I only really know my own generation, there's been a lot of change. Gender roles aren't what they were, some will feel threatened by that, some won't give a shit. We're just people. I'm probably more emotional than my wife.. 

3 hours ago, jonodillieono said:

Same way you just joined the dots from me saying a women's only area at Glastonbury is sexist leads to me doubting the integrity of sexual assault victims, quite the leap indeed... 

I didn't say you were doubting the integrity of sexual assault victims, I was talking about the way the thread has gone and if you go back a couple of pages you'll see what I'm talking about. I just wondered if, in your opposition to this, that you felt similarly. Not assuming or anything, just curious.

Quote

Literally the very definition of sexism, discrimination on the basis of sex. A man is not allowed into a venue because he is a man, therefore he is being discriminated against due to his sex, therefore sexism

Single sex schools are sexist and women's refugee centres are sexist by definition yes. 

Fair enough. Yeah, that's the cut and dry dictionary definition but I think it's a more complex issue than that. Everyone's got their own ideas of what is and isn't sexism or any other ism for that matter. Personally, I think where prejudice of any kind is concerned, practically, it ought to be the victim that decides whatever the ism is. If you consider men to be victims of being excluded from this small part of a festival then that's up to you. Not sure there's a great deal of balance there.

1 hour ago, marcoolio said:

Maybe you just weren't paying attention to the conversation when you jumped in, but this sequence of comments below sure makes it seem like you consider victim-blaming a natural response to anything that can be construed as "fighting sexism with sexism".

Thanks. I wasn't accusing, just asking. This thread has stirred up a lot... Not necessarily opposing views, mind. I'm just curious.

47 minutes ago, wilko8 said:

The winner of the men's title at Wimbledon last year played 247 games over 24 sets on the way to winning the title.

The winner of the ladies' title played 147 games over 16 sets.

They both got paid £1.88m for winning.

So that works out at £7,611 a game, or £78,333 a set for the men's winner.

And £12,789 a game, or £117,500 a set for the ladies' winner.

Two people... This is a desperate clutch!

[CaledonianGonzo]

15 minutes ago, Winslow Leach said:

Was a man. Coincidence?

Jesus and the lads in their misogynistic microvenue, not a woman to be seen.

[Winslow Leach]

Just now, CaledonianGonzo said:

Jesus and the lads in their misogynistic microvenue, not a woman to be seen.

Look, if the Da Vinci Code taught me one thing...

[Dave F.]

On 06/06/2016 at 4:07 PM, nats2086 said:

I also don't agree with the "preaching to the converted" point with regards to the education aspect, as I think women do need educating, as there are still those who just kind of accept things and put up with them

That's not a valid reason to not be inclusive.

If someone is doing wrong, they have to be told. Turning to a third person to say "Ooh, what they've done is really wrong, isn't it" does not solve the problem.

[CaledonianGonzo]

If the aim of the place was to educate misogynists then you'd definitely have a point.

But that's not what it's trying to achieve.

[MadScientist]

19 hours ago, RichardWaller said:

This, personally I've got a hunch that the kind or men most aggressively demanding their right to be there will be the kind of men least interested in what's going on and being said there. It's Stan's right to have babies.

Women's only spaces aren't strictly for education though. They're exactly wha they say they are: spaces for women 

[Cian T]

Switched on the TV and they're talking about it on "The Wright Stuff" they're all going a bit off topic tbh. It's in Shangri La, it's just a new quirky area within, all they're talking about on the show is rape.

[Cian T]

A women only area will do no harm, I'm all for it

[stuartbert two hats]

37 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

If the aim of the place was to educate misogynists then you'd definitely have a point.

But that's not what it's trying to achieve.

Exactly. The main criticism of the space seems to be based on an assumption about what it's for. I usually find that if you're guessing about what something is for based on what it is, and you also decide it's not good at fulfilling it's purpose based on what it is, then perhaps it's actually your assumption that's wrong, rather than the people who have created it.

It's pretty arrogant to assume that after five minutes of thought, you've come to far better conclusions than the people who have spent far longer than you actually creating something. Looking deeper into the possible motivations may reveal that it actually makes more sense than you thought.

As a side note, I suspect any experienced software developer will recognise the scenario I described above.

[Skoo]

Here's my view on it, and where I see this space as being really useful.

In my experience, women can be awful to each other. We can get jealous of prettier, thinner women. Some women say they'd rather their boss was a man than a woman. Think about how ridiculous that is.

I can think of so many examples where I've experienced, or witnessed, women driven by insecurity making some other woman's life difficult in some way, in a way that I haven't experienced from men - men will lear and grope, which is obviously horrific, but I'm specifically talking here about women being less than supportive towards other women.

There are so many reasons for this behaviour I think.

It is fair to say that girls have it drilled into them via various forms of media from a young age, that their value to society is instrinsically linked to how good they look, and how young they are.

What's more, our society actively celebrates women who are prepared to voluntarily objectify themselves for the sake of making money. Pop stars, models, page 3 girls - look at Katie Price for goodness sake!

It's not enough now to be an attractive female pop star. Now, you need to feature in videos where you're writhing around provocatively, wearing as little as possible. Miley Cyrus? Rhianna? Even Girls Aloud videos can be raunchy, and the dance moves suggestive. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but it's now so prevalent across the music industry, and this is what our children are watching and aspiring to.

And the thing is, these female pop stars are likely doing this voluntarily. And I can understand why - who in their 20s wouldn't enjoy being dolled up by a hair and make up team, photoshopped, then filmed/photographed, only to have the world fall at their feet and shower them with adoration? It must be a serious ego boost.

But the impact on women in society is negative. It makes us feel like shit. 

The other factor is that with enough money, even a plain woman can transform herself to a certain degree, into something that society deems attractive - fake boobs, blonde hair, plenty of makeup etc. This creates a scenario where women aren't ever satisfied with their looks. "Oh, if I just change my hair colour, or lose an extra couple of pounds - THEN I'll be happy."

I know I am waffling here, but the point I am making is that when you reduce a whole gender down to their appearance, I think it creates friction amongst that group, it creates competition. Because the way you look isn't something you've earned or had to work for,like other skills. It's just pot luck.

Because of this constant portrayal of women in the media as sex objects, along with the fact that many women happily go along with it, at least in their youth, in order to get ahead in life, it means that instead of women supporting one another, it creates a lot of competition and friction and resentment, particularly among young women.

We can be our own worst enemies. Because by going along with it, voluntarily objectifying ourselves and convincing ourselves that it's acceptable to do so, nothing changes.

We put up with enough marginalisation in society at the hands of the men in charge - the last thing we should be doing is joining in with them and actually playing right into their hands.

So for me, I see this women's space, not as something that excludes men per se, but as a place to actually educate women themselves. To have women come together as a sisterhood. To drop all this petty competition with each other, and realise that we need to work together if we want anything to change.

 

 

 

[RichardWaller]

19 minutes ago, MadScientist said:

Women's only spaces aren't strictly for education though. They're exactly wha they say they are: spaces for women 

Course, that's the main thing and I don't consider it anything worth getting up in arms about so am curious about the motives of people who are. I know it's not strictly for education but it's a big aspect, as the organisers mentioned in the article in the first post, about pay gap, service cuts, rights, marginalisation etc. There's a lot of worrying attitudes towards women, between Brock Turner and even in this thread, when some people will judge and blame victims of sexual assault whilst not understanding why people are reluctant to come forward in the first place.

[Dave F.]

19 hours ago, ohvienna said:

The fact that the only people who have complained about a women's only space in this thread are men speaks volumes.

Are you sure you read the whole thread?

[Dave F.]

19 hours ago, jumbomcnutt said:

Glastonbury have confirmed that there is also a men's only area this year, they marked the areas on the map as "Urinals" - I'm performing there each day. 

Since the invention of she-pee spouts, even Glastonbury urinals aren't the male preserve they once were.

[jumbomcnutt]

Just now, Dave F. said:

Since the invention of she-pee spouts, even Glastonbury urinals aren't the male preserve they once were.

This country
 

[Dave F.]

2 hours ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Exactly. The main criticism of the space seems to be based on an assumption about what it's for. I usually find that if you're guessing about what something is for based on what it is, and you also decide it's not good at fulfilling it's purpose based on what it is, then perhaps it's actually your assumption that's wrong, rather than the people who have created it.

It's pretty arrogant to assume that after five minutes of thought, you've come to far better conclusions than the people who have spent far longer than you actually creating something. Looking deeper into the possible motivations may reveal that it actually makes more sense than you thought.

 

Hmm...

Hypocrite, me thinks.