Monday, April 21, 2014

A space of their own

I find the contrast between the female writer's reactions to the exact same concept being expressed by a man and a woman to be fascinating:
“You can have equality in all sorts of professional areas but I don’t see any reason why there shouldn’t be all-male clubs or all-female clubs if you want them. They’re just places you go to to enjoy yourself.”

Perhaps there is something in that. Kylie O’Brien, The Telegraph’s Weekend Editor, who is a member of women’s-only The University Women's Club, tells me: “I have to say, not having men around is really relaxing. It’s nice to be with your own kind. It’s rather warm and welcoming. I think that’s how men feel together. There’s a kind of sympathy together. I think it’s a good thing.”

She thinks it makes sense for men and women to have their own space, and cannot “see what prize there is for women to be gained” in becoming members at gentlemen’s clubs. In that respect, she agrees with Mr X and co, but when I tell her what they think about women’s “shrill voices” and the “slippery slope”, she replies tartly: “Well, if that’s how men really feel, they’re better off on their own.” Hear hear.
What men need to do is simply echo the female justifications for their own single-sex spaces. "It's really relaxing. It's rather warm and welcoming. It's nice to be with your own kind."

And if that isn't enough to get them to stop violating the male sanctums, then black-knight the hell out of them and invade women's shelters, women's gyms, and everything from girls' volleyball teams to scholarship programs.

It's really not that hard to understand why men sometimes don't want women around. Men can't relax around women and women usually attempt to make unwanted changes in any organization they join. Women should respect that, just as men should respect the female desire to keep men out of their bathrooms, locker rooms, and social clubs.

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heh, yes, she's fine with men having a space of their own as long as she thinks they're being all warm and welcoming and having the right kind of feelings about it. But when she realizes that they might sit around feeling good about the lack of women, she's not so happy.

Being a modern woman, she's probably never really been excluded from anything. So when she imagines a male-only space, it's only theoretical to her, and as long as it's "warm and welcoming," her unconscious assumption is that they'd let her in if she ever really wanted in. That's what "welcoming" means, right? So she'll let them have that as long as they have the right attitude about it. But change the picture to one where the men actually don't want women there and would resist letting her in, and it's totally different.

paul a'barge said...

Women should respect that

They will not. Women are not capable of respecting men.

Res Ipsa said...

what prize there is for women to be gained” in becoming members at gentlemen’s clubs

Where I live, "gentleman's club" is a polite euphemism for, "place where women take off their cloths and prance around or display themselves on a pole for the benefit of men, generally with AC/DC's Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap playing". Barring women from such venues would reduce the appeal for men.

T.L. Ciottoli said...

yeeeeeeeees. black knighting. more apropos than one might imagine at first glance, and in all seriousness the only way to go ahead and cut down the rabble, savages, the white knight weaklings, and the harpy she-males standing in our way to reclaiming and reestablishing civilization. It's a metaphor that works on more levels than one might think.

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands,
hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

Who shall I credit for the expression 'black knighting' or 'black knight' in terms of Game and inter-gender realtions? Vox?

We have raised the Flag of the Black Knight. It has begun.

Brad Andrews said...

True RI, though the name is quite a misnomer, as is "adult entertainment." I can't see a true gentlemen ever going there.

hank.jim said...

She is not stupid. She knows that "all-female clubs" will be invaded by the transgendered. "All-Female" means exactly that and it is discrimination to those men who feel they are women. This has already happened in our schools. The first line of defense is no more. This is happen in greater frequency later and soon "all female" is no more.

swiftfoxmark2 said...

I keep on saying that a woman's primary vice is envy. This is why women want to get into the men's clubs. It has nothing to do with equality or prejudice or any of that nonsense. The feminist movement is literally the politicization of female envy.

Natalie said...

I think that to women there's a difference between hearing "I want a place to hang out with my mates and chill" and "I want a place where those rassafrassin women can't bother me!" And I think from a solipsism point of view it makes sense - a place that relaxes your man and connects him to other men who might share skills and/or resources with him helps her. Bonus points if this group demonstrates/boosts his status in some way. A place where he's going to be sitting around complaining about the ol' ball in chain doesn't help her.

Expendable Faceless Minion said...

This reminds me of female reporters getting hyper offended that (either NFL or Baseball) players in the locker room after the game were walking around unclad during the post-game interviews.

Their expectation that the men shouldn't shower or change from their athletic uniforms is mind boggling. Or maybe "locker room" has changed meaning over the years.

Feather Blade said...

Why would anyone do locker-room interviews anyway?

Is that something that started before, after, or concurrently with the advent of female sports reporters?

Eric Wilson said...

swiftfoxmark2,

I keep on saying that a woman's primary vice is envy.

Wasn't that Eve's downfall? Envious that others knew the difference between good and evil? Envious that she wasn't like God?

Desiderius said...

Cail,

"as long as they have the right attitude"

or else.

Mandatory goodfeels.

Aquinas Dad said...

My wife is an alumna of one of the Seven Sisters; say what you will about the schools, but none of her fellow alumnae that I have met oppose men's only clubs or universities!

swiftfoxmark2 said...

Wasn't that Eve's downfall? Envious that others knew the difference between good and evil? Envious that she wasn't like God?

Yes.

vartank said...

Reminds me of women I know complaining about getting stared at when they are the gym, and the thought that I have is I'm really glad I joined an elite style gym that has no machines or cardio equipment because there is almost never a woman there to distract us from actually lifting. Female only gyms make sense to me, but male only gyms even more so for how distracting and annoying women are to be around when trying to focus.

Anonymous said...

OT: NYT's jumping on board with the "sexism in IT" thing. They're going after GitHub.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/04/nyt-alpha-male-culture-endemic-in.html

IT and OSS in particular are not known for strong proportions of Alpha males (some Betas, many Deltas and Gammas), so I suspect the industry is heading for a crater faster than usual.

Feather Blade said...

Wasn't that Eve's downfall? Envious that others knew the difference between good and evil? Envious that she wasn't like God?

No. Her downfall was that she used the wrong standard (i.e. not God's) for evaluating a course of action.

The standard she used was as follows: ".. the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom..."

Of themselves these are not bad standards, but she applied them to an object that God had declared forbidden, and God's prohibition should have been her first consideration, after which none of the other criteria should have mattered.

Retrenched said...

I'm sure women's spaces are all 'warm and welcoming' too, right? And I'm sure they don't sit around and vent about how much men suck and how they want them all castrated, right?

Anonymous said...

I'm sure women's spaces are all 'warm and welcoming' too, right? And I'm sure they don't sit around and vent about how much men suck and how they want them all castrated, right?

Actually, I suspect they're usually far too busy bitching about other women.

Retrenched said...

@ Jack

Ha yeah, good point.

Stg58/Animal Mother said...

Yes, they are too busy bitching about other women. Case in point: the women in my family are bitching to each other about an in law interloper woman who got knocked up by a male relative then married him.

Two women walk into a room wearing the same dress: "Who's that bitch?"

Two men: "Buddies for life!"

Feather Blade said...

...far too busy bitching about other women.

You gents sure know some boring women. You have my sympathy.

Akulkis said...

The other side of the Horvath/Github story. TLDR: Horvath was the instigator.

Retrenched said...

@ Feather

Yeah, because this behavior is so rare and unusual among women... the vast majority of women never ever do this at all...

Akulkis said...

The other side of the Horvath/Github story.
link

TLDR: Horvath was the instigator.

Let's see if I coded the link right this time.

Akulkis said...

I always thought it would be funny to rig up a juke-box to have one selection be "microphone in the women's restroom."

paul a'barge said...

@Natalie said "A place where he's going to be sitting around complaining about the ol' ball in chain doesn't help her"

For gathering men, the places where they gather without women and what men discuss there, it's not about what will help her. In fact, it's none of her business at all.

Now, go make me a sandwich.

Feather Blade said...

@Retrenched:

I never said it was rare; I said it was boring.

Whether that counts as "a woman bitching about other women" or not, well... ^_^

Anonymous said...

I never said it was rare; I said it was boring.

And what behavior makes a woman interesting in your mind?

mmaier2112 said...

Would that THIS place be sans females... or at least ones that haven't been given honourary Male status.

Revelation Means Hope said...

I don't know about the other men here, but never, ever, in ANY men's forum or gathering, do we spend any time at all talking about our wives.
Church groups? Never.
School groups? Never.
Buddies from work? Never.
Backpacking/shooting buddies? Never.
Triathlon training groups? Never.

The only time spent talking about our wives is a family gatherings, and when men come over specifically to ask for advice about their marriage.

Lot's of projection onto men in that article.

Feather Blade said...

@Jack Amok:

And what behavior makes a woman interesting in your mind?

Interesting to me or interesting to men?

The answer to the former is irrelevant, and the answer to the latter is unknown to me.

All I can say is that women who have nothing better to do than tear down (i.e. gossip about) other women are boring.

Anonymous said...

Make $10,000 Per Month Big Companies Are Hiring People To Give Them Opinion make $50 per opinion in 5 minutes only 10 people required APPLY NOW: http://bit.ly/QKpBwq

Kimberly said...

I am a woman and I agree, women do sit around with other women complaining about the men in their lives. If it's bad, it can consist up to 90% of the entire interaction. Men seem to complain less about women, and if they do it's only in spurts. Like venting for a few moments then moving onto another subject. I also believe men speak more highly of women than women do of men.

It all comes down to what we don't understand or care to learn about the othe gender.

Post a Comment

NO ANONYMOUS COMMENTS.