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 didn't read into this particular issue, but I know the museum in question, have been there a couple times, so some context:
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.
Depends on how much money the exhibit draws. Iirc the Wall of Vaginas was supposed to be temporary but it's still up as far as I know.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Next we can half separate but equal water fountains for coloreds and whites.
From now on, men have decided to declare every build and every bridge, build by men, to be men only. Build your own stuff please. /s
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.
Locker rooms are a little different than bathrooms.
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.
I mean, I can see where you're coming from but locker rooms are a significant part of sport.
Comradery is built in locker rooms and they are where young athletes spend a large portion of their sporting time. This is especially true for certain sports needing significant prep time like (ice) hockey.
With young people already facing a loneliness crisis, we don't need to be isolating them further to solve a non-problem.
Got this one from tumblr but its something along the lines of we go to the bathroom to shit, not have some special women fun time in there.
If there was a way to have my own room entirely without anyone else that'd be 100% preferred, but gender is the last thing im thinking about when someone's peeking down the cracks of my stall
Whew, if the bear meme didn't bring out the usual crowd of assholes, this sure did.
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 🤷
Another fun fact, two men actually sued. One dropped the issue after being told the purpose of the art installation and realised he was about to be made a spectacle, the other went full steam ahead.
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."
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
This BBC World article covers how the artist brought the artwork into the courthouse:
Tuesday started with a large group of women dressed in navy power suits, clad in pearls and wearing red lipstick marching into the hearing to support Ms Kaechele.
As the parties sparred, the museum's supporters were somewhat stealing the spotlight. They had periods of complete stillness and silence, before moving in some kind of subtle, synchronised dance - crossing their legs and resting their heads on their fists, clutching their hearts, or peering down their spectacles. One even sat there pointedly flipping through feminist texts and making notes.
After (Judge) Grueber reserved his decision for a later date, which is yet to be determined, the museum's posse left as conspicuously as it came in - dancing out of the building in a conga line as one woman played 'Simply Irresistible' by Robert Palmer off her iPhone.
Ms Kaechele has indicated she'll fight the case all the way to the Supreme Court if needed, but she says - ironically - that perhaps nothing could drive the point of the artwork home more than having to shut it down.
"If you were just looking at it from an aesthetic standpoint, being forced to close would be pretty powerful."
Also want to cite an interview with the artist:
As the hugely influential gender theorist Judith Butler argues, gender is a performative construct. To which I’d add: so is the legal system.
Interviewer: Do you mean to say that you think the judge might have been contributing to the art?
I can’t be certain that his ruling isn’t performance. His judge-like ‘comportment’ in the court, the flourish of his language in the ruling ... He’s clearly a man interested in art. In his ruling, he compares me to Caravaggio—a great artist but he also murdered someone. I just served ladies champagne.
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.
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.)
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.
Reverse misogyny? misandry is the word your looking for author.
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.
All it takes is to dentify as a woman then you can go In, I don't get why people are complaining just tell them you're a woman and go in.
I kinda assumed the point was to demonstrate gender is meaningless, or are they excluding trans people and basing it on sex?
Gender may be a social construct, but I recognize that I'm privileged to not have to care too much about mine.
Now, the point of the exhibition was actually about historical men-only places where women experienced exclusion. The art is not only the exhibition itself, but also the sense of rejection that men feel in not being allowed in. I would be surprised if they didn't allow transwomen and non-binary folk in, as there are many spaces that don't welcome them even now.
The artist said she wants to demonstrate that gender is meaningless, I think a lot of people are painting their opinions over the artists because they assume because they're sure their opinion is right that all right thinking people will agree. It's similar with science, people assume the thing that feels scientific is right even when actual science disagrees.
men can just choose to identify as women if they want to go in because gender, according to the artist, is a meaningless construct. It's a fairly common idea, people can choose to identify as any gender for any reason for any amount of time.
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.
The point is to draw attention to the stupid laws and get it fixed. The initial premise is shocking and I can understand that it's upsetting, and it's okay to feel that way. No judgements here.
Just channel that anger towards the correct target
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