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I would say the most polarizing thing I've ever said at least in an online community is that there should be spaces specifically for men to congregate where they can talk about their issues among like-minded men.
This was in response to me discovering that of the eight gyms within a 10 mile radius of my home, three of them are all gender gyms and five of them are women's only gyms.
Of the associations in my area, places where people of like-minded orientation congregate, 4 of them are all gender, 12 of them are female only.
There are no male only semi-private spaces that I can find within a 25 mile radius of my home and I live in a city of over 500,000 people.
Of the multitude of homeless housing, homelessness support, soup kitchen, and other resources for the incredibly poor and disaffected, roughly half of them are explicitly female only, and all of the remainder are all gender with a preference for supporting women.
To me this is especially terrifying because of the homeless population that I have encountered only a vanishingly small fraction of them are women. The great majority by and far of the maybe 40 or 60 homeless people I have seen in the last year have been male.
If it is okay for women to have women only spaces why is it not okay for men to have men only spaces?
If it is okay for women to receive women only support, why is it not okay for men to receive men only support?
I overall agree that for some things it can make sense to have separate gendered spaces, shelters make sense, I can see gyms, etc. places where people are feeling particularly vulnerable, self conscious, dealing with trauma, etc. and being around the opposite gender could be a part of that.
But in other cases, I think the right move is to get over ourselves and be rid of pointless gendering in some activities.
A lot of my friends and myself are traditionally "manly" in a lot of ways, outdoorsy, cigar smokers, whiskey drinkers, a lot of us work with our hands, like guns, etc. That said, we're a pretty enlightened group, we're not out shit-talking our wives and engaging in demeaning "locker room" talk and such when we get together to have what could be loosely called our "boys nights out." It's happened from time to time that a female friend ends up tagging along and absolutely nothing changes about our behavior, the fact that there is a woman in the room in no way takes away from the experience, and if anything adds to it in a "the more the merrier" sort of way. Any woman who is willing to put up with the cigar smoke, fart jokes, peeing on trees in the woods, etc. is more than welcome to come along, it just happens that most don't enjoy that.
Now of course you also run into a whole lot of complicated situations, the way men tend to interact with other men, and the way women interact with other women are different. I'm not going to go into all of the nature vs nurture, societal expectations, toxic masculinity, etc. involved but all of that certainly plays a big part. I'm no sociologist, but my overall impression (and I may be wrong)is that women can kind of mesh into the male social structure without making too many waves provided that the men aren't assholes (which is far from guaranteed,) but it's very hard for a lot of men to get themselves into the right kind of headspace to participate in the sort of socializing women want and need from their social groups without disrupting things to the point that the women aren't able to get what they need out of it.
And circling around to shelters, men may need more shelters by sheer numbers, but on average each individual homeless woman is probably in a more vulnerable position than the average homeless man. Really more shelter space is needed across the board.
I going about the shelter thing, a few years ago they did a study and there was not a single shelter for men in the country.
And I get it, it's important to take care of women, sure, but when somebody tried to start a support shelter for men there was a massive public outcry about it.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/brooklyn-residents-protest-proposed-men-only-homeless-shelter-in-their-neighborhood-it-s-going-to-be-a-war/ar-BB1k9dcj
And even if you had the time and inclination to for instance start a men's only gym, why would you risk all of that time and effort on the odd chance that you would offend a person who has a following and knows how to raise a Battle cry and next thing you know you've got a hundred angry protesters outside of your gym even though there are five female only gyms within walking distance because you have a men's only gym.
It's much easier to create a space that's just slightly uninviting for the average woman and then let the chips fall where they may.
It's easier to pass the buck and say somebody else will take care of the guys. We don't need to build men's only shelters. Guys are more resilient than women. Guys aren't as at risk as women are. Guys are shitty people in general and life gives them so many breaks, they don't need any additional support while there are still women who have needs.
Let's not start a men's only club because all it takes is one woman getting upset and suing us for discrimination and next thing we know we are out $250,000 in lawyer fees all because we wanted to have a boys space.
Let's just let all of the men suffer in silence forever and ever. They'll be okay they'll just rub some dirt in it and move on.
I'm a little salty. But I can cope. But I still feel emboldened to express that I dislike the inequality and I wish things were a little better.
Agreed. The need for all kinds of mens-groups is probably higher than it has ever been. I'd love something where I could join a group of men and build / fix something together.