A women-only space is an area where only women are allowed, thus providing a place where they do not have to interact with men. Historically and globally, many cultures had, and many still have, some form of female seclusion.
Video Women-only space
Purpose and background
Women-only spaces are a form of sex segregation, and practices such as women-only public toilets, women-only passenger cars on public transport or women's parking spaces may be described using both terms. They are sometimes referred to as "safe space". The goal is to provide women an area to work, free of male judgment or harassment.
These spaces do not go without challenge. Men's rights activists have launched lawsuits to gain access to female-only spaces, as for example Stopps v Just Ladies Fitness (Metrotown) Ltd, regarding a gym in Canada. The access of trans women, with or without legal recognition of their acquired gender, is also sometimes contentious, both from an ethical and from a legal perspective. In some cases questions have been raised about the value and legitimacy of particular spaces being reserved for women.
Maps Women-only space
Women's quarters and segregated societies
Many cultures have had a tradition of separate living space for the women of a household ("women's quarters"); this becomes more elaborate the larger the house is, reaching its peak in royal palaces. The best known example is probably the harem, a Turkish word, but similar systems existed elsewhere, and still do, in some places.
- Andaruni (Iran)
- Seraglio (Ottoman Empire)
- Zenana (South Asia) - hence, Zenana missions, providing medical and educational support to segregated women
- Purdah (South Asia)
- Terem (Russia)
- ?oku (Japan)
Some societies segregate most public facilities by sex, according to their interpretation of Islam and gender segregation; critics calls this gender apartheid after the former South African system of racial division. The best known examples are Saudi Arabia (Women's rights in Saudi Arabia#Sex segregation) and Iran (Sex segregation in Iran, Women's rights in Iran). More disputed regimes include Afghanistan (Taliban treatment of women) and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
History
In English-speaking societies, the rise of first wave feminism, including the long struggles for the vote (suffrage) and for access to education and the professions, led to various initiatives to widen women's possibilities.
- A ladies' ordinary was a women-only dining space which started to appear in North American hotels and restaurants from 1830, when it was socially unacceptable for women to dine in public without a male escort.
- In the 1910s and 1920s, there was widespread encouragement in the United States for the establishment of ladies' lounges and rest rooms to accommodate rural women who traveled into county seats and market towns to conduct business. The Ladies Rest Room in Lewisburg, Tennessee, may be the last free-standing one in that state still in use.
- In 1929 Virginia Woolf published an influential essay entitled "A Room of One's Own".
Examples
Some of these allow men at certain times of the day, week, or year, for example as guests. Other establishments allow men and women into physically separate areas. Others exist only temporarily, renting space for a few hours or days. Some of these allow children, either only girls or both sexes.
Toilets
In almost all countries, public toilets are segregated by sex.
Menstruation
Some menstrual taboos require a woman to stay at home, or avoid certain places such as temples, but other cultures assign a particular place to segregate herself from her community, for example the chhaupadi (menstrual huts) of Nepal today, or The Red Tent, a fictionalised version of Old Testament-era customs. The anthropologist Wynne Maggi describes the communal bashali (large menstrual house) of women in the Kalasha Valley (northwestern Pakistan) as their 'most holy place', respected by men and serving as women's all-female organizing centre for establishing and maintaining gender solidarity and power.
The seclusion of girls at puberty (i.e. menarche) is another such custom.
Motherhood and lactation
The lactation room is a modern, mostly American phenomenon, designed for using electric breast pumps and storing the expressed milk. In many countries, spaces for women to nurse their babies can be known as breastfeeding rooms or nursing areas. The period of postpartum confinement was traditionally a time for new mothers to learn to care for their infant from older and more experienced women.
Land and shelter
- Womyn's land, stemming from separatist feminism of the 1970s
- Anti-war activism such as Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp in the UK and Seneca Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice in the US
- Umoja, Kenya, a village of women and children fleeing domestic violence
- Women's shelter, a place of temporary accommodation for women fleeing domestic violence, e.g. Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter
- Some homeless shelters are just for women, e.g. Rosie's Place
- Most rape crisis centers
Places to wash
Public nudity is in many cultures restricted to single-sex groups. So public baths may separate men and women by time or by space.
- Turkish bath, hammam, see especially its function as a gendered social space
- Mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath
Specific examples include:
- Frauenbad Stadthausquai, a public bath built in Switzerland in the late 19th century for women, and which still operates as such
- Hampstead Heath Ladies' Pond, a reservoir in a London park
In many cultures, laundry was seen as "women's work", so the village wash-house (lavoir) acted as a space for women to gather and talk together as they washed clothes.
Education
- Girls' schools, i.e. single-sex education, see also Category:Girls' schools
- Women's colleges and universities
- Finishing school
- Sororities
When formal education was banned by the Taliban, underground schools sprung up, such as the Golden Needle Sewing School for writers to secretly discuss their work.
Religious places
- Women's mosques in China, and more generally the women's space in most mosques, see Gender separation in mosques
- Gender separation in Judaism, as for example the Mechitza used to demarcate women's space in a synagogue
- Convent, the home of Christian nuns
- Double monastery, with separate space for monks (men) and nuns (women)
- Beguinage, all-women accommodation in the Low Countries
Health care
Historically, some health care services for women (particularly around childbirth) were staffed by women. As women gained increased access to education in the late nineteenth century, hospitals hired female physicians for female patients; nurses by this point were almost exclusively female.
- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Obstetric Hospital is named after one of Britain's first female physicians
- London School of Medicine for Women, the first medical school to train women as doctors
During second-wave feminism, health activists set up feminist health centers, particularly in the United States. Some places are for women from one background, such as the Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center. Some holistic care centres are for mothers and their children, such as Nkosi's Haven in South Africa.
Businesses and services
- Women-only bank
- See also the kitty party, an informal savings club
- Women's parking space
- Women-only passenger car
- Women's clubs that have or had their own premises (parallel to a gentlemen's club), and more recently women-only restaurants and networking events
- see List of women's club buildings as part of the US Woman's club movement
- Of this international list of women's organizations, some have their own premises; others such as the Women's Institute offer their members a women-only space for the duration of the meeting
- Community centres focusing on women, such as The Women's Building in San Francisco and Pankhurst Centre in Manchester
- Sex shops catering to women, such as Sh! Women's Erotic Emporium
- Feminist bookstores may have women-only and mixed-sex times
- Gyms
- Spas (see also section on public bathing, above)
- Hotels, either by floor, or as the entire business (e.g. the "urban retreat" and spa the Luthan Hotel in Riyadh, capsule hotels in Japan)
Lesbian services
- Cruises and vacation resorts such as those operated by Olivia Travel
- Lesbian bars such as the now closed Candy Bar, Soho
- Lesbian Herstory Archives
Military, policing, and prisons
- Some countries operate or operated separate services for women, such as the UK's Women's Royal Air Force, see Category:All-female military units and formations
- Women's police station
- The incarceration of women is in most countries in single-sex prisons, or female-only wings within larger men's prisons, see Category:Women's prisons
Cultural events
- Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (closed after 40th anniversary in 2015)
- Nyansapo Festival, an Afro-feminist festival in Paris in 2017
- Mountain Moving Coffeehouse, a weekly music night in Chicago (1974-2005)
- Race for Life, a British charity event that raises money for cancer
- Marches to protest and celebrate, such as Take Back the Night and the Dyke March
- Yamurikuma, a gender role reversal festival of some Xingu tribes
- The Fainting Club, a supper club described as an old boys' club for girls
There are many other festivals, conferences, etc. that focus on women's achievements and women's issues, but allow anyone to attend, from the Rochester Women's Rights Convention of 1848 to today's Women of the World Festival.
Religious festivals
- Thesmophoria in Ancient Greece
- Jivitputrika
- Karva Chauth, celebrated by Hindu women in Northern India
Celebrations
Many celebrations, especially around rites of passage, are marked by a girl or woman and her female relatives and friends. For example, many cultures have a party before the wedding for the bride, in Western culture known as a hen or bachelorette party.
Sports
Many amateur and most professional sports are segregated by sex.
See also
References
Further reading
- Brotman, Barbara (23 October 1986). "Dictionary For 'Womyn' Says Half Of Society Is A Dirty 3-letter Word". Chicago Tribune.
- Enke, A. Finn (2007). Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism (1st ed.). Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-4062-1.
External links
- Women-only space
- Respect women's-only space
- Exploring the Value of Women-Only Space
- Women-Only Spaces: An Alternative To Patriarchy
Source of article : Wikipedia
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