Anonymous OP 4w

This is so good

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Anonymous OP 4w

“They cannot imagine a society where the presence of men is not inherently a danger to women” was smth that my brain said “wow that’s fucking insane” and it’s right. That’s a sadly amazing truth I’m going to bear witness to its awesome power that will stick in the back of my head thank you

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Anonymous #5 4w

deterrent. idk i just think a lot of these posts act like we somehow live in a post-patriarchal world where men actually want to be better and have put in the work to do it. it feels like women are just being asked to sacrifice more and more and more while men get to live their lives unchanged. why not make men’s rooms gender neutral and keep women’s? why does the convo always come down to it being wrong for women to have their own space, but no one ever tells men they’re wrong for the same?

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Anonymous #5 4w

Hi! Great question. For one, yes women are and have been asking to enter men’s spaces for centuries. Women fought to be mine laborers, to enroll in higher education, to enter men’s sports, to be scientists, authors, politicians, voters, entrepreneurs, all throughout the 19th-20th century. The basis of feminism was for decades telling men that they’re wrong for keeping women out of their spaces, and that women have a right to be in the public sphere w/o being sexually harassed. …

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Anonymous OP 4w

We’ve made so much progress using that strategy that you can sit here and have that fact slip ur mind. That’s so awesome! And what men expect from public spaces is completely changed now b/c of it. Here’s another thing: I’ve been in multi-stall gender neutral restrooms before, multiple times. I think they were both restrooms which the owners wanted to redesignate as single person gender neutral restrooms but they were never remodeled so ppl ignored the sign and kept using them multi-stall. …

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Anonymous OP 4w

And it was totally fine, bc people were just there to pee. I just was in there with strangers and nobody was creeping, it was just like we passed and made eye contact w the guys and awkwardly smiled abt how mildly funny the whole thing was and we went on our separate ways. I think that teaches men that women have a right to be in the bathroom without being sexually harassed too. And gay/bi ppl have been sharing those spaces w ppl they’re attracted to since forever…

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Anonymous OP 4w

and because society expects them to behave, they do. In any case, “women have to give up their bathrooms right now for feminism!” isn’t the point of the post. Private bathrooms and changing rooms are just fine. We could even go with your idea, and women could just keep on fighting the fight to enter men’s spaces, you’re right. But where does that leave trans and nonbinary people? The social pressure shouldn’t be “wtf there’s a man in here get out,” b/c how can you identify a man? …

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Anonymous OP 4w

But you can identify aggressive behavior. It should be “wtf you are actively doing something wrong, get out” and we should expect to live in that feminist society which demands women be safe in all spaces, even when men are there. And there are men who do want to be better and put in the work right now for us to recruit!

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Anonymous OP 4w

It seems like ur pushing back b/c you read the OP as naïve. I don’t see it that way. I don’t think it’s acting like we already live in a post-patriarchal society to say “I believe that society can exist and I will fight to achieve it.” I believe, and I want to fight that fight too. Anyway, tysm for ur reply!

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Anonymous OP 4w

idk i guess i still don’t really see how eliminating single sex spaces actually helps anything. i’ve been in gender neutral bathrooms before and they’re fine, but i don’t see why they both can’t exist. why can’t gender neutral bathrooms exist AND women’s bathrooms can stay available for those who feel more comfortable using them? why does it have to be all or nothing? and why again is it women giving something up in the name of equality? if there are so many feminist men, why aren’t they

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Anonymous #5 4w

offering to turn men’s rooms into gender neutral bathrooms? i’m also not really sold on the comparison between women entering academia = gender neutral bathrooms. tbh i have to think on that a little more to figure out why it doesn’t sit right with me, bc it is true that feminism has (obviously) worked to help women gain equality. honestly this whole thing kinda feels like putting the cart before the horse. like yes in a perfect world we wouldn’t need single sex bathrooms, but we don’t live in

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Anonymous #5 4w

a perfect world. i don’t believe for a second we’ve made enough societal change for teenage boys to be able to share bathrooms with teenage girls and not harass them. you could make the argument that by doing that it normalizes it and in a few years they’d be used to it - and i think that’d be true! but i’m unwilling to quite literally sacrifice women and girls to be the test run to see if men and boys can handle that. idk if naive is the right word but it definitely feels off. maybe it’s the

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Anonymous #5 4w

wording? to me at least it comes off as very “it’s wrong to be wary of men and acknowledging they ARE a danger to women is antifeminist”. also men are fucking gross in bathrooms and i don’t want to share space with people who don’t know basic hygiene lol. i think id feel different about this if it was framed more as expecting men to do the emotional labor of unpacking their misogyny rather than expecting women to be fine giving up their space

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Anonymous #5 4w

hiii ok i don’t have enough time before work to write another long response but first, op does put the onus on men to behave themselves around women, and second, how up on the trans bathroom ban discourse are u? bc i think thats important context for understanding. and i think ur reading into this like direct policy demands which arent there. this is abt the end goal of feminism and whats possible for the world and how transphobic talking points are used to kneecap feminism.

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Anonymous OP 4w

Yeah I read it less like direct policy demands and more like a broader framing issue and after I read it something clicked in my brain and I felt lighter and more hopeful

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Anonymous OP 4w

How we get there is up to us! If you want to enter activism you can be a part of it—you’re already cooking up some great ideas. Like, don’t imagine desegregating middle school restrooms and letting them figure it out themselves, nobody is saying that. It’s gonna be willing groups of activists, possibly advocating for the very things you suggested.

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Anonymous OP 4w

i’m being so genuine rn but what responsibility is put on men? the post just reads as “well if bathrooms were gender neutral men would respect women” obviously paraphrasing but that’s kinda the vibe i’m getting, especially with the point about patriarchal signaling. to me that reads almost as absolving men of their misogyny, bc if we just give them a chance they can be better (even tho there’s no proof). i’m honestly not that up to date other than just knowing the bathroom debate exists tbh

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Anonymous #5 4w

The point is that the concept of a women’s bathroom is a product of the patriarchy - men in power when public bathrooms were becoming more common decided that women were in danger from men if they relieved themselves in the same place as men, and created women’s bathrooms to “protect” women. But if we lived in a society where men didn’t victimize women, then the original purpose for making women’s bathrooms separate would be a moot point, making the entire concept irrelevant.

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Anonymous #6 4w

The whole idea was that men can’t control themselves in shared spaces where things like this happen and skin is exposed and so we need to keep them separate. But men actually can control themselves if they’re raised right, or someone teaches them well enough, or if they decide the punishment for going wrong just isn’t worth it. It’s an outdated, scientifically disproven idea that influences way too much of our lives

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