I’m going to skip the meta-conversation and tactic you used. I don’t think they clarify or further the discussion about why women would want a conference without men.

Regarding natalism, I skipped it not because it was emotional, but it was tangential and unclear in how it was related to the specific topic. Again, I have nothing against emotions playing into one’s politics.

Segregation foments adversarial attitudes. Even with trivial or made up differences. It widens the empathy gap, creates perceived out-group homogeneity, and a sense of moral superiority.

This is only true if you fail to understand the internal needs of the segregated group. In this case, it is to regain power in themselves and through connection to others who get it. This subverts any empathy gap that could happen. When a cancer survivor group meets, I don’t ever know what it was like having had cancer. But I can provide an empathetic space to understand that:

1. I don’t get it
2. It serves some of them in healing

If the only result you care about is how it effects out-groups, then you misunderstand how healing and political movements are created at the earliest stages. How do you think political movements are formed if not in small groups meeting privately?

Not a hard rule though, and to say there is no power in a woman’s only group that couldn’t further disenfranchise a dis-empowered non-woman would be disingenuous.

Women are historically oppressed minorities. Patriarchal systems caused their oppression. Who are the dis-empowered non-woman that are being disenfranchised?

“Over throwing patriarchy” is a vague goal at best though. What does that actually entail?

Much of this particulars are covered in the long history of feminism. Recounting it all would take several books. Staying with in the confines of one or strain will help guide the discussion. What feminist literature have you read? Who are your guiding lights in the movement? That will dissipate the vagueness. There may not be one single definition, but the contours for disagreement move from a blob to specific corners of concern. I’m asking for these because if you view these goals as ‘religious,’ it suggests you are unfamiliar with the specific, material policy work and labor history that defines the movement. There is nothing inherently wrong with not being familiar with the field in specificity.

So in sum, I’d like to hear:

• How do you think political movements are formed if not in small groups meeting privately?
• Who are the dis-empowered non-woman that are being disenfranchised?
• What feminist literature have you read? Who are your guiding lights in the movement?

Thanks. Just as surprising is the lack of empathy that would imagine why someone might need that space. I wonder if it’s been all in vain.

you think you’d show me I’m right to view exclusionary spaces with some level of suspicion and disdain.

I didn’t address this directly because you didn’t do the work to show you were actually interested in the conversation. That’s why didn’t have the right to be there. This response is more serious and worth giving you my attention and energy. Had you provided the context and thinking you provided in this response in the first response, I would have considered answering especially if you were able to support it’s relevancy.

I won’t be addressing the anti-natalist because I don’t see how it’s connected and it seems like it’s emotionally charged for you. Emotionally charged politics are important, but only if they are connected to the topic and if I judge that I have any relevant position to make any intervention. So I won’t be sounding off on that.

That leaves the first point where you started in your first comment “Men do the same.” and gave your thinking in this last comment. On the face of it, an out group is not an adversary. If I attend a cancer survivor’s group and people who never had cancer show up, it changes things. People who never had cancer are not my adversaries. My goal isn’t to fight those people. I want to connect with others through a shared experience.

Men’s only groups in the past was often a place where real decisions for power and profit were made. This is radically different from a the support some women may get in a women’s conference or the strategy and tactics developed from shared seed experiences for the political project of over throwing patriarchy.

First, a conference is a private space, not a public space. It is invitational to a private event. The non-invitation of a group of individuals without exclusion is functional a non-point to me. It’s performative at best. “We didn’t technically not invite flat earthers to the astrophysics conference, we just didn’t extend an invitation to any individuals who also happen to be flat earthers.” Its a distinction without a difference.

Events like a conference can have multiple purposes including highlighting under represented views. The function is what determines the allowed group. If it’s coalition building, then men would be invited. If it’s to highlight women’s voices and foster bonding, then it will exclude men. By explicitly excluding the class of men, it signals an invitation to sharing. People prep for this before hand and know it’s a place they can share openly. See the four points I listed in my initial comment.

“By excluding a generalized group, it discriminates through stereotype”

Absolutely does not. There’s nothing about the oppression of women that a man’s voices can lend that speaks from first hand experience. Acknowledging men are not women is not stereotyping. Its definitional.

No one’s claiming amorality. The morality being used by the powerful to undermine the solidarity building of women or other oppressed groups is not the one that needs centering. The morality that puts healing through community and connection comes before opening to others. There’s a morality that allows the voiceless to find their voice.

The powerful are different because they have power. As a class, they will do anything they need to do to hold on to that power. As individuals, sure… same. As a class, different. This is not inherent inequality, its historical and class based.

The best point you have, though surprisingly, failing to actually answer my question is the note of creating a mass movement. I asked for a "single instance where the dominant group stopped their exclusion because they lost the ‘transitive legitimacy’.

The opening of the doors was after long sessions of small groups agitating to make a difference. Guess how many men were allowed to attend CWLU’s Liberation School for Women? The Quaker Bright Circles would meet and practice their religion together and affirm their dignity as women first. Then they bought to other Quaker. Before a mass movement comes the long arduous act of developing solidarity.

No fort has been taken by dropping your rifles.

Change comes from the oppressed organizing in their own spaces and not by holding the moral high ground.

The powerful will do whatever they need regardless of the moral high ground or not. They haven been using exclusion for centuries to maintain their position. They don’t need my ‘permission’ or a ‘logical precedent’ to gatekeep. They have the systemic power to do it regardless.

They manufacture legitimacy for themselves using ‘tradition,’ ‘efficiency,’ or ‘safety’ to mask their gatekeeping. They don’t borrow legitimacy from the marginalized. Throughout history, the dominant group has never waited for a logical ‘green light’ from the oppressed to justify exclusion. And they won’t give up power because we have the moral high ground.

If we ‘disarm’ and stop creating restorative spaces, we lose a vital tool for survival, while the powerful lose absolutely nothing. Abandoning a functional tool for restoration (like a support group or a focused conference) because a bad actor might mislabel their own dominance as ‘restoration.’ That’s like saying we shouldn’t use a scalpel to save a life because a murderer might use one to take one. The intent and the material outcome are what define the action, not the fact that a blade was used.

They will continue to exclude because they can, with or without a consistent moral philosophy. You are prioritizing the ‘purity’ of a logical rule over the material survival of a group.

Can you name a single historical instance where a dominant group stopped a practice of exclusion because they realized they no longer had the ‘transitive legitimacy’ to continue it?

Being able to tell the difference between people who have historically been exploited and oppressed and those powerful people feigning it is an easy task. Rascists do it. White supremicists do it. It is no reason to abandon the tools of restoration for the oppressed. It’s not the only one, but it is one.

If your issue is that it rhymes, then I think you’re missing how the powerful use this to oppress and exploit people. When minorities do it, it is done to regain power and dignity from being oppressed and exploited.

Men do the same.

Never said they didn’t.

2 & 3) We should birth fewer boys. It sounds like everyone would be happier.

I don’t know if you lack the ability to understand that these four points were made in the context of why women might want a meeting without men or something else. Either way, I don’t think you belong in this conversation.

I hate American “passive gendered segregation” culture and want to destroy it.

Okay.

Also, new theories and tactics to achieve what?

The goals of feminism.

I’m not surprised by the comments who reject the idea in total. But the I am surprised by the comments that try and fail to think charitably about this. They end up both sides-ing it.

Edit: I figure I ought to do a little better job of explaining what I mean to the curious and good faith commentator.

1. Women often mask or change the demeanor when men are present. This will restrict what they share and how they share it.
2. Men often dominate the discourse both in time and style. This is related to number one.
3. Women who have been traumatized by men will be on guard with men present. They will never be able to tell if you are safe or not in a public discourse situation.
4. Men and women in the modern American context have different ways of relating to each other. When these conferences happen they sometimes are investigating new theories and new tactics. Male input can undermine free sharing.

Butt… I want to see.

Taritino posting.

This is good, but it would have been nice if the symbols were more consistent. Like Volt gets a lightning bolt on her thigh… Cool. Ohm, while the sexiest in my opinion, gets an Ω on her shirt. So the under boob is great, but it’s really that smile. Finally, Amp. What going on here? Those ruddy cheeks are awesome. The rope is pretty cool too even if it’s not my thing. But where’s her symbol? I don’t particularly want to imagine a scarlet letter A.

Honestly, the inconsistency was a bit turn off.

Well… If you made it this far and think I’m missing the point, I hope you now realize I’m just taking the piss.

That kid is going to stand their ground.

Don’t know if anyone cares about context, but this Know Your Meme page gives some more.

There’s a video about 1/2 way down where he explains what he meant.

I feel happy for everyone taking joy in this moment. I don’t feel much of anything for it though. It’s wildly neutral.

NK Jemisen’s The Fifth Season has some of the most beautiful prose I read in the genre. Stunning and intimate.

I just finished Gardens of the Moon. In order to keep track of everyone, I made my own wiki. It felt like watching Eriksson play a war game.

I’m taking a break as the style isn’t interesting to me. I hear his writing becomes more intimate and visceral in the rest of the series. Looking forward to this in book 2. Sort of wish I started with book 2 since none or few of the characters carry over.

There are six, which, by modern standards isn’t much. The first three came out in a four year time span and was an attempt to answer the question, “What was Gandalf’s youth like?” This was before Tolkien answered these questions publicly.

Twenty some odd years later, she wrote Tehanu. It was, from what I remember, an attempt to answer her critiques who said she had written a series where magic was not accessible to women. Then ten years after that she finished with two more books. The first of the two was a bunch of short stories that fill in some corners of the stories prior.

“skim milk powder”

Shrinkflation! Must have taken a cold shower.