The power of women only spaces

Let's talk about what women are losing when they are no longer allowed to exclude men.

This weekend I attended a workshop with Jane Hardwicke Collings about ‘menopause’, or sagescence as she calls it. You can read more about sagescence here, because today I want to write instead about sisterhood, and the power of women only space.

The ‘altar’ Jane creates at each workshop. Each candle is lit by a woman attending, from the ‘mother’ candle, lit by Jane. As candles are lit, women set their intentions for the day.

The arguments for such spaces are - probably quite rightly - most often focused on privacy and dignity. The threat that women might experience or feel if they have to undress, or be vulnerable in some other way, in a space that isn’t protected for females only. But what about shifting our focus for a moment, away from the negatives we might gain if males are allowed in our spaces, and onto the positives we might lose? Let’s talk, not so much about safety in toilets and changing rooms, but about the benefits of ‘exclusive’ gatherings of women.

During the lunch break of Jane’s workshop on Sunday, I dashed to pick up my two daughters who had been shopping together in a nearby town, and bring them to Glastonbury for the rest of the afternoon. In the car over sandwiches, I told them how amazing the workshop was and how there were over fifty super inspiring women there, all sitting in circle together.

“Are men allowed to come to the workshop”, asked the nearly 14 year old.

“Why would a man need to come to a menopause workshop?”, I laughed.

“What about trans women?”, she said.

“Well ditto”, I replied. “Why would a trans woman need to come to day about menopause?”

“Well they might want to meet other women?”, ventured my daughter.

“Well then they can join a tennis club or a book club”, I said. “This day is not for them.”

“But isn’t that excluding people?”, she said, or words to that effect.

“No”, I said, hoping that somewhere, somehow, she is internalising my ability to say this word firmly and without caveat or apology. “Imagine I went to a workshop that was for people who were adopted, or people who had survived a particular cancer. Those are not my life experiences and I do not belong in those workshops. I am not ‘being excluded’. Not everything is for everyone, some things are ‘exclusively’ for a certain demographic, and that’s ok. This workshop is all about the life phases of women, and their inner experience. The psychological journey. No man makes that journey. No man can understand it, whether he feels like he’s a woman or not - it ain’t for him.”

Silence from the sandwich eaters in the back. Who knows what they were thinking, and really, who cares? I have reached the ‘Bosswitch’ phase of my life, as Jane Hardwicke Collings calls it, the part where you have barely any fucks left to give. I dropped them at the shops and headed back into the workshop space, where we spent the afternoon in pairs, sharing thoughts and stories about our innermost selves, our relationships with our mothers, our menstrual cycles, our births, our sons and daughters, our losses, our sorrows, our triumphs. What kinds of women are we and how can we continue the ongoing process of healing patriarchy’s damage in our female line? How can we be the women the earth needs now? And where can I get the recipe for this flipping amazing cake, and also, what’s with the chin hairs?

Jane Hardwicke Collings and her clit! Pic by Michie Ferreira.

When I first started The Positive Birth Movement in 2012, I wanted the groups to be women only. I had run women’s groups in my work as a therapist, and loved the magic that happened in such spaces. I was quickly told by others that this was not the right thing to do. We had to include male partners, because this was how we were going to improve the world for women and mothers, getting men in on the action of parenting by allowing them access to the sacred rite of passage that is pregnancy and birth. Not wishing to be seen in any way as regressive, I quickly agreed, with the caveat that each PBM group could decide for itself if it wished to be women only. Most didn’t and I now regret not sticking to my principles. If only I had been a bit more Bosswitch back then.

Now La Leche League, which has always been a woman only space, is imploding because not only will they no longer support their groups being exclusively ‘mother to mother’, they also wish to extend their welcome to, in their words, “a small proportion of transwomen (people assigned male at birth) who may need support with nursing their child.” This situation, which is ongoing, has led to the suspension of six board members of La Leche League GB who object to such outrageous nonsense, and will potentially lead to the demise of LLL itself. At Jane’s workshop she encouraged every woman attending to support each other non-judgementally, and not fall into the patriarchal trap of ‘divide and conquer’, for example over thorny issues like HRT. And here with LLL we can see patriarchy in action: a woman only space, set up for women, by women, being destroyed by women who have not internalised that ‘No’, who are unable to prioritise the needs of the majority of mothers over the tiny minority of men who wish to lay claim to our female powers.

Such issues are dividing and conquering other women’s organisations as well, or have already done so. These spaces and organisations and facilities and even political parties that women have set up themselves to help other women are now falling by the wayside if they don’t agree to meet men’s demands for inclusion. To continue to exist, they must completely reinvent their purpose, sidelining the specific class of human they were set up to elevate and serve. I worry that this is what it seems - a deliberate dismantling of everything women have painstakingly and lovingly built for themselves and their sisters.

And this is a loss. These are huge, epic losses. And not just of these organisations and their aims, but also of women only spaces, and of the transformative, creative power that they bring.

It is very hard to articulate in words what happens when women come together in a room without men, but if you have been in such a space, you will know. I once went to a talk and book signing with Germaine Greer who said that, whenever she does a Q&A, she always takes the first question from a woman. This is because, she explained simply, it helps other women feel more confident to speak and stops male voices from dominating. Men do dominate in mixed spaces, not always, but often. They may speak over us or even for us. Their presence also prevents certain things from being said, because women, consciously or unconsciously, protect them from certain truths. When women are amongst themselves, there is a different quality both of speaking and listening. If the women are able to abandon the patriarchal habits of judgement and division, there is also a profound solidarity. We don’t have to explain certain things to the group, or justify ourselves. We just ‘get it’. There is a humour, too, that is exclusive to these spaces. Often creativity explodes in all directions: ideas, projects, support, writing, art, song, craft. And there’s a knowing. A deep, shared knowing.

All of this creates a powerful energy that can change women’s lives, either their inner, emotional and psychological lives, or their outer world via women’s support and activism. This energy ripples outwards into the world from events and groups where it is nurtured and fostered, like heat and light and sparks from a thousand little cauldrons. “We are the flow, we are the ebb, we are the weavers of the web, we are the witches, back from the dead”, we all gleefully sang at the end of Jane’s workshop. This energy is under threat, epitomised by the current destruction of La Leche League, but it’s happening everywhere where women come together. One man, however he identifies, in a space that was previously intended for women only, changes the energy of that space. All those little rooms all over the world - living rooms, kitchens, hired halls - that would have contained, fostered and released that powerful female energy, are now shut down, and their energy is shut down along with them.

I know it is difficult to articulate why women - and the world - needs these spaces, without either sounding like you want to go back to the days where the ladies had to ‘retire’ after dinner, or like you’ve just spent a bit too much time in Glastonbury. But really, all I’m saying is that there’s something special and unique about women, that flourishes when they come together without men. We should talk more about the positive benefits for women of meeting ‘exclusively’, as well as the safety and dignity aspects of single sex spaces. We should definitely be asking if the power and benefits of such meetings are in any way connected to the reasons why they are under threat. And if we want to protect and preserve this power and these benefits, then, unlike some of the women in charge at La Leche League, we are going to have to get better at saying, “No”.

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