When is it harmful exclusion?

Yuni - "The only men who did show up though were the expectant dads and only my guy stuck around for more than a few minutes. I was happy with who were there but I did notice that none of the guys who complained about gender exclusion showed up."

Kinda says how much it was about real interest in joining and how much had to do with just wanting to belong to a club that wouldn't have 'em, it seems to me. Eh, but I'm just guessing over here.

I didn't mean to infer that men have nothing to contribute or the right to a perspective or opinion on any subject under the sun that may take their fancy. As always, for me, how much weight I give to an opinion has to do with who's offering it up and all that entails...it's context specific. So I'd never deny anyone the right to their opinion, I just might not take their opinion about something very seriously in terms of it impacting or informing my perspective.

I'm not seeing any cut or dried general answer to the question from where I sit. To address the particular situation you've described, I don't see there being a big issue with saying "go create a new space and invite us" when we're talking about a rather loose social situation and talking circles....but I tend to believe in a right to privacy and to choose who we congregate with too (and some people even think keeping one's own thoughts and feelings to oneself is excluding them and feel "harmed"). When we start talking about exclusion on institutional levels it's a bit of a different situation.

Why >> Yes, but things like segregation are not about one person's emotional pain. <<

Whether it is a group or one person does not change the subjectivity of emotional experience.

i don't think any woman should feel the need to explain herself for wanting to
gather with other women, no matter what the reason.

and if men don't like it, maybe they should examine why they don't.

i, for one, could care less about men doing "men's only" things
good for them.

sometimes, it's good to spend time with your gender (purpose or not),
and there's not a damn thing wrong with doing so.

There are a lot of situations where it works better for women if it's only women in the situation -- like women-only high schools and colleges, for example. In fact in a lot of learning situations I think this is true. In fact, despite my father being a drummer, and always being attracted to the drums, I never pursued learning drums because every time I did, I felt intimidated, dissed and dismissed by the men teaching the classes and leading the drum circles. I have very little competitiveness -- and certainly wouldn't want to take someone on in a challenge unless I had really solid skill in what we were doing - and I felt very clearly, very quickly -- the guys are in charge of this, this is their turf, it's totally competitive, and I really do not have the balls to wade in there and somehow get what I want.

All that changed when two years ago (finally!!!) a woman conga drummer moved to town and started giving lessons for women only. She had decided very seriously that she didn't want to teach mixed classes any more, and she wanted to empower women to do something that few women do. And she felt she knew the reason why few women do it!

So I signed up, just to see -- did I really have a drummer in me? And it turned out that I do. It turned out that despite strongly resembling a little fairy in every other aspect of life, get me on a drum and I become strong and powerful and I kick ass and love it. And we're really all very good - from OK good to amazingly good. Not only that -- the groupness of the thing, the fact that when women learn and play drums together, they look at each other all the time, they smile, they laugh their heads off, they support each other and never hesitate to answer any question or help another in the group figure something out. We perform together, rehearse together, party together, are all tight friends, and there is an absolutely magical and powerful and fun energy to it and I know that every woman in there values it like crazy. Performances are very high energy, because there is obvious connection and enjoyment going on. Nobody's grandstanding. Women understand the concept of "ensemble playing" very well.

Now she teaches 5 classes a week and women drive from far away to come - and at our next performance, there will be 15 of us playing, and I am really not sure we can get all the drums on that stage. And every single woman has said, I could never have done this if I hadn't done it with just women. Including one woman who actually is married to a musician -- so you'd think she'd had the opportunities. But no!

Now we do have confidence to deal with men in drumming situations - like when we were asked to perform at an event a year ago (a half hour set) -- and so we were set up in the front row of the musicians section -- but guys showing up for the usual drum circle held at the end of this event every year kept moving our drums and stuff to the back and plunking themselves down instead. Even the crew for the event kept saying, no, you guys sit in back, there's going to be a drum group in this row -- not understanding that *we* were the drum group even though we kept telling them, we were. And even when we started playing, a dude who'd made it clear to everyone that he was the drum messiah of the universe climbed over the chairs, sat down next to me and started playing dumbek with our congas. In 4. When we were playing in 6. I felt great confidence and satisfaction in telling him to stop.

"...attitude that permeates everywhere..."

I'm just tired of it! This kind of stuff INSTANTLY gets me irate. The insecurity and sense of entitlement just makes me want to shake a bitch.

"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." --Groucho Marx.

"Two things came to mind when I read this statement.

1. Are you aware, Josh, that you (being a man) just stated that you still feel threatened by empowered women?
2. Exclusion is an expression of fear and insecurity, a strategy to protect the group from a perceived threat."

1. After all this time on EH discussing generalities I hoped - naively, it would seem - that people should by now be able to identify when a generality is in effect and assume that for the purpose of a given discussion, said generality would indeed have exceptions. I guess I can put a disclaimer on EVERYTHING I SAY (Disclaimer: I will not actually put a disclaimer on everything I say. Maybe some things, but not all of them. I have just used a general statement which will, undoubtedly, have exceptions.) but that seems a little ridiculous.

2. It CAN be all of the things you just said, but it doesn't have to be. This is the same hand-holding, rainbow crap I mentioned earlier.

Sorry l'm bumping this one a bit, but l haven't been around much lately. lt's also likely the person to whom this is addressed is off frolicking elsewhere at this point, but just in case....

There's this part...
<wildapache: and if men don't like it, maybe they should examine why they don't. <<

saddha: I agree with this a well.

wildapache: sometimes, it's good to spend time with your gender (purpose or not),
and there's not a damn thing wrong with doing so. <<

saddha: I agree with this as well.>

Then this one:
saddha: "2. Exclusion is an expression of fear and insecurity, a strategy to protect the group from a perceived threat. "

l'm curious as to how you marry these two conflicting ideas. Unless you intended the latter quote to include exceptions. Which would be kinda funny-ironic, but whatever, it's beside the point. Anyway. Just curious.

As far as my thoughts on the original post and exclusion in general. Let's take Tribe or any other group-specific community forum. Every single tribe has a particular goal (even if it's neutral and not gender-specific). lt would get a little ridiculous if people who weren't into BDSM started bitching about not being included in that tribe because it was targeted specifically for the BDSM crowd, or if those who weren't burners got upset that there were tribes specifically related to Burning Man. Exclusion happens EVERY DAY, in a variety of situations and contexts, and there's never been a rule that exclusion is a strictly personal matter. Maybe my boyfriend likes poker and l don't, and l like gardening and he could give two shits about it. Does that imply either group is deliberately excluding others, or does it simply mean people of similar interests getting together? Maybe the problem here is where people start equating exclusion with a gathering of similar interest, which seems to be the case in at least a couple of examples offered here.