Post #2779760

By most measures, I'm a pretty stereotypically "manly" guy, and you can say pretty much the same thing about most of my male friends. I've never really felt as though a woman being present in any way impeded anything we were doing. If anything it improved things in a "the more the merrier" kind of way. As long as they're ok with the cigar smoke, fart jokes, having to pee outside, etc. anyone is welcome to participate in our bullshit. But I do feel like we can get in the way of women bonding and venting it the ways they need and want to. The old "it's not about the nail" kind of thing. And of course, there's a whole lot of guys who are just dangerous toxic assholes who probably shouldn't be allowed to be around women in general, but trying to figure out which ones can and can't be trusted is a tall order and it's a lot easier to just say "women only." So I don't really see much point in men-only spaces, but I do see it for women-only spaces. There's some exceptions, sure, like men who have certain kinds of trauma that involve women may need some safe places to work that out. And it's not that women can't also be dangerous, toxic assholes, but in terms of numbers, severity, and actual risk, things are kind of on a different level than with men, so it's easier to deal with that on a case-by-case basis.