Women-only space
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A women-only space is a physical area where only women are allowed. The notion of a women-only space is to provide a place where women do not interact with men.
These spaces are sometimes referred to as "safe space". The goal is to provide women an area to work, free of male judgement or harassment.
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Examples
Some of these allow men at certain times of the day, week, or year, for example as guests. Other establishments allow men and women into physically separate areas. Others exist only temporarily, renting space for a few hours or days. Some of these allow children, either only girls or both sexes.
Menstruation
- Menstrual taboos can require a woman to segregate herself from her community, for example the chhaupadi (menstrual huts) of Nepal today, or The Red Tent, a fictionalised version of Old Testament-era customs.
Land and shelter
- Womyn's land, stemming from separatist feminism of the 1970s
- anti-war activism such as Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp in the UK and Seneca Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice in the US
- Umoja, Kenya, a village of women and children fleeing domestic violence
- Women's shelter, a place of temporary accommodation for women fleeing domestic violence, e.g. Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter
- Some homeless shelters are just for women, e.g. Rosie's Place
- Most rape crisis centers
Places to wash
Public nudity is in many cultures restricted to single-sex groups. So public baths may separate men and women by time or by space.
- Turkish bath, hammam, see especially its function as a gendered social space
- Frauenbad Stadthausquai, a public bath built in Switzerland in the late 19th century for women, and which still operates as such
- Hampstead Heath Ladies' Pond, a reservoir in a London park
In many cultures, laundry was seen as "women's work", so the village wash-house (lavoir) acted as a space for women to gather and talk together as they washed clothes.
Education
- Girls' schools, i.e. single-sex education, see also Category:Girls' schools
- Women's colleges and universities
- Finishing school
- Sororities
Religion
- Women's mosques in China, and more generally the women's space in most mosques, see Gender separation in mosques
- Gender separation in Judaism, as for example the Mechitza used to demarcate women's space in a synagogue
- Convent, the home of Christian nuns
- Double monastery, with separate space for monks (men) and nuns (women)
- Beguinage, all-women accommodation in the Low Countries
Hospitals
Historically, some health care services for women (particularly around childbirth) were staffed by women. As women gained increased access to education in the late nineteenth century, hospitals hired female physicians for female patients; nurses by this point were almost exclusively female.
- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Obstetric Hospital is named after one of Britain's first female physicians
- London School of Medicine for Women, the first medical school to train women as doctors
Businesses and services
- Women-only bank
- Women's parking space
- Women-only passenger car
- Women's clubs that have or had their own premises (parallel to a gentlemen's club), see List of women's club buildings as part of the US Woman's club movement
- Of this international list of women's organizations, some have their own premises; others such as the Women's Institute offer their members a women-only space for the duration of the meeting
- Community centres focusing on women, such as The Women's Building in San Francisco and Pankhurst Centre in Manchester
- Sex shops catering to women, such as Sh! Women's Erotic Emporium
Lesbian services
- Cruises and vacation resorts such as those operated by Olivia Travel
- Lesbian bar
- Lesbian Herstory Archives
Military, policing, and prisons
- Some countries operate or operated separate services for women, such as the UK's Women's Royal Air Force, see Category:All-female military units and formations
- Women's police station
- The incarceration of women is in most countries in single-sex prisons, or female-only wings within larger men's prisons, see Category:Women's prisons
Cultural events
- Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (closed after 40th anniversary in 2015)
- Nyansapo Festival, planned for summer 2017 in Paris
- Mountain Moving Coffeehouse, a weekly music night in Chicago (1974-2005)
- Race for Life, a British charity event that raises money for cancer
- Take Back the Night, a protest march in several countries
See also
