[a sign reads FEMINIST CONFERENCE next to a closed door, a blue character shrugs and says…]
I don’t care
[next to the same door, the sign now says RESTRICTED FEMINIST CONFERENCE WOMEN ONLY, there are now four blue characters desperately banging on the door, one is reduced to tears on the floor, they are shouting]
DISCRIMINATION
SO UNFAIR!!!
LET US IINN!!
MISANDRY
Yes. Because sex discrimination and sexism are not the same thing. And not all forms of discrimination are wrong. We just use “discrimination is wrong” as a useful first-pass mental hack. But every non-discrimination law is written with certain reasonable exceptions built into it. It is sex discrimination, but not sexism, to refuse to hire cis men as wet nurses. It is disability discrimination, but not illegal discrimination, to refuse to hire someone in a wheelchair to be a circus acrobat.
This is sex discrimination, but it is neither illegal or sexism. It’s not saying that men are inherently inferior to women. It’s saying that there is a bona fide reason to make this space woman-only, based on the lived experience of men vs women.
Wikipedia just redirects sex discrimination to sexism
I think it’s fine to have women-only or men-only spaces if the goal is to not have the social dynamics of a mixed space for specific discussions. I don’t think that’s discrimination at all, but that word has multiple meanings.
Neither of these are prejudiced. You also wouldn’t hire a cis woman as wet nurse if she couldn’t breastfeed (which is the reason for discriminating) and there certainly are circus acrobats who are wheelchair-bound, it’s just that usual acts wouldn’t work with that, especially not safely.
The other form of discrimination is based on prejudice against a group, no exceptions. It’s not “no because you can’t do X”, it’s “no because you are X”. That’s never a good thing. But it also isn’t necessarily the motivation behind creating an X-only space.