[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
Sure that’s a fair point but I think it’s important to point out people also self segregate along all sorts of lines, including racially. It’s one thing if the state is enforcing segregation or if a group of people with something in common want to hang out with each other at the exclusion of people who don’t have that thing in common. Segregation and self segregation aren’t the same things.
Tbf if I’m invited to a whites only party to discuss “white interests” like idk Ultimate Frisbee and Mayonnaise or whatever “white interests” would be, I’m probably not going even if it is “self segregation” so it’s “better” than if the government did it. I mean you’re not wrong, letting the people choose to be racist instead of enforcing it through law is “better” I guess but imo we should strive for more. I don’t think we can actually fix society’s ills until society can sit in a room together and talk, y’know? Idk I guess I just like diversity more than sameness.
Hol up.
Segregation and self-segregation are indeed different, but the difference is in where the choice occurs, not in whether the body doing it is a legally recognised government. You gave two examples of one and called one of them the other. Self-segregation is where individual choices add up to an effective separation. Choosing to deny access to a public event to a particular group, even without state power, is still segregation, enforced by the host as a local seat of power.