[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
First, a conference is a private space, not a public space. It is invitational to a private event. The non-invitation of a group of individuals without exclusion is functional a non-point to me. It’s performative at best. “We didn’t technically not invite flat earthers to the astrophysics conference, we just didn’t extend an invitation to any individuals who also happen to be flat earthers.” Its a distinction without a difference.
Events like a conference can have multiple purposes including highlighting under represented views. The function is what determines the allowed group. If it’s coalition building, then men would be invited. If it’s to highlight women’s voices and foster bonding, then it will exclude men. By explicitly excluding the class of men, it signals an invitation to sharing. People prep for this before hand and know it’s a place they can share openly. See the four points I listed in my initial comment.
Absolutely does not. There’s nothing about the oppression of women that a man’s voices can lend that speaks from first hand experience. Acknowledging men are not women is not stereotyping. Its definitional.
No one’s claiming amorality. The morality being used by the powerful to undermine the solidarity building of women or other oppressed groups is not the one that needs centering. The morality that puts healing through community and connection comes before opening to others. There’s a morality that allows the voiceless to find their voice.
The powerful are different because they have power. As a class, they will do anything they need to do to hold on to that power. As individuals, sure… same. As a class, different. This is not inherent inequality, its historical and class based.
The best point you have, though surprisingly, failing to actually answer my question is the note of creating a mass movement. I asked for a "single instance where the dominant group stopped their exclusion because they lost the ‘transitive legitimacy’.
The opening of the doors was after long sessions of small groups agitating to make a difference. Guess how many men were allowed to attend CWLU’s Liberation School for Women? The Quaker Bright Circles would meet and practice their religion together and affirm their dignity as women first. Then they bought to other Quaker. Before a mass movement comes the long arduous act of developing solidarity.
No fort has been taken by dropping your rifles.