The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with Western culture and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. The specific issue is: This is article is missing discussion of non-Western examples of women-only spaces such as, for example, women-only sections of malls, restaurants, etc. in Saudi Arabia You may improve this article, discuss the issue on the talk page, or create a new article, as appropriate.(May 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
A women-only space is an area where only women (and in some cases children) are allowed, thus providing a place where they do not have to interact with men. Historically and globally, many cultures had, and many still have, some form of female seclusion.
These spaces do not go without challenge. Men's rights activists have launched lawsuits to gain access to female-only spaces, as for example Stopps v Just Ladies Fitness (Metrotown) Ltd, regarding a gym in Canada. The access of trans women, regardless of their legal gender, is also sometimes contentious, both from an ethical and from a legal perspective.[2][3][4] In some cases questions have been raised about the value and legitimacy of particular spaces being reserved for women.[5]
Women's quarters and segregated societies
Many cultures have had a tradition of a separate living space for the women of a household ("women's quarters"); this becomes more elaborate the larger the house is, reaching its peak in royal palaces.[citation needed] The best known example is probably the harem, a Turkish word, but similar systems existed elsewhere, and still do, in some places.
The rise of first wave feminism, including the long struggles for the vote (suffrage) – for access to education and the professions (in English-speaking societies), led to various initiatives to widen women's possibilities.
In the 1910s and 1920s, there was widespread encouragement in the United States for the establishment of ladies' lounges and rest rooms to accommodate rural women who traveled into county seats and market towns to conduct business. The Ladies Rest Room in Lewisburg, Tennessee, may be the last free-standing one in that state still in use.[7]
A ladies' ordinary was a women-only dining space which started to appear in North American hotels and restaurants from 1830, when it was socially unacceptable for women to dine in public without a male escort.[8]
Locations, venues, and activities may allow men at certain times of the day, week, or year; for example, public baths that have some days for women and some for men. Some allow children, either girls only or both sexes. Some establishments allow men and women in areas that are physically set apart from each other. Some exist temporarily (e.g. renting space for a few hours or days).
See also the kitty party, an informal savings club
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
Spas[12] (see also section on public bathing, below)
Gyms
The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), now a global movement for education and human rights, was for many decades best known for its hostels and fitness centres, see List of YWCA buildings
Other chains or stand-alone gyms choose to cater to females, e.g.Total Woman[13]
women's only digital platforms (e.g., social networking sites) appear to serve as a parallel to the brick and mortar women's club; however, efforts to establish such spaces have faced legal challenges
Celebrations
Many celebrations, especially around rites of passage, are marked by a girl or woman and her female relatives and friends. For example, many cultures have a party before the wedding for the bride, in Western culture known as a hen night or bachelorette party. Parties for a pregnant woman are baby showers, usually attended by female friends and family.
Places to change one's clothes, for example for leisure (at the gym, swimming pool, or beach), or for work (locker rooms at factories and hospitals), or while shopping (department store fitting rooms), are usually single-sex. Some have individual cubicles, while others provide only communal facilities, e.g. an open space with benches and lockers.
When formal education was banned by the Taliban, underground schools sprung up, such as the Golden Needle Sewing School for writers to secretly discuss their work.
Health care
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.
Some menstrual taboos require a woman to stay at home, or avoid certain places such as temples, but other cultures assign a particular place 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. The anthropologist Wynne Maggi describes the communal bashali (large menstrual house) of women in the Kalasha Valley (northwestern Pakistan) as their 'most holy place', respected by men and serving as women's all-female organizing centre for establishing and maintaining gender solidarity and power.[25]
The lactation room is a modern, mostly American phenomenon, designed for using electric breast pumps and refrigerating the expressed milk. In many countries, spaces for women to nurse their babies can be known as breastfeeding rooms or nursing areas. The period of postpartum confinement was traditionally a time for new mothers to learn to care for their infant from older and more experienced women.
Places to wash and swim
A restored lavoir in Belgium
Public nudity is in many cultures restricted to single-sex groups. Public baths may separate men and women by time or by space.
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.
^Hostettler, John (2012). Dissenters, Radicals, Heretics and Blasphemers: The Flame of Revolt that Shines Through English History. Waterside Press. p. 223. ISBN1904380824.
^Maggi, Wynne (2001). Our Women are Free. Gender and Ethnicity in the Hindukush. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. doi:10.3998/mpub.11273. ISBN978-0-472-09783-8.