November 2017, Red Online

I’m fairly sure that what I’m about to say could forever lose me my feminist credentials, but here goes. There are 8,000 women on a waiting list for a women’s-only co-working space in SoHo and I have no idea what any of those 8,000 women are thinking. Why are they so desperate to get into the exact kind of space that I’ve spent half my life desperately clawing my way out of: the kind that’s single sex?

I’ve inadvertently and entirely against my will spent much of my life in women-only spaces. I grew up with three sisters (we turned our younger brother into the missing Spice Girl) and spent most of my formative years in an all-girls school. My chosen university had almost three times as many female students as it did male and from there, I graduated to an office comprised almost solely of women. I have done my time in the women-only space and have come out the other side. So when it comes to this outcropping of women-only co-working spaces, I’m, let’s say, resistant.

I might be baffled by the trend, but I’m not oblivious. The most powerful man in the world is an alleged rapist and Hollywood is currently collapsing under the weight of innumerable sexual assault accusations; of course women are feeling particularly vulnerable in the current climate and are rallying to find an answer. The Me Too campaign has highlighted how unsafe we feel and often are. Like most women, I have my own stories to share (of incidents perpetuated by men that were brought into the family home, men at weddings, men that were friends and yes, men at work). But I don’t believe that sequestering ourselves is that answer, as if acknowledging men can’t control themselves and shouldn’t be given the pesky distraction of having to try. For me, that’s on a par with the line of thinking that leads to remonstrations over skirt length, alcohol consumption and how you present yourself in public: it’s all blindingly ridiculous and puts the onus on the victims, rather than where it should be—squarely on their attackers. Instead of emphasising the importance of improved practises and the need to do better, single sex communities perpetuate the idea we need protecting and serve as an out. Frankly, that’s not good enough for me.

For me, single sex spaces are regressive rather than progressive and sometimes they can be harmful. I’ve never been so badly bullied as when I was living in women’s halls at university, conditions deteriorating so badly there were barely any of us left in our flat by the end of the first term. And though studies often crop up declaring that children in single sex education do better than their co-ed counterparts, that wilfully ignores other aspects of life and development. I might have left mine clutching my 10 GCSES, but like half my classmates, I also did so without the slightest idea of how to cope with men. When I’d finally worked it out, I spent much of the next couple of years airily declaring that ‘I just get on better with men; they’re so much easier than women’. (Yes, I know, I know.)

I know better now. Trust me. I love the women in my life and have a friendship group that rivals Taylor’s squad. I often happily choose to spend time solely with them, to the point where, when I got married earlier this year, it became more about my friends than it did the man I was committing to. My husband almost

had to drag two bridesmaids out of our tent that night in order to get a look in. But those times with them stand in relief to the rest of the world and life, in all its complicated, problematic glory—one that includes men and women, and those that don’t identify as either.

I understand the importance of safe and supportive environments and that some women won’t feel safe around members of the opposite sex. But I also don’t believe that gender segregation is the blanket answer. After all, for most of us, these will be temporary havens that at some point, we will have to leave. Instead of shutting away half the population in order to keep them protected, we should be doing more to tackle the very problems that stop them from feeling that way in the first place. Just as women-only tube carriages were decried on the grounds that women should be able to get on the train in the morning without being assaulted, so too should we be able to work in mixed-sex spaces without feeling belittled and harassed. We’re not there yet, but we should be forcing men to a higher standard, rather than absolving them of having to try.