Women only sessions at the Dulwich Leisure Centre pool

[beth]

Actually the women-only sessions at the leisure centre are legally exempt of the sex discrimination act which recognises that there is a time and place for single sex services and activities. Ring the Equal Opportunities Commission to check this if you like!

Plus, the Gender Duty Act is coming into force in April - which makes it a legal duty for public services to look at the differing needs of men and women and offer appropriate services accordingly.

[buggie]

Until reading this I didn't realise how obsessed the men of East Dulwich are with swimming on a thurs night.

Is there something sacred and special about this night above the others that means our local chaps feel the urge to run to expanses of water?

The one time a muslim friend tried to attend the womens only session she still couldn't as they only had male lifeguards on which I think is worse than having the sessions in the first place - if offered they should be staffed appropriately.

[Huguenot]

Quite right buggie!

And as a believer in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I would like a session staffed entirely by egg noodles. I would also like to have the session whenever anyone else wants to go swimming, and I would like the others to be excluded unless they can prove themselves devout pastafarians.

I would like to do this because I'm shy, and because I'm scared that my peculiar religious rituals will lack meaning unless I can either impose them on other people or at least make their lives more difficult. ;-)

[mockney piers]

Being a fellow pastafarian I'm delighted at the suggestion, but fear for the egg noodles safety around so much water.

I belive bulgar pasta is a hardier varietal, and will be much safer.

Actually I'm also a bit of a 9 stone weakling, so there should also be a 'shy skinny men ridiculed by women and had sand kicked in face night', with no women to snigger and buff men to bully. Perhaps I can squeeze it in after the latvian pole jumpers' gardeners session on a tuesday afternoon.

[Mark]

>Is there something sacred and special about this night above the others that means our local chaps feel the urge to run to expanses of water?

not really, just a convenient night for me although there is a self help group being set up to help all the "Men obsessed with swimming on a Thursday evening in East Dulwich but can't" (MOWSOATEIEDBC for short).

I agree that it should be staffed appropriately at a women only session, it does seem a bit daft to have a man there although if a female lifeguard wasn't available I assume it's better to have a male lifeguard there than none at all or call off the session.

Anyway, I hear the Women's Institute is now allowing men to join which is nice.

[Domitianus]

There is probably nothing particularly special about Thursday nights - no. Nor was there really anything special about the specific circumstances that led to a great many protests about inequality. For example, I doubt that it would really make that much difference to women in the long run if they were paid 1 or 2% less than men doing the same job. Equally, it probably doesn't really make that much difference to most women that certain London gentlemen's clubs exclude female members but that's not really the point is it? It is the fact that certain policies represent an attitude of discrimination and symbolise certain attitudes that is significant.

[uj64]

"I personally am tired of the nanny state intervening with a kind of enforced discrimination that is supposed to redress the balance re. our racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever past".

The 'Nanny state' aka Southwark Council will be quite rightly responding to the fact that when they look at their stats, they see very few women and even fewer from ethnic minorities using their facilities. What would you suggest they do?

I personally dislike the ubiquitous accusations of 'nanny state' (largely pushed by the likes of Rupert Murdoch) although it is a perennial problem and has been around since debates about public health issues like seatbelts and motorcycle helmets, I'm sure accusations of 'heavy handed state intervention' were also used to resist abolition of slavery, votes for women... I'm sure people can think of other attempts to create a fairer world that have been met with this brand of conservatism.

[Huguenot]

UJ you've conflated two diametrically opposed ideas there: exclusive male only clubs and unfettered swimming pool access.

The point is that swimming pool access is not exclusive, it's open to all. It's progressive and inclusive.

To make swimming pool access women only is regressive. It is exclusive, separatist and only a short step to elitist. 'Women only access' is about elevating the needs of a particular group of individuals above society as a whole, and is the doublethink that led to some of the terrible social crimes of the past.

I may sound like I'm logic chopping, but I find it extraordinary that one could compare women only swimming provision with part of the fight against the slave trade and the quest for universal suffrage. It's quite the opposite.

[louisiana]

It's only women-only at one pool for a brief slot on one day. That's hardly exclusive. What's to stop you going up to Forest Hill pool at that time, or any other pool for that matter?

Louisiana

[Huguenot]

Well, why don't the ladies have their women only session at Forest Hill Pool, or any other pool for that matter?

[Mark]

> What's to stop you going up to Forest Hill pool at that time, or any other pool for that matter?

It's harder to get to Forest Hill or any other than it is to go to the pool in East Dulwich. And if someone's paid a membership to use a pool it's make sense for them to use that pool rather than have to use another where they would have to pay again.

[louisiana]

Do you also resent money being spent on children's libraries, and space and time in libraries being earmarked for particular user groups? After all, the tiny chairs cannot be used by you, and there are all those picture books you can't read! And what about all those youth clubs with pool tables (paid for from the public purse!) that you are not permitted to take advantage of?

Louisiana

[Mark]

Personally I don't resent those, I think they're great. Anything that helps and encourages children to develop is brilliant in my book.

[beth]

Great arguements Louisiana - I lost the will and energy to keep replying to this thread but you are saying it all - and much more succiently then I would! Check out the site http://www.whywomen.org.uk as well.

[louisiana]

Or do you resent those old people's day centres, for the exclusive use of the elderly?! Just think of all the over-stewed tea you're missing out on.

And crikey, they've even got mobile libraries! For disabled and housebound people! And not you! How unfair is that?!

Louisiana

[snorky]

Sexual identity is one matter, bringing religion into the arguement reduces the whole debate into farce.You cannto choose your gender, but you make a conscious decision to follow a religion

to make excuses and allowances for reglious belief, that impacts on others who do not follow your particualr thread of belief is wrong.

You choose to follow a regligion that restricts your access to members of the opposite sex, then that your your problem - get on with it - expecting everyone else to make allowances to accomodate your brand os belief is simply unjust.

Inclusion, yes, but at the cost of othered being excluded because of their gender ?

no.

[Mark]

Personally I don't resent those, I think they're great. Anything that helps and encourages people to develop is brilliant in my book, it doesn't matter who they are.

I'm bored of this now. The original basis of posting was about wouldn't it be nice if Fusion would open the pool to everyone after the women only session. I'm not saying don't have a women only session, I'm not saying don't have a women only session. Now it's reverted to implications of resentment of children's, elderly and disabled facilities which is quite frankly pathetic and offensive.

We're talking of making a 2 hour women only session on a Thursday into a one hour session so more people can enjoy themselves. Get it into perspective.

*takes big breath in, breathes out and relaxes*

[louisiana]

I'm sure Fusion will respond to demand. If there is insufficient demand for the women's sessions, they will go. The one other pool I know of that runs these sessions (in east London) is pretty busy.

My particular bugbear is the crap selection of electronic music that Dulwich library stocks (you know, Ibiza Dance Anthems 2001-6). When I enquire further why there is no Brian Eno etc etc, they claim that that's all people take out, and when they didn't stock this stuff 'nobody took out the electronic records'. So that's what they buy and stock, and they tell me to go to Stoke Newington library (Elephant and Castle) if I want anything else. So much for market forces.

Louisiana

[Keef]

That Elderly daycentres thing is a bloody stupid arguement, as daycentres for the elderly are purpose built for that very reason, they're not public day centres that take membership fees from non elderly people!

For the record, Forest Hill has women only sessions too, Mrs Keef avoids them like the plague as it gets so busy!

[louisiana]

Keef Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> That Elderly daycentres thing is a bloody stupid

> arguement, as daycentres for the elderly are

> purpose built for that very reason, they're not

> public day centres that take membership fees from

> non elderly people!

Schools and built for children, but that doesn't stop other user groups from making use of them (e.g. private music classes, community groups, private residents' associations, sports clubs, elections etc etc.) It's just a queation of where 'society's' thinking is at any particular point in time, what priorities are, what resources there are, what the populace is demanding. This shifts all the time.

>

> For the record, Forest Hill has women only

> sessions too, Mrs Keef avoids them like the plague

> as it gets so busy!

I wouldn't know, as I don't go swimming any more. I used to go to Forest Hill, but haven't been since being smashed up in a train crash in '91 (I spent several months at Lewisham Hospital doing hydrotherapy with a physio in their pool, but the NHS timed me out once the shoulder had some movement). I miss it quite a lot, but just can't cope with public pools any more.

Louisiana

[Keef]

Schools open to other groups outside of school time, they don't say that the boys can't come to school one day as they're having a girls only session... Unless of course parents choose to send kids to single sex schools, in which case it's not in issue! This thread has just turned in to a pathetic battle of the sexes, there's no need for it.

[mockney piers]

Some would assert that men are from mars and women are from venus.

Others might say you can't have your cake and eat it ;-)

[Mark]

and you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

[Huguenot]

Ooops sorry, edited this, as an extended debate between writing it and posting it made it lose meaning! :)

[bagpuss78]

you say potato and i say potaato

you say tomaato and i say tomato

potato, potaato, tomaato tomato

lets call the whole thing off

single sex days on lordship lane...Hurrah!>:D<