At the same time that every men’s only club is harangued, threatened and denied funding unless and until it allows women to become members, numerous women’s only groups are operating and more are being created. Here is another example, this time using an Auckland Council owned (i.e. publicly owned and paid for by men and women) swimming pool admitting only women for 2 prime hours per week. The female centre manager Sarah Clarke justified this by saying “It isn’t wrong to ask for public facilities to be responsive to the needs of the community”. She hopes to expand this service.

We might have no problem with the exclusion of men if an equivalent, prime time were set aside excluding women. But of course that isn’t done. Men-only clubs and services are considered sexist while women-only is fine; typical femaleist duplicity and sense of entitlement.

Some may argue that men don’t have the same need to swim without women around. Whether it’s a need for women is debatable; we see it as a preference but not a need. There may well be white NZers who are uncomfortable swimming in the pool at the same time as some other races and who would not swim there because of that. Their reasons will be at least as valid as the reasons women want to exclude men. We wouldn’t see it as appropriate for a public facility to meet the preference of those white NZers in order to encourage them to use the pool and learn to swim.

We’re sure some men will prefer to swim when women are not there, and that their preference is as valid as that of the women. Some men may be embarrassed about their bodies or shy to look awkward learning to swim while being watched by women. Aside from that, men might enjoy the use of the pool with fewer people to have to share the space with and that in itself would be a good enough reason to have a men’s only evening.

Will men-only pool time happen? Ha ha, of course not. Feminism means gender equality, yeah right.